Mail&Guardian Online
  make this your homepage
= denotes premium content | sign in 
Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:41 AM Africa's first online newspaper. First with the news.

SEARCH: M&G Online | The Web [ Advanced Search Options ] | enhanced by
Breaking News
Front Page
National
Africa
International
Business
Sport
And in other news
Week in pictures
World Aids Day
Oilgate uncovered
Jacob Zuma focus
News Insight
National
Africa
International
Comment & Analysis
Business
Columnists
Converse
Ten Questions
Editorials
Monitor
Krisjan Lemmer
Body Language
FRASER'S RAZOR
Obituaries
Leisure
ARTS
Wheels & Deals
Tech
Escape
Regulars
Zapiro
Madam & Eve
NewsLetters
Blogmark
Forums
Notes & Queries
Letters
Archive Search
Corrections
Games
HIV/AIDS BAROMETER
Mobile Games
Partner Sites
The Media Online
The Teacher
Business in Africa
Find your match now!
I am a:
Looking for:
Age Range: to

Career search
Search South Africa's #1 job listings and career advice site.
Find me a job!

FIND

- A job
- A date
- An insurance quote
- Accommodation
- International flights
- Map search
- Business search

MOBILE SERVICES

- Mobile games
- News & Lotto SMS alerts
- Sport SMS alerts
- Weather SMS alerts

QUICK LINKS

- Get your free blog
- Notes & Queries
- Online gambling

SERVICES

- Subscribe to M&G
- Subscription queries
- Free news for your site
- Place an advert
International
Aussie diversity a 'white lie'
Greg Barns: ANALYSIS
20 December 2005 02:00
A man is arrested at Cronulla Beach in Sydney after ethnic tensions erupted into running battles with police. (Photograph: AP)
Australia has long cherished its image as a tolerant, diverse and relaxed nation -- a haven for those seeking a safe and secure life away from the world’s trouble spots.

That image has taken a battering as the world watches and reads about hordes of drunken young white Australians who descended on Sydney’s beaches and suburbs and assaulted their fellow Australians of Middle Eastern descent, many of them Lebanese. Sydney’s orgy of violence is now threatening to spread to other cities such as Melbourne, Perth and the Gold Coast.

The question now reverberating around this nation of 20-million is: How did it come to this?

The attacks began last Sunday, when a crowd of about 5 000, many wrapped in Australian flags, descended on Sydney’s Cronulla and Maroubra beaches to seek what has been described as revenge for assaults a week earlier on surf lifesavers. The ringleaders of Sydney’s beach riots accuse Lebanese Australian youths of committing the assaults on the lifesavers.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has tried to play down the significance of these events. “Violence, thuggery, loutish behaviour, smashing people’s property, intimidating people -- all of those things are breaches of the law. I don’t think the actions should be given some kind of special status because they occur against the background of this or that,” he said.

But the opposition Australian Labour Party’s (ALP) foreign affairs spokesperson, Kevin Rudd, said the riots are “having an impact on Australia’s international standing” and that anyone “who says it’s not the truth is burying their head in the sand”.

Despite the fact that one in four Australians was born overseas, this is a nation where intolerance and xenophobia often lurk just beneath the surface.

It is only 40 years since the Australian government ended the White Australia Policy, which prevented non-European migrants from entering the country. Despite a commitment by governments since the 1970s to a policy of multiculturalism, which, in contrast to the French insistence on integration, allows for immigrants to maintain their traditions and values, many Australians of Anglo-European heritage remain uncomfortable with this policy.

Hostility towards Muslim and Middle Eastern Australians has been fuelled in part by the media and the major political parties, particularly since the events of 9/11 and the Howard government’s adoption that year of a tough stance on border protection, designed to curtail asylum seekers from Iraq and Iran.

The New South Wales government’s Anti-Discrimination Board, in February 2003, released a report on media prejudice against Muslim and Middle Eastern Australians. This report cited numerous examples from the print and electronic media castigating Muslims for their dress and religious practices.

One high-profile example was the reporting by some Sydney media, of the cases of four young Lebanese men convicted of raping white women in Sydney in 2001. A number of media outlets characterised these cases as being those of Middle Eastern gangs terrorising Caucasian Australian women.

Talk-back radio, a popular media format, has also been a particularly prevalent source of anti-Muslim and Middle Eastern sentiment. Peter Maher, a commentator who analyses talk-back radio trends, said as far back as 2001, there was a prevailing attitude among many Australians of “the more Muslims we have in this country, the more problems we’re going to get”.

The focus of Howard’s conservative government and the opposition ALP on enacting tough new anti-terror laws this year has not helped matters. Nor have regular front-page news reports of alleged Middle Eastern and Muslim links to terror cells in Sydney and Melbourne. And last month Australian politicians and law enforcement chiefs clamoured to take credit for the arrests of 17 Muslim and Middle Eastern Australians, who are alleged to have been plotting terrorist attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

Given the global context of linkages between terrorism and Islam, such actions are inevitably reinforcing community suspicion and hostility towards the 360 000 Muslim Australians and the almost one million Australian migrants from countries such as Lebanon. Its impact could have been mitigated if, as one ethnic community leader put it recently, Australian political leaders had “run a national anti-racist campaign alongside the anti-terror campaign to make it clear that Australia and its government do not seek to stigmatise a whole group of people because of the actions of a few”.

Australia is not alone in experiencing racial disharmony, but many are wondering whether more could have been done to prevent it from reaching boiling point.
ADVERTISING LINKS
Incredible OUTsurance No hassle, no paper, no fuss. Get an obligation-free quote now!
Your gadgets, cheaper, on Bid or Buy Do your shopping via online auction and get your goods for great prices
Private Property Listings List your property with us or search for a property. No estate agent's commission
Digital Planet Fill your Christmas stocking with shiny goodies and gadgets from Digital Planet
Advertise your business here
Talkback: Have your say about this article
Blog: Blog this story in M&G Online's blogspot

News on your desktop: Download & install M&G Online NewsFlash
Daily cellphone alerts: Get news headlines by SMS
Daily Newsletter: Get the news by email
International | HOMEPAGE

Article tools
E-mail this story
Print this story
Bookmark page
Most read stories
RSS feed
Javascript feed

Online services
FIND A JOB
PROPERTY
ONLINE AUCTIONS
INT'L FLIGHTS
B2B SERVICES
FIND A DATE
HOLIDAY FINDER
FIND OLD FRIENDS
EASY INFO
ONLINE GAMBLING
FREE E-MAIL
NEWS BY E-MAIL
LEARN FRENCH
MAP SEARCH
BUSINESS SEARCH
INSURANCE
SUBSCRIBE TO M&G
FREE NEWS FEED
PLACE AN ADVERT

Mobile services
MOBILE GAMES
DAILY NEWS
SPORT NEWS
LOTTO RESULTS
WEATHER
MARKET INDICES

IN THIS SECTION
Iraq poll: A milestone nevertheless
Japan confronts Hollywood absence with geisha film
Environmentalists buy hunting licence in Canada
Vietnam resumes sales of virus-free poultry products
Sports, beer and waxing at male salons

CONTACT US  |  ABOUT US  |  M&G HISTORY  |  SUBSCRIPTIONS  |  FREE NEWS FEED  |  ADVERTISING

All material copyright Mail&Guardian.
Material may not be published or reproduced in any form without prior written permission.
Read the Mail&Guardian's privacy policy
RSS feed JavaScript feed