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It was the Comancheros biker gang, staging a public declaration of peace with the Maroubra Boys surfer gang. The Comancheros were started by “Jock” Ross, a Scotsman, in the 1960s, but a number of young men of Middle Eastern appearance have risen up through their ranks. The Bra Boys, a longstanding gang of tattooed surfer youths from Maroubra’s tough housing estates, likewise boast of being a multiracial group (one of their members jocularly claims to be the only Lebanese surfer in Sydney). The two groups declared their opposition to the racial violence and decried the actions of the Cronulla mob.

The Comancheros headed back to the western suburbs in their black Range Rovers and silver Mercedes. The Bra Boys headed back into the surf.

In a week of mayhem it was a rare moment of multicultural harmony at the beach.

ESCALATING UNREST AT CRONULLA

Sunday, December 4 Two Cronulla Beach lifesavers attacked by men of Middle Eastern appearance; text messages begin, encouraging people to retaliate

Sunday, 11 Racial violence erupts as 5,000-strong crowd gathers at Cronulla Beach; by nightfall violence spreads to other suburbs with 16 arrested, 31 injured

Monday, 12 Seven injuries, 11 arrests; cars and shops attacked; violence at a mosque in Lakemba

Tuesday, 13 Hundreds of police patrol troubled areas; text message campaign continues

Wednesday, 14 Church hall set on fire; shots fired near suburban school

Thursday, 15 Emergency measures give police powers to enforce curfews, confiscate cars, ban alcohol sales; petrol bomb thrown at police; 19 arrests

Friday, 16 Police warn people to stay away from Sydney beaches after receiving intelligence that more riots are planned; 1,500 police expected to patrol streets at weekend

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY

Sydney Morning Herald,
December 13
“A nation’s reputation for tolerance has been severely damaged . . . Australians are struggling to understand how in this country, supposedly the world’s multicultural success story, such ugliness can happen”

The Courier-Mail,
December 13

“However many police on the beach and trains it takes, however many community dialogues, inter-faith conferences and goodwill services it takes, Sydney and Australia cannot afford large areas of the nation’s leading city to sink into ongoing sectarian, gangland violence”

Piers Akerman, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney),
December 13

“Though branch-stacking politicians and academics might like to think multiculturalism is all about exotic clothing and tasty kebabs, those residents who have remained in suburbs subjected to the multicultural experiment feel neglected”

Michelle Grattan, The Age,
December 14
“The unfolding racial violence in Sydney has links to the fight against terrorism and complicates that challenge . . . The introduction of race to an old conflict is especially dangerous when fears about terrorism are putting new strains on relations between ethnic-religious communities and the wider community”

The Herald-Sun (Melbourne),
December 14

“The simplistic official response to the riots is to characterise them as a law-and-order issue. John Howard presented the riots as primarily a law-and-order issue. On the contrary, Prime Minister, this is a very complicated issue . . There is no guarantee it will not spread beyond that state’s borders”

Joe Hildebrand, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney),
December 17

“The pretentious pontificating against multiculturalism is just dressing up racism in big words . . . Are we not all responsible for our own actions? No, all us helpless whiteys have been forced into rioting and wog-bashing by this terrible wrong . . . As the Aboriginal bloke in Cronulla said in bewilderment on Sunday: “I’m the only real Australian here”

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  December 15 2005
Church fire follows beach riot

  December 13 2005
Armed mob prowls city in second day of rioting

  December 12 2005
Sydney erupts in second night of riots

  November 09 2005
Australian police foil 'catastrophic' attack and seize 17

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