The Dark Side

Sydney's seaside suburbs turned ugly over the past week as tensions between white and Middle Eastern Australians spilled over - complete with pro-Aussie (or anti-immigrant, depending on one's perspective) rallies, vandalism, violence, and riot police. The unrest kicked off last weekend, when two lifeguards from the Cronulla life-saving station were attacked by a gang of Middle Eastern youths, and an act for which some appear to hold the entire immigrant population of South Sydney accountable. A week later, thousands of white Australians arrived at Cronulla to "take back their beach", leading to summary attacks on anyone resembling someone of Middle Eastern descent. And since one good turn deserves another, gangs of Middle Eastern youths took to the streets last night vandalizing vehicles and attacking individuals in neighboring communities. The images on the news were a bit surreal and hard to reconcile with what is generally a very friendly country, but demonstrate that, like just about everywhere on Earth, one doesn't have to dig too deep to find resentment.

Update 13/12/05: The show goes on. . .Muslim youths rallied around a mosque last night in anticipation of retaliatory strikes. When those didn't occur, they appear to have gotten bored and went on another spree of vandalism. Meanwhile, Australia's politicians are red with embarrassment - this not being the kind of publicity Australia wants, particularly with the Commonwealth Games coming up in March. Much effort is being made to present the violence as something other than racially-based, despite the overt racial rhetoric. Meanwhile, calls continue to go out this week for a "race war", white nationalists are climbing over each other to take credit for the "social uprising", and allegedly Melbourne "patriots" are eager to stage their own little "hate-in". What a bunch of wankers.