Cronulla Riots: Thoughts on the Sydney riots

Can’t we all just get along?

My uncle and aunt have been visiting Australia and New Zealand for the past 2 weeks. Mamu (meaning maternal uncle, as we “desis” � as Indian expats call themselves – call him) works in something to do with rocket science, whilst Mrs. Mamu used to head a school somewhere in LA. They had heard so much about the peace and quiet in Sydney, the friendly people and the beautiful beaches.

They, of course, had no idea about the many undercurrents of cultural nonsense going on in Sydney. They hadn’t heard of “Lebbo” gangs with bad attitudes and even worse haircuts behaving like a bunch of “Paki” kids from Manchester. They also didn’t realize that some of the friendly laid-back Aussies could get quite violent when filled with enough alcohol, speed and marijuana.

Hence, when their arrival in Sydney coincided with news reports of SMS Text messages and e-mails buzzing around in the air and cyberspace calling on white “surfies” to “reclaim our beach”, they believed us when we dismissed the reports as exaggeration. We went ahead and booked holidays in New Zealand and the Gold Coast, oblivious to the storm we would be leaving behind across the other side of Tasman Sea.

We left Sydney airport on Monday 12 December 2005. At 5am we had checked into the airport. At 6pm, whilst waiting for immigration to open, we saw a group of staff wearing customs and security uniforms crowded around a TV screen.

There, on the screen, were scenes that looked like something out of an LA riot. But this wasn’t LA. This was the familiar streets and footpaths of my favourite beach in Cronulla on the southern tip of the Sydney metropolitan area.

Cronulla? I always remembered this area as a bastion of small “l” liberalism. During my 10 years of stacking branches for the conservative wing of the Liberal Party, I always wrote Cronulla and the “deep south” off as hard-core “wet” [progressive] territory (if the wets ever could have a hard-core).

But politicians and members of political parties often live in their own world, divorced from reality on the ground. And many small “l” liberals could never understand why so many young people from Muslim backgrounds used to complain about those “blasted Lebbos” who had no respect for women and even less respect for themselves.

Last year, Sydney was beset with controversy over the trial and conviction of a number of young Australian men of Lebanese background accused of gang-raping Anglo-Australian women. The prosecution had released allegations that the boys had told their victims they were being targeted because they were “White” and “Australian”. The boys claimed they would be sexually assaulting the girls “Leb-style”.

The usual array of infantile pseudo-conservative columnists came out with all sorts of theories about how Muslim culture teaches boys to gang-rape White women (where that leaves Bosnian and Albanian migrants, only Allah knows).

One columnist (I am informed she holds a PhD in law) even went to the extent of misquoting works by European sociologists. She used to claim that migrant Muslim cultures regard gang-rape as a cultural right of passage. The newspaper she wrote for (owned by a certain American citizen) continues to publish her work.

All my “desis” elders used to sit back and blame “vo qambukht Lebnaaniya” (those damned Lebanese) for ruining it for us good guys. After all, we Indo-Paks considered ourselves such clean-skins, educated and professional people who were moderate in our religiosity and seemed to fit in quite well.

Of course, our fa�ade was soon shattered when three Pakistani brothers were tried and convicted for the gang-rape of some girls. The lawyer for one of the boys even claimed in submissions that sexual assault was regarded as normal in Pakistani culture, and asked the judge to take this fact into account when sentencing the boys! The lawyer would only have made such submissions under instructions from his client.

Mr. & Mrs. Mamu were watching and listening carefully to the events and the reactions of “desi” people around them. Mamu came to one simple conclusion � these dimwit ethnic parents and leaders are living in a state of denial.

I couldn’t help but agree with him. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize it.

The most hilarious spectacle was to see “community leaders” � an assorted array of non-English speaking imams and organizational heads having talks amongst themselves. What were they talking about? These are the same people who never bothered learning English. Few have tried to understand what it’s like growing up in Australia as a human pendulum, forever swinging between competing cultural and religious expectations.

Many of these leaders themselves have been responsible for some of the worst forms of racism in Australia. What do mean? When a Lebanese Muslim girl wants to marry a Pakistani or Bosnian Muslim boy, her parents stop him. A non-Lebanese person cannot become a member of the association responsible for managing Sydney’s main mosque � the Imam Ali ben Abi Taleb Mosque in Lakemba.

If I hold anyone responsible for events such as the Cronulla riots, it is the so-called ethno-religious leaders who refuse to allow young people to take control and who thereby force us to the margins. I am sick and tired of being a marginal Australian. Yet that is exactly what happens when the person who speaks on my behalf in media and to governments speaks English with a thick accent and expressed ideas that make me cringe.

And when they say silly things, it is mainstream Muslims who live and interact with the rest of Australia who must bear the brunt of what is (in my opinion, at least) often natural resentment.

These same leaders complain about Australian racism, rarely asking themselves what would have happened if this was not Cronulla but Dhaka or Lahore and if the perpetrators weren’t Lebanese but Hindus or Catholics.

Anyway, I don’t wish to spoil my New Zealand holiday. These lines were typed in an internet caf� on the main street of Hamilton. Mr. & Mrs. Mamu are sitting in their motel room. I’d better go and join them.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney industrial lawyer and occasional lecturer at the School of Politics & International Relations at Macquarie University. He is also a columnist for the Adelaide-based Australian Islamic Review. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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