News & Commentary: 2005-12-17

Playing by Queensberry's Rules

On the beach... and the end of the world as we know it? Rioters react to the Lebanese Australian presence.

The stupid thing is that if you look at the photo, there are a lot of people standing around on the beach... but no one is rioting, or even slightly agitated. There are men and women, chatting, smiling, drinking a beer. There are a group of police in the top corner, some of them looking a bit serious, some of them talking to each other, not the slightest sign of a disturbance. The only unusual thing is the Australian flags which people are wearing and waving. Apparently, Australian flags equals a riot according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Looking at the other photos, there are four actually depicting violence and closer inspection reveals them to be the same event with the photos taken maybe minutes apart and around 10 people involved. The police officer in the last shot is squirting capsicum spray into the eyes of a man who is standing outside arms length with his hands at his sides and showing no obvious aggression. The man being squirted does not appear to be in any of the earlier shots and probably was not one of the people making an effort to punch the victim.

What is happening in the photo at the railway station is unclear, the police appear to be keeping someone away from the station including the camera man taking the photo and a sound engineer in the distance. There might be as many as 5 "rioters" involved in this scene.

Frankly I don't believe that such a small number of people can constitute a "riot". The overwhelming majority of people were walking about and doing not much at all. This is much the same as when a few scuffles break out at a protest march and suddenly the news papers are reporting a violent demonstration. Sure exaggeration sells papers, it also encourages escalation and retaliation (which in turn sells more papers).

If you think the Australian media exaggerate a bit see how it gets blown way out of proportion when the UK rags get hold of it.

More than 5,000 people were summoned by text message and phone-in radio to a "Leb- and wog-bashing day" at Cronulla on Sunday, and by nightfall several Lebanese-Australian youths had been beaten almost to death, 16 people had been arrested and carloads of Arabic men were retaliating by storming the beachside suburbs armed with guns, baseball bats and metal bars.

Lets go back to the photographs in the Sydney Morning Herald... the victim was still standing at the end of it, not visibly bleeding, no broken bones. Richard Guilliatt calls this "beaten almost to death", methinks he should learn what it really means when someone is beaten almost to death. Now, the Chinese authorities know how to deliver a beating that makes the Bra Boys look civil and restrained by comparison. Beating someone into a coma and then cremating them before any medical authority has pronounced them dead shows an additional touch of brutality that goes one step beyond the call of duty and then a few more steps beyond that.

A little reminder of what religious intolerance and government-sanctioned violence can achieve under suitable conditions.

Back to the Australian media...

Here's an article that suggests the media actually caused the "riot" in particular Alan Jones and his talkback radio.

DAVID FLINT: Provided that it is not going out of its way to incite violence, it should be informing people as to what's going on.

If the media decided, for example, that it was inappropriate to let people know that certain events had happened, that would be censoring the news, and the role of the media's not to censor the news, it's to tell people what's happening.

TANYA NOLAN: Well, if we have a look at some of the examples that have been made of Alan Jones' comments in the lead up to the Cronulla riots on Sunday, one caller to his station said that if police can't do the job, the next tier is us.

Alan Jones' response to that was, yeah, good on you, John, and when the caller went on to offer this maxim - 'shoot one and the rest will run' - Alan Jones began to laugh and say no, you don't play Queensberry's rules, good on you, John.

Is that not in some way inciting vigilantism?

Indeed, it does seem to me that Alan Jones should at very least be asked a few pointed questions. Maybe after a lot of consideration, he might be found to be doing nothing more than exercising his right to free speech but under current circumstances, free speech is a luxury offered to the select few. These days it does not take much evidence to lock a man away, when you condsider this article where 10 people were arrested and are being kept in solitary confinement for months without bail.

Magistrate Marron said the prosecution's case against Merhi and Taha was "not overwhelming".

In refusing bail, Mr Marron also expressed some concern at the conditions in which the two men were being held at the maximum security Acacia Unit at Barwon Prison.

However, he said it was not a matter he could control.

So our tough new anti-terror laws have given extraordinary powers to the police but not enough power to encourage a rich, white radio "personality" to take responsibility for his actions. There must be a little-known "Alan Jones Exemption Clause" written into our anti-terror laws. Ohh, the joys of selective enforcement.

Then again, we can't blame it all on Alan Jones. Australia's leaders have been openly persuing racist policy for years. Remember the long arguments over mandatory detention of immigrants awaiting their status hearing? Remember the "children overboard" propaganda? Remember that media were instructed not to report the living conditions at Baxter detention facility (in case ordinary Australians were offended)? Remeber the children taken out of school in front of their classmates to be led away into detention for "crimes" they probably don't even understand?

Of course, Indymedia are very interested in anything with a racist overtone. Once again, in my belief they completely overstate the number of people involved by calling it a "riot". A small band of troublemakers is not a riot, if the Australian media ever did see a real riot they would have used up all their superlatives and be condemned to stunned silence. On the other hand, the Indymedia crowd do have a few good points to make:

In response to the blatantly racist media portrayal of an "army of Muslim youth" targeting "innocent residents" we need to be clear that the actions of young people of Middle Eastern background are primarily a response to ongoing racism and discrimination rather than the source of the so-called "racial conflict". And in response to calls for increased policing of Muslim communities we need to be clear that it is such discriminatory over-policing and intimidation that is fueling frustrations.

The vilification of the Muslim community by the government and the media has legitimised overt racism and created the space for racist demonstrations such as that seen in Cronulla on Sunday. This is made worse by the absence of a real opposition to the government's racist policies, epitomised by the Labor Party's support for the anti-terror laws, allowing them to be passed last week.

The Howard government (with its involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and its implicated association with the USA's use of torture) has sent a message to the Australian people:

• People who will not accept Western culture and values should be considered evil.
• Stealing resources (especially oil) from other people is acceptable.
• Achieving goals through the use of brute force is good strategy.
• When caught doing the wrong thing, just shrug and deny everything.

There's more though... we can't blame it all on John Howard either. Let's take a close look at Islam and why it is that Muslims don't fit into the Australian culture as well as some other religions (say Buddhists for example).

• Muslim women must cover their heads (and faces in some situations) in a way that makes them obviously and distinctly different from other people. People use similar clothing as a way of identifying their community group so the Muslims are somewhat isolated from every other community group by their appearance.
• Muslims have strict dietary requirements (Halal) that make it difficult for them to share food with non-Muslims. Even though the meat may be essentially the same meat as other people would eat, to be Halal it must be blessed, killed in the name of God and can only be prepared by another Muslim. Mealtimes are commonly accepted as a community bonding environment, especially the sharing of food amongst the group. Religious dietary requirements isolate the devotees from the wider community.
• Islam forbids alcohol. Amongst Australian society (and European society), drinking together is a social bonding experience. An old proverb is, "never trust a man who will not drink with you", which is not without some common sense -- with a few drinks in them, people are more inclined to be honest about their intentions. A refusal to drink can be seen as having something to hide.
• Muslims must pray several times a day and this involves leaving whatever they are doing, gathering together with other nearby Muslims, finding a space that is separate from other non-Muslims and then completing their prayers. This is a constant and visible reminder that they are different from the non-Muslims around them.
• The Islamic holy scripture is written in Arabic and loses its holy status when translated into another language. This is primarily to preserve the exact wording of the scripture (preventing corruption) but it also means that in order to be a true Muslim, one needs to learn Arabic. Many Muslims go to the trouble of memorizing chunks of scripture (which is important because these form the basis of law). Language is another common factor that bonds a community and very few non-Muslims are going to learn Arabic. Note that the Roman Catholic church used Latin for exactly the same purpose until recently, early protestants were hunted and killed for translating the Christian Bible into local languages.
• Islamic festivals are on different days to the festivals of other community groups. Celebrating holidays together is another common bonding experience and the different holiday dates ensure that Muslims celebrate only with other Muslims. The early Christians sensibly adopted the age-old Pagan festivals (Widwinter became Christmas, the Vernal Equinox became Easter). Because these dates are based physical manifestations of the Solar calendar, they have been readily accepted as significant dates (even is Australia where Christmas is actually Midsummer and Easter has become a harvest festival).
• Muslims have special rules with regard to their financial dealings -- they may not charge interest on a loan. This means that there is an Islamic financial system that is disjoint from the regular national banking system (although they use the same money).

Most (but not all) Australians are easygoing and tolerant, they are willing to put up with people who don't fit in and let them do their own thing in their own way. Unfortunately, tolerance is not a bottomless well. Since Muslims are so obviously distinct and isolated from traditional Australian society, any bad action perpetrated by a Muslim will be clearly remembered and clearly associated with the religion as a whole.

For those who believe the Muslim community can do no wrong, Here is a very direct and down-to-earth article by a former Sydney policeman pointing out that Middle Eastern crime gangs do exist in Sydney, and they make the most of every advantage they can get (including police who are too scared of being called "racist" to be able to do their job).

What sets the Middle Eastern gangs apart from all other gangs is their propensity to use violence at any time and for any reason. I thought I would never see the level and type of violence that I saw with the South-East Asian gangs in Cabramatta, particularly the 5T, the Four Aces and Madonna’s Mob, which were a breakaway from the old 5T. But the violence, although horrific, was almost always local, that is within the Cabramatta area and almost always against fellow Asians. As a result of that locally based violent crime it was relatively easy to identify the culprits and break them up once we were given the resources after the police revolt of 1999 - 2000.

The Middle Eastern cycle of violence is not local. It can occur on the central coast, around Cronulla, Bondi, Darling Harbour, Five Dock, Redfern, Paddington, anywhere in Sydney. Unlike their Vietnamese counterparts, they roam the city and are not confined to either Cabramatta or Chinatown. And even more alarming is that the violence is directed mainly against young Australian men and women. There is a clear and definite link between violent attacks on our young men and women being racial as well as criminal. Quite often when taking statements from young men attacked by groups of Lebanese males around Darling Harbour, a common theme has been the racially motivated violence against the victims simply because they are Australian.

By making themselves a distinct and visibly separate community group, Muslims have taken on the responsibility of ensuring that none of their group are seen to be doing the wrong thing. Can they really provide this guarantee? I suspect it is impossible for any religion to achieve. Since people tend to remember the bad more than they remember the good, any consistently identifiable and isolated group will start to gather some bad reputation.

When you think about it, the self-isolation practices of Islam and John Howard's "wedge politics" are prefect companions. It is just too easy to divide and conquer when the division is already there and asking to be exploited. Since "Playing by Queensberry's Rules" is considered foolish and laughable by today's standards, the conclusion is that any expolitable advantage should be used no matter what the moral implications -- and that is what we see happening.

Remembering the our Prime Minister recently declared that these issues must not be seen within a racial or cultural context, one more quote Tim Priest is necessary:

Only recently I have seen quotes from senior police and retired police who claim that race is not the issue in organised crime. Those statements are stupid and dangerous. Organised crime groups with the exception of the bikies are almost always ethnically based — any experienced detective will tell you that. The days of Anglo-Saxon gangs are almost gone, with the exception of one or two local beach gangs.

On 12 November he predicted gang turf wars coming, just a month before violence broke out in Cronulla. Maybe he knows something?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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