Shameful behaviour by all as Sydney turns nasty

Sydney Letter: The writing was not on the wall regarding last Sunday's explosion of racial rioting in Sydney; it was in thousands of mobile phones.

The text message which inflamed racist tensions and helped bring 5,000 anti-Lebanese protesters to Cronulla beach read: "This Sunday every f***ing Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to help support Leb and wog bashing day."

And they came with their beer- soaked hatred wrapped in the Australian flag, singing Waltzing Matilda.

Alan Jones, former Australian international rugby coach turned right-wing radio shock jock, ratcheted up the temperature on his show through last week and was very pleased with himself.

On Sydney's number 1 rated programme, he read out the notorious SMS, gave huge airtime to racist buffoons and encouraged their vile ignorance.

"I'm the person that's led this charge here. Nobody wanted to know about North Cronulla, now it's gathered to this," Jones crowed, as idiots phoned in to declare war on Lebanese Muslims. "A community show of force!" he said.

Fellow broadcaster Mike Carlton was outraged at Jones's actions. "The week of ranting wog-baiting which preceded the Sydney riots was the most disgraceful episode of broad- casting I have encountered in my 40-plus years in the media," he said. "It was vulgar, vicious and racist and an unmistakable incitement to violence."

But for all Jones's weasel words, he was not in Cronulla on the day beating up on anyone of Lebanese appearance. A mob of Sutherland imbeciles managed to do that on their own, with a little help from neo-Nazis including the Patriotic Youth League and the Australia First Party.

There were no weasel words from prime minister John Howard or opposition leader Kim Beazley last Sunday night though.

There were no words at all in fact; both refused to comment on the worst race riots Australia had seen since two Chinese miners were murdered at Lambing Flats, Victoria, in 1860 during the height of the gold rush.

On Monday morning, having had time to work out the politically expedient tone of least resistance, Howard said the riot was primarily a "law and order issue". It was probably to be expected that he would not call it like the rest of the world saw it.

His Liberal Party holds both the state and federal seats in Cronulla. He doesn't want to spook the horses.

Beazley, with no seats to defend but two to win, said: "It's just criminal behaviour, that's what this is."

So, writing "We grew here, you flew here" on your body; wearing T-shirts saying "Mohammed was a camel- f***ing faggot" and "Ethnic cleansing unit"; hundreds of people chanting "F*** off Lebs"; a mob chasing a 15-year-old Muslim girl down the sand dunes and ripping off her headscarf: these are all just "law and order issues"? Of course.

What happened in Cronulla last Sunday has been brewing for a long time. There are numerous reports in recent years of young Lebanese- Australians calling teenage girls "slut" and "whores" for wearing bikinis on the beach.

There was an incident two weekends ago when a surf life-saver was beaten up by Lebanese-Australian youths when he asked them to stop playing football so close to other people.

That behaviour is both criminal and racist, no doubt.

But the majority of Middle- Eastern youths who go to Cronulla beach from south- western Sydney suburbs such as Lakemba and Canterbury do so for exactly same reasons as the 91 per cent white Anglo-Celtic youth of the Sutherland Shire - to have a swim and get some sun.

Blaming everyone of Lebanese origin for the actions of a small minority is racism. Acting on this by beating up anyone of Middle- Eastern appearance is racist and criminal.

Sydney, as seen on TV programmes such as Home And Away, is internationally known for its beach culture, but the vast majority of the city's 4.6 million residents live nowhere near a beach. Cronulla is one of the city's few beach suburbs serviced by trains, so every weekend the carriages are full of people from other areas looking to share in that culture. Their little piece of the Australian dream.

It is utterly shameful that this simple pleasure is now more about poisonous hatred than sun and sand.

Howard is correct, though, when he says that Australia is not a racist country. Overall it's not, and most people are sickened by what happened. But the morons on Cronulla beach last Sunday disgraced themselves and their country and dishonoured their flag and the beautiful Waltzing Matilda.

And, despite what the prime minister says, this is a stain on Australia's international reputation.

Australia could be in for a very long, hot summer.