Understanding the conflict and violence in Cronulla
Dynamics and causes
From an Islamic perspective: insight, experiences and
suggestions for revised or new policies and practices that may respond
effectively and creatively to the Cronulla violence and conflict.
Speech notes prepared and presented by Keysar Trad
Firstly,
As a Muslim, when I address an issue such as “Understanding the conflict and
violence at Cronulla”, I have to make it clear that we do not condone the
conflict or the violence nor the causes for this violence. We are addressing the issue in order to
evaluate mechanisms to prevent the recurrence of such problems.
In
addressing the Cronulla violence, we must also address two important factors:
1 – Events
leading up to the Cronulla riot and reprisals.
2 – Events
leading up to the events that led to the Cronulla riot.
The
Islamic faith teaches patience and perseverance and a response based on
compassion, as the Qur`an states: “Good deeds and bad deeds are not equal,
resist or retaliate with goodness, you will find the person who holds enmity
towards you becoming an intimate friend.”
The Noble Qur`an Chapter 41: Verse 34
The
relationship between the events and the faith of those involved is one where
stereotypes and territorialism dictated the attitude of Anglo beach-goers to
their non-Anglo guests. There was little
or no tolerance exercised towards non whites.
Their games of soccer on the sand were seen as a cultural invasion, even
though neither Muslims or Middle Eastern Australians invented the game. Kicking the soccer ball was viewed as kicking
sand at people. Boys making amorous
overtures towards girls were viewed with disdain and were subjected to racially
derogatory remarks and sometimes to physical harassment to the extent that over
a period of time, ethnic youth felt unsafe traveling alone in certain but not
all Anglo dominated public spaces, they began to form groups, they would not go
to these recreational public spaces without the group, they felt safe within
the group and they had company that gave them someone to talk to or to play
sport with. When we look at Cronulla, we
have to distinguish it from places like Maroubra where the local beach youths
formed a group known as the Bra boys, this group is made up of people of diverse
ethnic backgrounds and faith traditions.
Interestingly, it was this group that first reached out to become part
of the solution because they were an example where multiculturalism transcended
racial tribalism to form a new tribe whose common thread was youth.
Naturally,
those who were affronted by the presence of ethnic youth at the beach now felt
threatened by the fact that these youth would move as a group and would no
longer accept racially derogatory remarks, they would dish out as much as they
received. The dynamic changed from a
weak helpless individual to a group that fed off its own power of numbers. Therefore, whilst the numbers addressed the
problem of immediate protection, it created another problem where race-based
territorialism was hastily transformed into increased racism and intolerance
with people reflecting this intolerance into grievances over real and perceived
irritations from the behaviour of the group.
If we are to believe all the reports about the behaviour of some of
these groups, we would acknowledge that some of this behaviour was shameful and
appalling. It is interesting how sections
of our society generally view groups of youths who gather for anything other
than an organized sporting fixture, many of us feel threatened by their
exuberance and suspicious of their activities.
The
state of events that gave rise to the need for groups to find belonging and
safety is just as disconcerting. For a
person to be forced to wait to enjoy recreational public space until there is a
group means that this person is denied the same natural rights that others take
for granted. This person should be able
to nominate to share in the activities of any group at the beach. If they see a game of cricket, touch football
or soccer being played by some youth, they should not feel left out, they
should not be abused if they offer to join.
However,
these acts in themselves were not the causes of the rioting or the violence,
these were minor irritations, accumulated, they were not sufficient to turn a
society into violent rioting mobs.
The
dynamics of the conflict and violence received a volatile mix of fuel from
sections of the media. The rioting and
violence on Sunday 11th did not occur because of the altercation
with the lifeguard or the history of territorial animosity between locals and
visitors. These issues were used by
sections of the media to wage their own battle against multiculturalism, they
played on audience fears in their battle for ratings. People were literally incited day and night
by some irresponsible presenters on talkback radio who continued for a whole
week. As these presenters set the scene,
some tabloid journalists followed suit.
It is important to note that this took place in the only eastern state
that continues to refuse to catch up with its neighbours or with the times, a
state that refuses to give adequate protection from vilification to its
constituency. As this took place, there
was no effective political leadership to stem the potential riot before it
occurred. In fact, what we discovered
yesterday is that a few days before the riot our prime minister put a message
with the media in a time capsule to be published on Monday 20th
February. This is a new phenomenon from
our prime minister that I refer to as time-delayed populism.
Some
of the comments on talkback radio have been depicted in the print media and
also on the ABC’s Media Watch.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s (One-way radio plays by its own rules,
David Marr on 13 December 2005)
writes: “Sydney
“He assured his audience he "understood" why that
famous text message went out and he read it right through again on air: "Come
to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the shire
get down to North Cronulla to support the leb
and wog bashing day …"
“Daily he cautioned his listeners not to take the law into
their own hands, but he warmed to those who had exactly that on their minds. On
Thursday Charlie rang to suggest all junior footballers in the shire gather on
the beach to support the lifesavers. "Good stuff, good stuff," said
Jones.
“"I tell you who we want to encourage, Charlie, all
the Pacific Island
“When John called on Tuesday to recommend vigilante action
- "If the police can't do the job, the next tier is us" - Jones did
not dissent. "Yeah. Good on you John." And when he offered a maxim
his father had picked up in the war - "Shoot one, the rest will run" -
Jones roared with laughter. "No, you don't play Queensberry's rules. Good
on you, John."”
Media Watch
quoted Jones in their episode of Monday 20th of February 2006:
AJ: John has a
good answer, he says that it seems that the police and the council are impotent
here. All rhetoric, no action. My suggestion is to invite one of the biker
gangs to be present in numbers at Cronulla railway station when these Lebanese
thugs arrive, it would be worth the price of admission to watch these cowards
scurry back onto the train for the return trip to their lairs...Australians old
and new shouldn’t have to put up with this scum.
Yvonne: We
sat down on a picnic blanket and they kept kicking footballs at us.
AJ: Yep, Well
Australia is for all Australians. Isn’t it?
Y: Well it is
Alan.
AJ: And there
is standard that has to apply and if you don’t meet this standard you should be
rounded up.
Y: And if we
don’t have enough police what’s wrong with getting the army in?
AJ: Uh-ha.
Y: Get these
blokes a bit of a rifle butt in the face and they’ll, they’ll back off, they’re
cowards!
AJ: Well if
it gets to that we might have to do that, you follow what I’m saying?
Y: Get them
out to work Alan. I’ve got 2 blooming jobs, what sort of a mug am I? I’m going
out to pay the dole for these people who want to blow me up!
AJ: That’s
correct, Excellent point. many people feel that way Yvonne, thank you for
ringing. Plenty of calls, we’re here to 10
o’clock . We’ll get to them.
The Sydney Morning Herald article of 13 December continued
that on the Monday after the riot, the station claimed that “the majority of
their callers supported what happened.”
They did because they were whipped up into a frenzied mob,
they got drunk and they were out for blood bearing the memory of what they were
exposed to all week. People came from
everywhere to participate in this “Leb and Wog bashing day.”
The
comments of some of these shock jocks caused a crowd to descend on the beach
from all over the state of NSW, some walked in with racist slogans written on
their flesh, some on placards, some even wrote these slogans on the sand of the
beach.
There
was excessive consumption of alcohol that was readily available from local
vendors and the abuse of mobile phone technology to broadcast SMS messages to
hundreds of people; the rest is history.
At
the other end of this, the marginalized youth sat watching on their television
screens, they saw the racist slogans and the violent race-based attacks. Every push and shove, every act of
discrimination previously experienced by the viewers were flashing before their
eyes, a small minority of viewers rushed to gather on the beach, prevented by
police from going to Cronulla, they vented their anger at cars parked in the
streets of another beach suburb.
The
next day, the infamous SMS messages reached Middle Eastern Australians. Your suburbs are being invaded, your
buildings are going to be burnt down, your places of worship, yes, those places
that you do not attend but know that they are there. They turned out in numbers; they found no
threat so some of them became the threat as they struggled to deal with SMS technology
whipping up their fears. Along with the
SMS came the faceless voices in the crowd, inciting retaliation.
Some,
refusing to listen to community leaders went and committed criminal offences
the tit for the tat of the day before because the political leadership was found
wanting in addressing this problem. We
witnessed the prime minister and federal opposition leader in a state of denial
despite the racist graffiti, the racist slogans and chants, they could not see
the racism because it was too overwhelming.
As the federal politicians contradicted the state politicians and went
into denial, the real instigators were still broadcasting in their protected
studios, unreachable, un-prosecutable, untouchable. It is in this setting that some Middle
Eastern Australian youths lashed back appallingly and criminally. Most of the youths involved in the reprisal
attacks have been arrested, the instigators of the violence though continue to
this day, unabated, they have little to fear knowing fully well that the bodies
that are set up to monitor them are slow to act and lack the power to be as
effective as they should be.
There
must be little doubt that the racist riots and reprisals that took place in
Cronulla are most unlikely to occur in other states. This is because other states around Australia Queensland 14 February 2006 ).
What does it mean to celebrate multiculturalism? In reality, such celebrations are about
shaping attitudes, they do nothing to change the dominant culture, they do not
threaten it in any way, rather, they enrich it.
For a nation that enacted legislation to treat incitement to violence
against any section of its society as a terrorism related crime, ours refuses
to do anything in the face of clear evidence pointing at those who incited the
violence that we saw. We need to empower
the policing mechanisms and make them more proactive if we wish to avoid a
repeat of Cronulla. It is not enough for
us to have an ABA or an ACMA that handles complaints, seeing articles like the
Sydney Morning Herald’s that I referred to earlier and seeing the Media Watch
report should by themselves provide reasons for ACMA to act rather than forcing
effected groups to go through a complicated system of complaints and be
disparaged by rules that do not even bind the ABA to publish their reasons if
they decide that the broadcaster did not breach the code. We need to empower our anti-discrimination
bodies so that they can act rather than put complaints against popular radio presenters
in the too hard basket. We need
politicians to show more leadership on these issues, to make forthright
statements condemning racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia rather than fuelling
them and manipulating them as a popular distraction. And if we wish to go a little further and
dare to tackle the other forgotten riots of Kempsey, Macquarie Fields and
Redfern (all in NSW), we need to lobby for a fair-go for our youths. Our youths today are left with far less
resources, facilities and opportunities than they were a generation ago. Our society has some serious issues to
address, these issues are not about whether Multiculturalism needs to be
reviewed, they are more about resourcing in the public interest rather than
public opinion.
Keysar Trad
Islamic Friendship Association of Australia
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