December 12, 2005

• Reason why the internets is incredible: this comment is made by a USian on a post done by a Canadian linking to a Israeli newspaper concerning breaking news in Australia. Gutenberg would crap his pants if he could see the information transmission we have today.
• Perhaps LA is next?
• Two posts and it's all about America again. Go team.
• Then again, perhaps not, much as certain segments of the foreign press seem to want it to happen. I will let you guys know when I see anyone "bracing [them]self for gang violence." Also, not sure what the author means by "last night" as the article is dated 12/13 and it is currently 2:49pm, 12/12 here. Also, this post is about Australia.
• what ian did say. I know. He's probably tired of that joke.
• A backgrounder in one of the better Aussie papers (the Sydney Morning Herald) noted that the area has reputation for beach thuggery going back to at least the 60s, when local white surfers would beat the shit out of visiting white surfers. So it seems unlikely to be *just* a racial/religous issue. Of course, it doesn't help that there have been some high-profile incidents that hand excuses to the local bovver boyes when it comes to maltreatment of women (there have been some high profile pack rapes in Aussie in the last couple of years that have beat up in the press because the perpetrators have been unrepteant non-whites offering the "women here are whores" defence). Of course, it doesn't help that the current Prime Minister has run most of election campaigns on a base of Abo-bashing, immigrant-bashing, refugee-bashing...
• Don't you just love to see the lowest common denominator in action?
• Anyway, read this and you're halfway to understanding what's really going on.
• Ridged: I LOVED this... "I wish to say this to [TW], that at the time when I commit these offences I come from such a background which led me to - don't shake your head, I'm telling you something - I say now that I hurt you and I'm extremely, extremely apologetic to you and I'm, I wish to say one thing more." Translation: SHUT UP BITCH I AM APOLOGIZING, DON'T MAKE ME RAPE YOU AGAIN
• Sorry to rain on your city fires, but I thought Hemel Hempstead could do with a mention. I know it's only a new town, and it's not actually burning. It's just the biggest fire in European history not caused by RAF Bomber Command.
• Do we have any Sydneysider Monkeys? Their thoughts might be a little more applicable to this particular situation than mine, but until one pokes his or her nose in... Yes, Australia is struggling with a number of race and culture issues at the moment, fueled in part by the West's general atmosphere of fear and paranoia about the prospect of domestic terrorism, and in part by the difficulties with integration faced by both sides of a multiculural and pluralistic immigration policy in recent decades. I guess this is a drama being played out in a number of countries at the moment, France and the UK springing to mind. 'White Australia' seems to have taken a sharp turn towards being intolerant of racial and cultural differences in recent years. In Brisbane, for example, where Asian immigrants are the most predictable focus of white Australian racism, it's not unusual to hear white Australians using the phrase "spot the Aussie", which is a code used to imply that it's now comparitively rare (according to those who use the phrase) to see a white face amongst a crowd of those of Asian appearance (ignoring, of course, that many of these people will either be at least 2nd-generation Australians, or will have taken Australian citizenship). Brisbane has yet to see anything like the riot that took place in Sydney over the weekend, but then we don't have Sydney's population. In Sydney, the racial and cultural divide seems to fall between White Australians on the one side and Middle-Eastern and African immigrants (or children of immigrants) on the other. Perhaps because of Sydney's size, this divide has led to racially motivated violence from both sides. Going back a little, White Australian tolerance of the Middle Eastern community in Sydney was dealt a blow through the trials of a group of young Lebanese men who had committed a series of racially motivated gang rapes, and who had specifically chosen White Australian victims. I doubt this was the beginning of the tension between communities, since you'd assume that the motive for choosing White Australian victims arose from a sense of anger at widespread racial intolerance of their own community by White Australians (and who knows how many iterations of racial intolerance from both sides before that). And so the cycle goes on. One of the core issues at stake is the tendency of immigrant populations to form fairly insular communities within Australia - and again I imagine that tendency is being echoed in any number of other countries. Presumably that arises for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that White Australia is less than eager to fully integrate with immigrant populations, essentially expecting these populations to do all of the work necessary in integrating (ie, you came to 'my' country, it's your job to fit in with my cultural expectations and standards, and don't expect help from me to do it, or anything but hostility that you haven't done it already). Of course, other reasons for the existence of insular immigrant communities revolve around issues of common language, common cultural and religious practices, and economic support. I don't know where Australia is heading with all of this. I hope the riot in Sydney was a relatively isolated incident (at least in the scale, if not in the frequency). I doubt that it will be. And one of the truly sad things is that the extreme right-wing white supremacists will have more fuel to add to their next cross-burning get together.
• This isn't all of "White Australia"; it's a group of bogans being encouraged by the media to act up. We have a small group in NZ called the National Front who made an attempt to get into Parliament based on their anti-immigration platform. They, too, were narrow-minded bogans. Wolof, I saw that comment yesterday. It's the most insightful thing I've read. If you want to understand what's going on, you really need to read it. Bogan is the only word I know for this type of person. I guess the closest US equivalent is "white-trash redneck hillbilly".
• Sydney Neo-Nazis ... I hate Sydney Neo-Nazis. *stomps on accelerator*
• Solid Explanation. Alan Jones is a cunt. i know that's a bad word. but it is true true TRUE.
• Pris is correct.
• HA! That's genius, Wolof!
• It's somewhat bigger than that, tracicle. There were only ever, what, 200 National Front types? I was at their march on Parliament they arranged to demand more bigotry in New Zealand. They ended up hiding behind a huddle of police when 20-odd times their number showed up to mock them.
• Oh, and: Quoth planetthoughtful

  One of the core issues at stake is the tendency of immigrant populations to form fairly insular communities within Australia - and again I imagine that tendency is being echoed in any number of other countries.

  . Bollocks. Sydney's immigration patterns are much more stratified than many other Australian cities. Look at suburbs of Melbourne like Springvale, Richmond, Carlton, Footscray, or Brunswick - all of them have significant populations of immigrants from one region or another, all of whom not only make significant cultural contributions to the community, but also social and economic ones. We're not just talking kebab and noodles here, but business, arts, political life. I don't know exactly what makes Sydney different, but riots aren't isolated. Seems to me that there's some pretty rigid social stratification there...
• prismatic7, it's also interesting to note that Victorian Premier Steve Bracks is himself of Lebanese heritige. Just my opionion, but it seems to me that a great many white Australians are in denial about the state of race relations in this country. Having lived most of my life in inner Melbourne, it shocked me to spend a couple of years in rural South Australia and later in Far North Queensland and experience first hand what are apparently quite common attitudes. The poisonous talkback radio hosts (such as the excerable aforementioned Alan Jones) whip up a frenzy of manipulative xenophobia at any opportunity, and sadly there is a ready-made market of the small-minded, bigoted, ignorant, and plain hard-of-thinking that lap up ever drop of bile. I don't think it's a conincidence that the ranting radio scumbags get much less audience in Melbourne than elsewhere in the country, though whether that's cause or effect I couldn't say.
• I know it's a smaller group, rodgerd, but the sentiment abides. Are they still active now that the election is over?
• It would seem police have the name of a suspect: one "Victoria Bitter" who everyone seems to blame for starting the fracas.
• I don't know, tracicle. Their headquarters is in Christchurch, so they're closer to you than to me. I do know their spokesman left and ran under the Direct Democracy banner.
• Concerning the post from ian would say: What does Guttenberg have to do with this?
• Sydney is just weird. I have just moved here and the racially intolerant things i hear some of my workmates and other people i meet say truly appall me. I worked in a similar job in Brisbane and rarely heard the likes. It is saddening and sickening and the next time I have to see a news report with a bunch of drunken Australian yobs standing under the Australian flag and using it as an incitement to violence I will be ill. I have lived in four states in both cities and rural areas and this has to be the most insular and intolerant place in the country
• and I thought the poster was Canadian
• I was listening to the ABC last night and the thinly disguised fascists were all over the talkback session they had on this topic. Most of them kept to the public script, but one guy lost it and started talking about how Christians can't pray in public. I think he was going to mention the Lizards, but he got shuffled off before he could get it out.
• Could we please now get back to talking about Amurica?
• I'm still amused that the news media is caling it a riot. As if Australia has ever seen a real, modern day riot. This is by no means something that's happening all over Sydney, or even in a large area. It's a few streets in a suburb that has had this happen on and off for decades. Cronulla at new years eve is far worse than this. And don't forget the out-of-control birthday parties that happen from time to time. The commercial news media here is deliberately over-hyping it so that it sounds like a riot, when it's really just a simple (if violent and destructive) game of "my dick is bigger". fly - Sydney is a very insular and intolerant place to live. Everyone here hates everyone else. In that kind of atmophere, it's really, really easy to feel alienated and shunned. A nice breeding ground for the kind of activity we are seeing at the moment. Also, Sydney police officers make the situation far worse than it is by joining in the dick size game. Many officers in the force only differ from the 'gangs' by being in uniform. The rest of Sydney will be amused for a short while then grow tired of it all. It's a case of "Just don't look, just don't look" ___ Why are there no Sydney mofi meetups if there are so many members from Sydney?
• Oh cripes, I really love... people. *sigh* /goes back into cave
• Bollocks. Sydney's immigration patterns are much more stratified than many other Australian cities. I see your bollocks and raise you a "bullshit, mate". Brisbane has several suburbs that are predominantly populated by one specific immigrant group or another. But, honestly, the point you go on to make about community-wide contributions from ethnic communities are very valid of Brisbane as well. If that point was lost in my original post, it shouldn't have been. However, just to go back to the "Sydney is different" theme, on the news this afternoon was a piece issuing a warning to South East Queenslanders that a text message is being sent around to encourage white Australians to converge on the Gold Coast this weekend for a Sydney-style ethnicity-based riot. In other words, it's not just Sydney.
• grover96: I was obviously talking about The Guttenberg Castle. That castle has seen alot. He probably looks at the internets and is like "whoa, dude."
• Aw don't let there be Somethin' sour in my coffee A fourteen year-old Saying get out of my country I won't let him rise Just to say goodnight Hourly, daily
• Planet I heard that from the QLD rellies and in truth the only place i can imagine it happening in Qld is on the Gold Coast - it is the only other place in Oz that I have ever experienced this level of insularity, ignorance and a dangerous sense of 'our turf' Bizarre because so far I have been defending the cane toads against the mexicans for all i am worth (gotta keep the oh so silly and innocent state wars happening somehow)
• jacbo half of the problem is that the rest of SYdney will be amused for a while and give up - this is not just a Sydney problem. It is fundamental to the easygoing welcome allcomers nature of the country and this city needs its butt kicked bigtime - hate breeds hate that is the problem oh and sorry if i'm too stupid for words but i don'tget the cop reference or naybe I simply havent been here long enough to understand the nature of the beast?
• I really liked that comment from this one massive, drunken yobo featured on PBS, yelling to the camera "this is our land -- get out". Had to laugh at that one. Mind you, as a Canadian, I probably shouldn't have. "OUR land". Classic.
• Fly - All too true, unfortunately. I was being a more than a little glib about it. I have worked in every state in Aus (NT is a territory - never been there) and I think the racism/bigot mentality is very much stronger in Sydney than anywhere else. If you don't fit into an idealised 50's image of existence you are eeeevil and must be persecuted. Remember in the 50's, there were no brown people. _____ The cops reference is that the sad reality of the police force in Sydney, is that a significant minority of the officers are just older versions of the hoodlums currently involved. When things get rough, you see them at the front hiding big grins.
• amusing or ironic comment from indigenous leaders today re the anglo saxon yob chant of i grew here you flew here!! I growed here you rowed here go home anglos and how true please could we have some perspective - ps anybody who has crikey - right blames left left blames right = go figure
• I really liked that comment from this one massive, drunken yobo featured on PBS, yelling to the camera "this is our land -- get out". My sister made a similar observation, to whit: "Anglo Australians have been sneering at Aborigines for decades for saying, 'Actually, you're not welcome here.' And now we're rioting while wearing t-shirts that read, 'We grew here, you flew here.'" I tell you, there's nothing that makes me want to riot more than having to listen to another person say in that I-can-indulge-my-incipient-assholery-about-this-because-everyone-else-is-saying-the-same-thing tone, "Well, if they don't like it here, why don't they just go back to the country they came from?!!!". Obviously, I'd be the only person at the riot wearing a, "Why can't we all get along?" t-shirt, but still. And then you have to listen to other Anglo Australians bitch about everything that's wrong with the country, and you want to grab them and say, "Have you figured out a way to blame the immigrants for everything you don't like about Australia that they weren't here to be responsible for?! Have you?! Because I want to wear a t-shirt that reads, "I'm entitled to be an apathetic hypocrite because I'm white!""
• Great, another fucking thing for people from Melbourne to feel superior about.
• Only joking "melbs"! Love you!
• Do they know it's Christmastime again?
• Yeah, except my visits to Melbourne make me think they're full of shit, quidnic. Apparently I'm not alone (you'll need to scroll down).
• Oh goody! the police get more powers. Rammed through as a knee-jerk reaction. You can watch it happening here now [Legislative Council link].
• Sylvia Hales (Greens) currently ripping Howard a new one over his divisive rhetoric.
• Oldfield (ex-One Nation, now Independent) playing the race card by blaming middle-eastern gangs.
• Getting censured now.
• Getting a warning. Drumming his fingers.
• Rips back - calls them low-lifes. There's is nothing wrong with calling them what they are. Says he has many middle-eastern friends.
• He's now listing all the things in his eyes that the Lebanese have done wrong - rape, assault, intimidation, heroin importation (when busted the women hid the heroin in their babies diapers), terrorising the general population, living in ghettoes, throwing bricks at police cars (apparently they do this all the time), insurance scams, extortion, armed robbery, car theft and the police never did anything. Censured again now.
• What an asshole Oldfield is.
• Hey jacbo - Why are there no Sydney mofi meetups if there are so many members from Sydney? representin'.
• I'll second that motion Member Wolof.
• Thirded based on the above commentary.
• David Oldfield fucked Pauline Hanson. Haw!