12 December 2005

Sydney riots - defending the turf

"No man's land", Terra nullius was taken over by the British in a colonisation which included attempted genocide of the indigenous population and brutal massacres. In 1860 the turf had to be defended against Chinese miners by Caucasian miners, known as the 'Lambing Flat massacre'.
In boom times the turf wars just retreated to desirable spots such as beaches. (60's battles between surfies and westies.)

These days, civil unrest by youths has erupted in Sydney's southwest (Macquarie Fields) and Sydney's southern beach Cronulla. Not an isolated occurence as just this year the streets of Europe (France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland) went up in flames. Just the 'Paris riots' are said to run up to €200 Million.

Various social policies, but foremost youth unemployment, lack of perspective and integration have been made responsible for these phenomena. An ILO study claims that "Half the world's unemployed are under 24". Australia has had persistently high youth unemployment.

In the very recent riots, were 5000 Australians of 'Anglo-Saxon' appearance engaged in racist violence against Australians that had an 'Middle Eastern' appearance, '25 people had been injured and 16 arrested, about 40 cars were vandalised'. The case of 'yob vs yob' made the news internationally, tourist operators and residents are anxious.

A specific social milieu just 'liberates the party animal'. Scarcity of resources makes it appear that 'the other' is one too many in the queue. The next step is:

"Ethnic cleansing
the practice of forcibly removing (or even killing) a group of people from an area so that the people who remain all belong to the same group - so that, the area is 'ethnically pure'."


Quotes form the mainstream media:

"It was like Australia Day gone crazy…"
"Were all looking for a party."
"Never in my working life did I ever imagine a mob, a drunken mob, turning on a woman"
"…Tensions had been simmering within the primarily Anglo-Saxon community against people of Middle Eastern descent for some time."
"Defending the Aussie way of life"
A Kristallnacht?
Keywords:
Pride, party, celebrate
Chants used:
"string him up"
"Aussie, Aussie Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi"
"Kill Lebs"

>>Riots 2009
Cronulla riots 2005, Wikipedea

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