Sueven wrote:Very sad. Also very important.
Any Australians (or people with more knowledge of Australia than me) got an explanation for this? From my limited reading of news articles, it doesn't really seem like there was much provocation leading to these riots. It's not even like France, where a disadvantaged minority rioted. I've always been under the impression that white Australians were the majority in Australia, and also that insofar as there is an 'advantaged class,' that class is not at all exclusionary of white Australians.
So what is it about the demographics of Australia that would cause something like this to happen? As far as I know, Australia has not been targetted for terrorist attack and does not have a history of ethnic antagonism related to the middle east. I have only anecdotal information about racism in Australia. I have a few friends who spent some time in Australia, and they have told me that racism is more visible there than in the United States, but I didn't get the impression that it was really problematic. Also, most of the racism I heard described was targeting indigenous Australians, not immigrants.
So what's motivating these riots?
A couple of lebanese bashed a lifeguard on the local beach.
Several people killed in the Bali bombings were from this suburb.
Kids of middle-eastern descent decided it would be fun to drive around and break the windows/lights on every car they could find. (And now I'm hearing on the news the President of the Islamic Centre of Research saying they're pissed off that the kids were "made to lay down on the street like murderers" when they were arrested)
As far as racism being more visible and targetting Aborigines; your friends are full of shit or don't understand abos. Besides, there's not a significant enough number of them to get upset about. *shrug*
What you do find however is a lot of resentment about is the way certain cultures migrate to Australia, then take up residence in cliques, treat WASPs as foreign devils in the own country, etc, etc. eg, Melbourne has the third largest Greek population in the world (including Greece). Greeks don't want to bomb us, but they would tend to bash you if you were hitting on their sister.
In much the same way, the lebanese tend to cluster together, associate primarily within their own people and generally create an environment that breeds and reinforces racial tension.
All that said, most Australians pretty laid back and we accept the status quo, but you get enough young men and alcohol and an apparent cause to fight, all you need is some dickheads urging them on.
