Well!,

It seems to be the right time to tell those who foisted multiculturalism on us. Who claimed to be smarter than
those who saw danger in it, and called those people bigots
and uneducated fools,
Not as knowledgeable or clever as they,
quite wrongly, perceived themselves to be.

Maybe they should take another look at the wars
across history and really see what the lessons are.
Not blinded by how they wish it was.

We told you so

Bazz, sorry I'd missed your post from Friday.

Not sure where you were heading with the point about Iran not being an Arab country, the comments have been around the idea that the current state of Muslim countries is not necessarily an indicator of the religion (horrid though I consider it).

I'm not privy to NSW police operational details but I had a very strong impression from what I was seeing the media and being posted on OLO that there was a softly softly approach to dealing with street crime by the Lebanese gangs in the lead up to the protest/riot at Cronulla and subsequent trouble. Those kind of reports can be badly distorted or even fabrications but I was seeing a lot at the time about incidents and not much of the police dealing with it. Busting a car theft gang is most likely a different part of the police force and if it's luxury cars involved impacting on a different part of the community (the part thats more likely to have access to ministers etc).

R0bert

Robert, my comment about Iran not being Arab was just to point out that
being Persians they have a quite different history and a different
relationship with Arabs than Arabs have with each other.
Must immediately point out that I am not any sort of expert on the ME.
From what I can make out the Persians were frequent invaders of the
area and look down their noses at the Arabs. Bit stuck up I think.

Re Lakemba, the NSW Police established the Middle East Crime Squad
well before the Lakemba shootup if I remember correctly.
You are right it was softly softly and the media also was very reluctant
to call a spade a bloody shovel.
I listened to the police radio frequency the day of the Cronulla riot
and it was a real insight to what was going on.
The police were monitoring them all day.
They tried to run one policeman down that night where the cars were
being diverted away.
That caused a real escalation of activity, and then someone got
bashed up when a man came out of his house when he heard his car
being smashed up.
After a lot of activity the trouble spread to Maroubra.
Then the Lebs came up on the police frequency and at first tried to
be smart and give orders diverting police cars to Maroubra, but they
were too stupid and had someone on thir radio with a strong accent and no procedure.

Then an order, which I did not understand, was given and it all went quiet.
I could not find them anywhere. It was an eyeopener for me.

Lucky the Arabs never had the numbers to take control of
the city at Cronulla. But give them enough time and numbers.

They punched a life guard who chatted them for abnoxious and lurid behaviour to women on the beach.

This of course riled the Australians, you just don't punch an
Australian life gaurd, they have enormous community respect.

But the next 2years in the media was spent blaming the Australians
for racist behaviour. An idea put about by the muslims and other ethnic groups in Australia who had no understanding of the
cultural significance of Life Safers in Australian culture.

Maybe they should try to understand our culture a bit instead of
always complaining that we don't understand theirs.

WE understand their mindset and religious fundamentalism only
too well.

This doesnt make the desired 'integration' sound any more achievable. This guy suggests 'we must make a concerted effort to engage and understand the nuances of muslim communities' as well as 'we need to understand 'violent extremism'. Oh hell no! Violent extremism has no place in civilized society. If the desire to 'integrate' into a different culture is so strong, then civilized values and laws are what must be recognized, understood and accepted. If not go home as I could not and would not understand and accept 'violent extremism'.

CHERFUL, the Cronulla riots were down to a bunch of young men on both sides trying to establish dominance. The religious aspect was minor, but the tribal aspect was significant.

The point the author is making is that we (all of us) need to be working to become part of the same tribe, so that tribalism in all it's atavism doesn't become the thing that drives people to do things that are counter to their own best interests. Differences within a tribe can be accommodated, if we are determined to allow for them. On the other hand, if we try to insist they should not exist, then it is inevitable that the tribe will soon be no more.

A good place to start would be with the silly old buggers who infest this place who seem determined that their kids and grandkids should inherit a world at least as screwed up as the one in their own heads.

There are some apparently intelligent people here who allow altogether too much time to idiotic rabble rousers trying to build skyscrapers out of toy bricks.