I sympathise completely with Salam’s sentiments especially with her observation of Howard’s “everything is fine” attitude in the face of obvious racism. I would like to make one comment. Love of country can mean anything we want it to. Far from being a ground for right behaviour it has always been usurped for the basis of ends as we saw in Germany in the first and second world wars. Beware of all flag waving patriots they will use nationalism for the basis of ends. We know we are in trouble when the only ethical basis we have is something called “the Australian way”. Howard may believe in it but the rest of us must quit this nationalistic sentimentality and look for a more solid basis for our lives.

"Surely young Australians, who claim they don't believe in violence or gangs"

I haven't heard any young Australians claiming this. I've heard plenty of politicians, media and police saying it though.

Australians certainly do believe in violence if they think it's warranted. We have fought in every major war since the Boer war, even though only 1 of them came close to approaching our home soil.

The Eureka riots are a treasured part of our national history. Violent gangs have been present throughout Australia's history. Perhaps you've heard of Ned Kelly.

Not everyone thinks that responding to violence with retaliatory violence is "unacceptable". Indeed in some cases it's the only thing that works. Some people just don't understand anything else.

Do you really think that anything "Islamic leaders" can say or do will stop young Lebanese males from marauding the streets looking for fights? People in Cronulla obviously don't, and nor does anyone else if they are honest with themselves.

The difference between those who went to Cronulla on Sunday and those who are deploring them now in the media is that the ones doing the deploring have shown over the last 5-10 years that they are quite happy for the ethnic gang situation to continue as normal, as long as it doesn't personally affect them. The people of Cronulla have no choice to avoid it like the wealthy elites who look down on them do.

"I am Lebanese and I know what these young Lebanese boys are capable of and how they behave in public. For years I have travelled on public transport and gone to venues where these types of groups have been loud, rude and obnoxious and it disgusts me to think they are part of my cultural heritage."

So why are you only saying it now?

The fact that you only see racism towards "your community" is an indication of the xenophobia that so many Australians are sick and tired of, which emanates from the "middle-eastern" community.

I feel very, very sorry for those in this community who don't act in the racist manner that many of the young males do, although it's your DUTY to speak out about it, instead of just defending "your kind".

WHAT HAPPENNED AT CRONULLA WAS A REACTION TO ANGLOPHOBIA, and it's been going on for years, although, your leaders, like yourself, can't see through your own racism.

Australians have never acted like this, ethnic soccer riots is as worse as it's got, although they were Europeans, who have fit in well. The middle-eastern community however(as well as SE Asian youth) commonly form packs, target Anglo-saxons for both sexual harrassment and racial violence, regularly. Police reports collected over the years show 1000's of such events.

The PROOF of your racism is that this is the FIRST TIME white Australians have ever made a scene, yet all you see is this one instance. The locals fury, however, comes out of legitimate anger at a RACISM that isn't acknowledged.

Australians tolerate the intolerant. We have legislation protecting minorities, unlike all the places where middle-eastern people come from, which are notoriously known for ethnic violence, religious violence, RACIAL HATRED.

Zreika asks "What is the Australian Way?" It's the reasons you came here. The openess, tolerance, how you can walk down the street and not be killed because your Persian & not Arab.

Muslims are rampaging through our streets, threatening women, after bashing them, with gang rape, smashing cars, stabbing white men. Welcome to true Arab culture! The multiculturalists must be happy!

Australian culture is what holds it all together Zreika, you all came here because we aren't known to be racist, violent, ethnocentric like where you all left.

I also disagree with John Howard, we do have an underlying racism here, from ethnocentric minorities who self-alienate by having Muslim women only swimming lessons, for example.

The hysteria Muslims have in their reactions (eg, the wife of one of the terrorists recently raided, who said she is now a racist, and the reaction to the anti-terror laws generally) can only be indicative of this underlying racism, xenophobia, self imposed alienation by a paranoid disposition (Anglo's are in the minority in Sydney).

Zreika feels threatened she says, although whenever a Muslim issue erupts, it is churches, not mosques, that get burnt, as one has been today, and the day after the London attacks, by Muslims who supported Bin Laden. It's western women who are being targeted by Muslims who are threatening to gang-rape them, who should feel scared. After all, it has happened scores of times, not only here either, in Europe.

This brings up another point Zreika. Why is it ALWAYS Muslim youth? Why? In France, UK, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, the same problems are seen. Oh, we are all racists right? Ours are the only nations that tolerate others? Look at Iran or Saudi? Or any Islamic nation apart from Turkey? Your trying to say that a group of people coming from nations known for their violent tribalism, religious violence, are the victims from their western hosts who have had generations of education on tolerance, from school curiculum to media to music industry, ect? Are you serious?

Your community needs to get rid of it's bigoted leaders, yet you do nothing. The radicals aren't radical you say, you apologise for terrorism, it is outrageous. What are we supposed to think when leaders like Hilali make outrageous comments about western values or that the jihad in Iraq is good, yet no Muslim protests for him to step down.

Wake up Zreika, ANGLOPHOBIA in your communities is RIFE. Those at Cronulla boiled over with frustration at how you don't even acknowledge this.

In the words of one young rioter on Sunday 'we have had enough'. Surely this shows that what happened wasn't spur of the moment or based solely on the bashings of those two life guards, but rather on years of simmering tensions.
What is amazing is that all of the sudden it is John Howards fault, the war on terrorism's fault and the local community at Cronulla's fault. Very indicative of the wider Lebanese community's tendency to blame everyone else but themselves!
This problem has been building for a long time. I can walk through Newtown, Cabramatta, St Kilda etc without being racially abused (I am a Caucasian). Yet in one trip to Liverpool I copped it left right and centre. However Lebanese leaders claim this is not a lebanese problem.
They are right in a sense-it is now an Australian problem.
The naivity of multiculturalism has led to a situation where those minorities in the Lebanese community feel free to express their contempt for the ANZACS on 60 minutes and disdain for women in bikinis on Cronulla's beaches-free from rebuke because there own community is too afraid to condemn and the wider community doesn't want to be called racist-not good enough and most certainly 'Un-Australian'

Part I

Zreika has showed us yet again just why this ethnic problem of middle easterners, mostly muslims, will not be able to be dealt with rationally as the muslim community continues to deny that it has a severe problem with being racist, raising their children to hate and disrespect police and all other cultures, especially whites, left over(they think, but it is really just a madness internal to their particular culture)from colonialism probably.
The fact that she speaks to a well known homophobe, bigot, racist such as Keysar Trad(check UWS 2002 & GreenLeftWeekly) continues, again, to tell the rest of us that the muslim community doesn't see bigotry and racism as something that is bad unless it is directed at them, this is what leads to the severe tribal violence in their original homelands.
Also today, a youth worker in lakemba, Fadi Rahman, rather than call for calm and actually admit that their is a problem with middle-eastern gang violence and intimidation, all he could say is that the Leb kids have a right to feel mistreated because somehow he and they think that the police treated them harder than the whites on Sunday. How? I saw police smashing white men with battens, I have never heard of police retreating to the police station for their own safety like often happens when they confront gangs of lebanese cowards.
To even dare hint that Australia may be racist after Sunday is disgustingly stupid, as even though a few people were bashed, this was in retaliation for a sustained campaign of violence on Anglo-Saxons for decades now, not just in Cronulla, but also Fairfield, Liverpool, Bankstown etc where muslim thuggery is the norm, as well as Vietnamese violence and selling drugs to all our youth.