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The Forum > Article Comments > Sydney’s burning: but why did it happen? > Comments

Sydney’s burning: but why did it happen? : Comments

By Peter West, published 14/12/2005

Peter West examines the causes of the Sydney riots.

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"Selective identification", Boaz, is the essence of my concerns about your approach to these very sensitive issues. It is exactly this problem that causes thugs to rampage on beaches - they "selectively identify" with an attitude, whether it is white supremacists identifying with the Aussie surf livesaver icon, or muslim hotheads identifying with oppressed brethren in the Middle East.

Your idolatory of Cromwell - the cold, vicious Puritan regicide - must be selective in the extreme. Where do you stand on the celebration of Christmas, by the way? Do you share Cromwell's attitude that "festival days, vulgarly called Holy Days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued"?

I am equally puzzled with your identification (selective? complete?) with an ancient Jewish judge who married a much younger jewish convert and died the day after his wedding. What particularly attracts a christian evangelist to such a person?

Back in the real world, it is good to see that the tempers are cooling, and the hotheads becoming less eager to bash the brains out of each other. Soon it will be stale news, will gradually move off the front pages and the top-of-news television bulletins, and we can all get back to our daily grind without being surrounded by racist hysteria.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 19 December 2005 8:25:58 AM
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Peter West makes a factual error repeated by most of the media. He describes the armed attack by Lebanese gangs on the Maroubra beachfront during the night of Sunday December 11 as 'revenge' or a 'reprisal' for the Cronulla riot earlier that day.

Wrong Peter - Maroubra was organised days earlier and would have occured regardless of what happened on Cronulla beach.

The Daily Telegraph Saturday December 10 page 4 reported 'Gangs take the fight to Maroubra Beach'. Their story said police had intercepted a text message ' urging Middle Eastern gangs to start trouble in the Eastern Suburbs instead of Cronulla. The message urged troublemakers to go to Maroubra on Sunday because the heavy police presence at Cronulla would prevent a confrontation.'

So the convoy of thugs who smashed and bashed their way down Maroubra Rd and along Marine Parade that Sunday do not even have the excuse that they were fuelled by righteous indignation over the assaults on Lebanese at Cronulla.

Why attack Maroubra? I suspect their pride is injured by the knowledge that if they ever tried to muscle in on Maroubra beach they would quickly be shown the door by the 'Bra Boys'. Hence a night attack. it was the Bra Boys who drove off the Lebanese gangsters that Sunday night (while the police made themselves scarce) - one of many unwritten stories of the past week. The Bra Boys gang are are no angels but I'm not the only Maroubra local who is glad they're around at the moment.
Posted by Saladin, Monday, 19 December 2005 5:09:56 PM
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SALADIN
.. thanx for that background, appreciated. Can you give us some about you ? Your nick is that of a Muslim Ruler, Youre Muslim ?
If yes, your welcome here anytime with that honesty and loyalty.

PERICLES
rather than just google 'Boaz' and lift a bit out of some Jewish traditions, why not go to the source and read the book itself. Its much better and only then will you begin to see the beautiful picture of social responsibility, self control, and Love for God that 'Boaz' manifested in his character. The 'died the day after his marraige' is not in the book itself. The book is also a gold mine for any would be anthopologist exploring Israelite culture and social welfare structures.

SMS CAMPAIGN has anyone considered running a 'flashmob' event which actually has the right motivation ? Would be a good idea. We can all ask in unison why the '5 youths of middle eastern appearance who had 2 baseball bats' were only 'spoken to' by Police and released ?

Its amazing how a 'seriously offensive weapon' like a Baseball bat becomes 'just a bat' in the hands of a Middle Eastern youth, but a 'branch' in the hands of an Anglo who is in fear of his life in Penrith from marauding car loads of 'Lebs' is arrested, charged, convicted, and jailed for 4 months on the day !

For all those speaking about 'racism' we need to address it where it actually is. THE POLICE or should I say 'their Political masters' ?

Peaceful Protest.. yes, I dream of 50,000 peaceful citizens marching down Telopea Street, saying "Love your neighbour" or speaking prophetically at the Police HQ as in a previous post, and at the Courts. Maybe an SMS could achieve this ?

IMPORTANT. I urge all those of Anglo/Euro background, to solidify your own kinship and cultural ties through conversations. I urge you to reach out to Maoris, Southern Euro Migrants, Islanders, Eastern Euro, Indigenous, in fact to all who are not seeking to 'take' Sydney for themselves.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Monday, 19 December 2005 8:05:30 PM
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Every time someone who is not a minority in this country stands up for their rights they are racist or dare I say it a Nazi(of the neo kind).

The disturbance at Cronulla happened as a result of one culture not respecting another culture.

I'm positive anyone could have gone to the beach at Cronulla and been left alone if they in return left the locals alone.

The racist card is pulled out at every opportunity. It is easier than admitting there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Calling young women sluts is not a recipe for peace. Bashing lifeguards up is not a recipe for peace.
Posted by FRIEDRICH, Tuesday, 20 December 2005 6:28:57 AM
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Boaz, thanks for your advice on how I should conduct research on the web. The book of Ruth is only one source of information on Boaz, there is a plethora of reading in the Jewish canon, that broadens the view considerably.

For instance, at jewishencyclopedia.com you can find out that "Boaz is identified by some rabbis with the judge Ibzan of Bethlehem. It is further said that he lost all his sixty children during his lifetime because he did not invite Manoah, Samson's father, to any of the marriage festivities in his house. For, since Manoah was at that time without children, Boaz thought that he need not consider on such occasions a childless man who could not pay him back in kind"

On the other hand, "[a]ccording to Josephus, Boaz lived at the time of Eli. Boaz was a just, pious, and learned judge, and the custom of using the Divine Name in greeting one's fellow-man formulated by him and his bet din received the approval of even the heavenly bet din"

What fascinates me is the way that these matters remain a mystery to us today, with scholars continuing to argue over the background and deeds of even such familar names as Boaz and Ruth.

By the way, you are getting to be a little out of step with the world. The vast majority has moved on from the rabid "let's get 'em" phase, into the calmer waters of reason and rationality. You still seem to be stuck in rabble-rousing mode... albeit with the caveat that your rabble "...actually has the right motivation."
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 20 December 2005 11:19:53 AM
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In case it of interest, I am cross posting from http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/12/14/after-the-riots/#comment-39090 :

Isn’t it time we questioned what is the point of crowding so many people together in major cities like Sydney?

Whether or not we can legitmately label one side or the other ‘racist’ in these conflicts, I think that the likelihood of these conflicts occurring can only increase as we crowd more and more people into already overcrowded and unpleasant cities. Having lived in Sydney on and off since 1979 and only last year, the character of the place has been almost totally ruined in that period of time with much of the skyline having become infested with ghastly high rise apartment blocks and much of Sydney’s roads in state of gridlock.

If we must increase Australia’s population, then at least let’s try to decentralise properly and not hope that we can squeeze yet another million each into both Sydney and South East Queensland in the next 20 years with unpredictable social consequences.

Pehaps it’s time we questioned all of those economists who have insisted that Australia’s economy will collapse unless we constantly increase our population until it reaches at least 50 million. It seems to me that they are nothing more than mouthpieces for land speculators and property devolopers.

Interestingly, an economist working for the Property Council of Australia actually stated more than one on ABC Radio National’s Austalia Talks Back in May last year, that the property ‘industry’ was looking to an increase in immigration to lift the industry out of its ‘doldrums’, that is to dirve up the prices of houses even further beyond the already obscene levels close to the half million dollar mark.

If you read the property speculation sections of the newspapers, they seem to well appreciate the relationship between Australia’s population levels and the price of real estate.

It seems to me that the riots are, in part, the price we are all paying for the unearned windfall profits earned by property speculators in previous decades.
Posted by daggett, Wednesday, 21 December 2005 7:56:53 AM
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