Oceania Sydney Riots

Well, all our cars are once again stored all over Sydney for the night, to minimise the risk of crap happening to them again. All the cars this morning were egged and several with bricks through windshields. Dried egg does not come off well and ruins the bodywork

Mine will have to go on the street, had to drive my new one to work, as my old one was at Grandmas and I had no way of getting the key from Dad who took it to work. Just hope it will be ok come morning and that I don't have any trouble driving home through Arncliffe and Banksia.

article on the crap from last night, mostly lebanese aussie reprisals

I'm even banned from walking my dogs, feel sorry for them, they are used to daily walks and are going crazy cooped up in the backyard. But Mum is worried if I take them for a walk, something bad will happen to me and/or them, specially as muslims don't like dogs, something about being unclean in their scriptures or something. Don't need give the ones at the end of our laneway an excuse to shoot them finally. We've had issues with them for years when we walk them on the path outside their house. Even if we are on the nature strip or the road, they've come out with guns and threats.

I need to go finish Christmas shopping this weekend and I'd normally go to Miranda or Hurstville, both are out of the question without Mum getting upset. So looking like Chatswood or Eastgardens maybe...

 

I just thought I'd post this post from my marital arts forum. It's a first hand account from a fella who was in the crowd of people simply to check out what was going it. Pretty good read.

This is my account of the Cronulla Riots on Sunday the 11th of December 2005. I went along to observe and maintained my distance from the mob as much as possible even though I sympathised with their plight, though not their solution. I do not intend this account to be objective.

Where did this begin? The spark was in Cronulla a week before the riot. Two junior lifeguards were bashed by a gang of Lebanese boys. I don?t know the reasons but even arguing with a lifeguard is not on. But that was spark to the fuel, resentment towards Lebanese gangs has been growing for years now. There were the pack rapes by a gang of Leb boys in 2001 and almost everyone has their story of being threatened or attacked by a gang. Wether this is a minority or not, I don?t know, but it defiantly is the most visible face of the Lebanese community.

In the week before the riot there were SMS?s and emails circulating inviting a showdown between the gangs of Leb?s and Surfers. As the media picked up on it they amplified the message to all of Sydney. By Sunday it had been turned into an idealised protest.

I arrived at Cronulla at around 10.30am, just as the crowds were starting to gather. The Press were already set up and ready on the north headland where everyone gathered. From apartments and cars Australian flags waved. People wore whatever they had in Aus colors. More than a few in the crowd had T-shirts with messages, things like ?We grew here, you flew here? and ?No Lebs?. Many had the Cronulla postcode written on their arms.

At first there were families, the elderly and older couples amongst the crowd. They waved the flag with the rest and as music blared from car stereos and apartments facing the beach it took on a festival atmosphere. Throw in a stage and a few bands and you could mistake it for the Big Day Out. People were talking openly about the problem and it was the same everywhere, people were sick of the gangs, sick of being threatened, sick of the large groups that would descend on anyone that fought back. People felt safe in their numbers, proud to be making a stance, united.

By around 12.30pm most of the crowd was drinking. The families and elderly left as things became rowdy. We were near the surf club when we heard the commotion and suddenly everyone was running. More than half of the crowd raced towards a pub where a couple of Lebanese boys were taking shelter. The pub was quickly surrounded by police and the mob gathered outside. The media worked into the centre of the mob and some more outspoken of the crowd got to have their say to the camera. A couple of people stood up and shouted their calls to action. Sick of the gangs, sick of the disrespect was the message.

When the boys were chased it was obvious that things were getting ugly. People were laughing at how the boys ran. At the time, though trying to remain objective, it was easy to get caught up in the emotion. I did realise at the time that the boys that were attacked probably had nothing to do with the gangs, which was true for all who were attacked on Sunday, but it wasn?t till the next day that I realised how sickening it was. Even as an observer, trying to maintain my distance, the mob affected me.

As one man stood and called people to action as the ?Sons of Anzac? he was approached by a Lebanese man, I didn?t see it due to the crowd but people were claiming that the Leb had taken a swing first. Police busted through the crowd to smother and remove him. When this happened many of the people around us started screaming for peace. ?You?re as bad as them if you fight? was the cry.

Also around this time I first noticed the Nazi?s, a group of 10 or so Romper Stompers had gathered, they weren?t made to feel welcome at all. I also understand that at this time there were political figures from party?s such as Family First handing out pamphlets in the cr

 

home safely.

streets are fairly quiet, few carloads of people about, few sirens. And more police than is needed to take over a city. I counted 11 cop cars and 2 bus van things full of them before I gave up.

 

Now, I don't know anyone who actually condones these things, but I did receive a message last night from a number I don't know, telling me to stay away from Bell St Maccas (a known late night hangout for 'youths') and the main street near my place (Sydney Rd to be precise) because 'anglo girls won't be safe'

Huzzah. The madness spreads.

 

I know the firs thing I'm doing if I get a message is walking around the corner to the cop-shop.
Normally I'd just call all my mates but this stuff is just too crazy to even want to get involved.

 

Yeah, did that this morning. Went to the cops I mean. Seeing as the number was disconnected when I rang it back, I don't know what can be done really. *shrugs* Well, I know that they can trace it abck to the person who started the phone account but eh...

It just seems like so much madness...

 

I'm with Elliot on that one. I'd be going to the cops.

I can't believe a family was attacked over here in W.A. I can't see how that has anything to do with gangs in N.S.W!!!! insane.

 

That's just ****ed, Jess. Do we know if anything happened there?

 

I'd hate to say this, but this is nothing in comparisson to what I and my family have seen. That's not to say I don't think it's serious, or warrants attention - which it is and does - but I'm just not afraid of this, really.

Anyway, moving along...

 

It is unbelievably ****ed Dan, I didn't appreciate it much.



And I know Deto that you've seen horrible things Hopefully we aren't just getting started with Cronulla et al.

 

><

car was spat on by a guy down at Banksia this arvo...

getting steadily more crappy right now...

 

I truly feel sorry for you people in this situation.

But feel happy living in sleepy little Adelaide. No problems of such nature here yet. Thankfully.

Keep safe you lot.

 

But feel happy living in sleepy little Adelaide.

Yes, but the trade-off is you have to live in Adelaide. (just a joke...)

Sorry to hear it Kate. Spit wipes off, the threat and insult lasts longer.

It seems that a certain element don't want to just let this go and move on....

 

I got some lebanese mates, and they have just gotten sms's circulating here in perth about something on mullaloo beach on saturday its starting to get beyond stupid now.. meh!

 

Grrr. This is ****ed. We don't even have an ethnic problem in Perth!!!

 

Yeah well the dumbasses on the news talked about the sms... and talked to the bloke who runs the mullaloo pub! so now everyone will know about something going down there on sunday it is not saturday :/

bah

 

You have to wonder how much the media instigates this sort of thing...

 

They shouldn't have announced where the sms told to meet up on the news.

If they were going to cover it, they should have just spoke of the sms and that's it. Not bloody announce where it was planned to occur!

 

^^ And that's exactly why there were more than 5,000 people at Cronulla...

 

Yeah! that's why I was so amazed that they did the same thing over here in W.A.

morons.

 

Cause of the media, people from all over Sydney went, all the locals stayed home.

The police had about 10 cop cars doing breath tests along the grand parade last night coming home. Guess for this and also those coming home from the Greenday concert.

 

You gotta understand, the media are LOVING these riots. The same way as CNN loves the war in Iraq.
The local Perth media are gonna be thrilled that there's possibly going to be a riot here.

 

Apparantly, Ive been hearing reports that these 'mob's' are coming up my way tonite, which is North-West Sydney. Will be interesting to see if anybody rocks up...well apart from the normal hoods who hang outside Castle Towers at insane times during the night.

 

I'm glad I live in a pissweak city sometimes.
God bless Perth!

 

From a statistical perspective ...


Reports put the number of people involved in the riots at about 5000. Latest census figures put the number of folks in Sydney aged 15-44 years at about 1.7 million. So if we accept the numbers reported, the rioters represent a whole 0.3% of the population in their age group - or 0.125% of the entire population of sydney. Which is, statistically speaking, diddly squat.


The arabic side of the coin is harder, since there are no real numbers reported. The only report is "50 car loads of middle-eastern youths." If we accept this count, with an average of 5 people per car, that's about 250 people. It's not accurate, but it's the best I have atm. Latest census figures put the arabic population of sydney at about 160,000, which works out at about 0.15% of the arabic population - or about the same proportion as rioters. Which is no great surprise, statistically speaking.
(Even if there were equal numbers, that's still only 3% of the arabic population).


So in purely practical terms, 5000 anglo-saxon and (say) 250 arabic idiots running around waging a war in sydney is a problem (as we can see on the news).

But in statistical terms, they are such infinitesimally small proportions of their respective populations that you would not even consider them worthy of a mention. They wouldn't even show up on a pie-chart.

Which is just putting into numbers what is commonly known yet strangely absent from the news reports: the people involved, on both sides, are anomalies, representing <1% of their respective populations.