Have you been hearing about the riots and violence going on in Australia? Some female lifeguards were assaulted by Lebanese Arab muslims. Now full scale race riots have broken out. Whites of all persuations fueled by fascist groups are rioting and attacking innocent Arabs. Arabs have attacked innocent Australians of European descent. It is ugly business. I have visited downunder many times and am so sorry that all of this is occurring.

One thing that comes to my mind is the ease of identifying people of Middle East descent, especially when they are not in the Middle East. Of course, that doesn't mean they can also be identified by country or religion, but given the way the Middle East has been vilified by our country, particularly, it makes me wonder about these incidents in Australia and France, for example. Has a notion been built that middle eastern people are the targets in the Western world, sort of like communists were the target in the sixties and seventies--I think of Hollywood movies from that time which portrayed Russians and other communists as the bad guys(think James Bond movies); now the bad guys are Arabs. And since they do not look like Westerners do, are easier targets for retaliations and provocations, largely I suspect unjustified.

And I think back to the famous Geo Bush line, "You are either with us or against us." and wonder what a line like that means in these times--it automatically defines anyone who questions something as against us, and thus a target.

So maybe my question is, Does anyone else see how this is all related? So a Aussie lifeguard(I did not see a report that it was a female) is roughed up by a Lebanese, and in retaliation, and using text messages and cellphones, others like the lifeguard(Aussie, young and blond and tan) attack someone, anyone who is not like them which causes another set of attacks from those unlike the others. Sad.

A few weeks ago some female lifeguards were attacked. Then three more white females including a 15 year old. Then tensions really boiled over when three white male lifeguards aged 15, 17 and 19 were assaulted and their equipment stolen by Arabs. There have been numerous incidences of Arabs stealing lifeguards equipment and bullying white surfers. It is such a tragedy that bad apples on both sides have caused this. Last night on BBC news I saw what looked like thousands of mainly white young men running around shouting and carrying signs. Some females were attacking a Muslim man. Police were attacked. On and on. This is full scale race riots.

Not sure I follow your first paragraph. It is an historical fact that Communists were trying to subvert/conquer/destroy the Western world. While Hollywood used that in fiction, for them to be portrayed as "the bad guys" was not inconsistent. And straight from the source's mouth many jihadists and Islamists are bent on destroying things Western, including democracy, rights and freedoms, women's rights, Israel and the Jews, among other things. By their own statements they do not want to learn how to get along, practice tolerance or accept diversity. Blowing themselves up to kill others bespeaks a fanaticism that is both scary and daunting to combat. These events are not manufactured in Hollywood. And they are not simply reactionary to what we do or don't do. They are originators as much as they are reactors.

Don't know whether the issues in France, Australia, and other places are all related. I don't know much about it, but it seems the issues in France seem to be driven by economics as much as race/ethnic conflict, at least on the part of the rioters. I know even less about the situation in Australia, except that the initial incidents seem to have been robbery and thuggery. Being an Arab or a Middle Easterner doesn't give anyone a right to rob and steal and then claim it was racism that made you do it. Nor does a desire for justice give a group the right to become vigilantes and extract their own form of "justice." Get your point on that one and agree completely. So often these seem like classic cases of 2 wrongs not making a right.

I always was led to believe "racial tension" was simply an American thing.... eek!

Oh my!

Now I hear, "Australia"!?

What next...."France"!?

Wait...thats already happened.....

NJ

Whoa there - slow down a minute. It's not "whites of all [persuasion]" but a minority of lower socio-econimic, xenophobic, intolerant fools, fuelled by testosterone, sun, alcohol and other fools rioting in an outer suburb of Sydney. The majority of the rest of the city and country are looking at this episode with dismay and disgust - but it is not a reflection on what is happening in the rest of the country. It is not as if the entire country is going up in flames. Furthermore, the riots are contained to the one small pocket of Sydney.

What irks me most is the same tired line of a unique Australian culture "threatened by multiculturalism and immigration". Australian history is built on multiculturalism and migration starting with the Aboriginal indigenous people, the convict transports, the chinese migration onto the Australian goldfields during the gold rush era (without doubt, most country town in Australia has its Jade Palace, or the Green Dragon serving up a mish mash of chinese cuisine developed over the years to cater to the white Australian palate), the Irish and English migrants, the Greeks after the war and the Arabs. That "unique Australian culture" that is being trumpeted by uneducated idiots is in reality a hodge podge of the migrant experience.

Aggggghhhhhhhhhh. I just cannot stand this ridiculous notion of nationalism that would deny anything and anyone who is different.

That may be somewhat of an overgeneralization, and no more true than saying that capitalists want to take over the world, exploit it, and hideaway in their expensive enclaves will the poor live in the remainder of a decimated planet. There are some with good intentions in both parties, however selfishly both have imposed their faiths.

[quote]sportinlife:
[/quote]That may be somewhat of an overgeneralization, and no more true than saying that capitalists want to take over the world, exploit it, and hideaway in their expensive enclaves will the poor live in the remainder of a decimated planet. There are some with good intentions in both parties, however selfishly both have imposed their faiths. [/QUOTE]
It doesn't make it less true because others have their own goals and ideals.

Communists in belief, not just in name, believed in the demise of other systems, and in general pursued a course of overthrowing non-communist governments to bring about that expected historic inevitability. In reality, much of what happened was actually power politics using communist rhetoric that led to the exploitation of millions of people for the benefit of a minority (see naked capitalism with a communist veneer).

Please do not read into my comments something I didn't say. I didn't say capitalism was great or without blemish. I wasn't making the old comparison as if communism was bad, so capitalism could only be considered solely good. I was responding to the example of Communists that the previous poster had used. Certainly Hollywood made many movies in which capitalists were portrayed as the bad guys. And those also came for plenty of real historical examples.

Although personally I don't know that true capitalists want to take over the world. I would agree that they just want the chance to exploit it fully, completely, without regulation or having to clean up the results. True Ferengis.

Mixie, thanks for posting.

I have a bunch of questions and I don't really know anyone from Australia who might answer them. First, were the Lebanese involved in the first attacks Muslims? I ask because almost 40% of the Lebanese in Lebanon are Christian, and I thought that outside Lebanon, in the US, in France, in Brazil, etc., most are CHRISTIANS. Outside of the Lebanese, is there a large Arab population? Is there a large Muslim population (and wouldn't most of the Muslims be non-Arabs, like Malays, Indonesians, Pakistanis, etc.)?

Haven't there been Lebanese in Australia even before the 1973 change to the immigration laws that ended the White Australia policy? One of the most famous Australian writers I teach is David Malouf, whose father was Lebanese. He's considered white and Australian, not even Lebanese-Australian really. Right? Is the tension among the working-class and poor whites mainly with recent (last 20-25 years) Lebanese immigrants and their children?

How much have the Bali bombings and Australia's participation in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as the conservatism of the Howard government, shock radio, etc., played a role in fomenting these tensions?

Is there really a Lebanese "gang" problem?

Do most Australians not consider Lebanese "white"? Growing up in the US, I went to school with a number of Roman and Maronite Catholic Lebanese-Americans (with last names like Khoury, Shalhoub, Nye, Nouhan, Nouri, etc.) who considered themselves "white." Lebanese in many countries are considered white as well as Arab; Brazil has lots of them, as do Mexico (several of its billionaires are of Lebanese ancestry, etc.); the Lebanese, along with many other whites, and the Americo-Liberians (who were Black) had to flee Liberia at the start of the civil war launched by Doe, etc. So is this view of Lebanese as not white new? Just wondering.

(Update: I actually found this page on Lebanese-Americans that says that 90% are Christian. Some famous Lebanese Americans are John Sununu and his son, the senator from New Hampshire; George Mitchell, the former majority leader; Paul Anka; Casey Kasem; Helen Thomas; Ralph Nader; etc. All of these people, I would imagine, consider themselves "white." So who defines "white" in Australia? Also, the page says most are not Arabs but descended from the Phoenicians, and another large chunk are Armenian. Interesting....)

[ December 13, 2005, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

Yowza! I just checked that Lebanese-American page, and learned that the following folks are or were also Lebanese-Americans:

John Elway, Danny Thomas, Marlo Thomas, Donna Shalala, Spencer Abraham, Yasmine Bleeth, Shannon Elizabeth, Sammy Haggar, Frank Zappa, Doug Flutie, Jeff George, Wendy Malick (of "Just Shoot Me"), Michael Nouri, G.E. Smith, Neil Sedaka, and Tiffany. I would assume all of these folks are considered (by most Americans) to be "white." Right?

I lived in Beruit when I was a teenager (Civil War was going on @ the time!) and there were 2 sides to the City - West and East....if you belonged to one side of the city....you didn't wanna be caught on the other.....

However....most Lebanese (that I knew) didn't see themselves as Arab....they considered themselves "Western European".....sorta like the Turks.....

Beautiful country filled with beautiful people....most of the violence that went on was brought on by outsiders.....sound familiar?

NJ

So what are we doing in Iraq? Over 100,000 Iraqis (countless actually) have died to prevent them from allowing another 9/11 event in this country. Didn't we lost a war in Vietnam because we thought we could install a better way?

I should add that I don't see communism or capitalist "democracy" as a solution to all problems. Both are vulnerable to corruption and hijacking by crimininals. There is no substitute for law-abiding citizens of goodwill, who will make good laws that they themselves can abide by. So far no system has a monopoly on that - certainly not the USA, or either the former or current Russian ones. People of good will within each are searching and trying.

Getting back to the Australia situation, it can not be ignored that an undercurrent of instability has been brewing there long before the whites-only policy. It has a much smaller population than the USA and the ruling European majority has always been sensitive to population changes that disfavor them. This is really the tip of an iceberg and the violence against middle eastern appearing people is largely redirected jealousy at the success of Asians at the expense of middle and lower class whites IMO.

[ December 14, 2005, 04:16 AM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]

Hey Sportinlife: It seems you think I'm an apologist for US policy in Iraq and that I somehow think that capitalism is all good. I can't quite figure out how to make this clear...I was only responding to the post about communists being shown as the bad guys, as if that image were created out of nothing. Communism oppressed millions. We, the US or US policy, did not somehow create that image. It was a reality from their own actions.

At no point did I say that naked capitalism (which is not democracy, btw) is without flaws. Nor did I suggest that US policy is always right, good, perfect, done with only the purest of motives.

The US has had a long history of interfering in the affairs of other countries. See Guatemala, Nicarauga, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada, among others. Even though a democracy with a commitment to rights and freedoms, the US, as Britain has done over the years, practices realpolitik. Yet the US also has a history of supporting the democractic strivings of other people/countries. See Greece, Argentina, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, among others.

At the start I believe we were in Vietnam to prevent a communist takeover, as in Korea, not to install a better way. Please note that I am not defending the choice, just clarifying the purpose. Part of the problem that developed for the US was in not recognizing that the North Vietnamese were nationalists first, communists second. So rather than fighting communism, to put this simplistically, we were fighting nationalist strivings, and were involved in a civil war.

Where does the figure of 100,000 dead in Iraq come from?

All this to say...I don't think we actually have a real difference of opinion on communism/capitalism. They are each economic systems, and, as such, do not have a monopoly (although the capitalists would like to, if there were profit in it wink ) on addressing all needs and desires.

As for the original question, I don't know enough about the Australian situation to judge it. Economics often seems to play a central part in such tensions. Differences of appearance are easy ways to distinguish, and, unfortunately, fuel an us v. them attitude that can become ugly.

I've known Christian Lebanese who were Melkite Catholics, Maronite Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. The Lebanese in these attacks were Muslims mainly Sunni. Lebanese of course were originally Phoenicans, but when Islam spread there people started speaking Arabic and started considering themselves Arabic. The Christian Lebanese I know would speak of themselves by whatever sect they belonged to, as Lebanese and sometimes as Arabic. But all were decenent people who were not like the troublemakers in these attacks. And most Australians of European background are certainly not involved in these crimes. But they do come from all socio economic backgrounds, not just disenfranschised youths.

Such as:

Aussie Action Report

That was back in October 2004. I assume not counting the deaths of combatants, mostly "insurgents". Perhaps I misunderstood or misinterpreted your previous posts. I apologize.

But this study was well publicized when first released and referenced on this website I recall.

Thanks Sportinlife. Such studies seem to have a methodology, and are better than nothing. Although by their own admission it is only an estimate and imprecise, so the word "estimated" or "calculated" in front of a figure would acknowledge the potential for being off. Unless I read it too quickly, it was a study of Iraqi deaths, so it would have included insurgents. Wonder if there are any more recent estimates of deaths attributable to the US led invasion. One that would also identify how many Iraqi's have died at the hands of the insurgents as well.

Well we only recently learned about the transport of prisoners to other countries for torcher. Any truth from this situation must be couched in speculation until we get a government that does not lie to us.

Why Melbourne is my favorite Aus city, and the one I would most like to see again, and perhaps live in one day. They know they are at risk too.

And you are more than welcome to visit and live Mr Sportinlife. Of interest, our Premier in Victoria, Steve Bracks (who is mentioned in the article that you have linked to), is of Lebanese descent.

To Fantomas - I've read your queries above and hopefully I'll have time soon to respond with an adequate answer to each of them.

See: Bush's Job Approval Dips to New Low

and scroll about 2/3's of the way down to my post.

Study puts civilian toll in Iraq at over 100,000

To read The Lancet online, you need a subscription. There are many more hits for this article.

Google for \"johns hopkins iraq lancet\"

Sorry, I can not let that one slip by... My apologies to all for digressing here.

“It is an historical fact that Communists were trying to subvert/conquer/destroy the Western world. “

The people who were trying to take over the world were Marxist and Totalitarian, and bore little resemblance to ‘communist’s’ despite their sobriquet.

“That may be somewhat of an overgeneralization, and no more true than saying that capitalists want to take over the world, exploit it, and hideaway in their expensive enclaves will the poor live in the remainder of a decimated planet.”

NO. Maybe you have never encountered the EVIL that existed in those Totalitarian societies, I have. I saw the incredible desperation of the people of East Germany and Russia as their leaders crushed dissent and destroyed creativity. The long queues of people hoping to get cabbages, bread, and vodka before the supplies disappeared, living quiet lives of total desperation; while party leaders shopped in special gourmet boutiques and plundered the world for their personal aggrandizement and profit. The Leaders of the ‘Communist World’ were solely interested in the furtherance of their own personal pleasure, unrestrained by morals or conscience.

As a Child I knew my next door neighbor, who with his sister stole a East German Army truck then crashed through a border crossing to reach freedom. After surviving months of interrogations from allied intelligence agencies, he applied for and joined the US Army because “it gave me a chance to kill Communists.”

I knew my best friends Mom who grew up in, and survived a Japanese concentration camp, and then a Chinese ‘Re-education camp’, who made it to the West, educated herself to become a doctor, and then offered her services for free to the US Army :as long as they would kill communists for her. When she paid her families taxes every year she paid the full amount and never took a single deduction because the government needed the money more – to kill more communists so that her native country could someday be free.

I knew a man whose entire family had been wiped out – more than 400 relatives – first by the Germans when they fought them in the resistance, then by their Soviet saviors when they became a nuisance to them. He watched as his two sons were shot by native Poles and Chezks who supported the Germans; and later as his three daughters and his wife were gang raped and then buried alive by the Russian ‘Resistance’.

As an Army Sgt stationed in Germany during the late 80’s I saw the downside of a system that destroyed the human spirit. A system millions attempted to flee from. A system that routinely arrested, beat, and imprisoned anyone who might challenge the ruling order.

“There are some with good intentions in both parties, however selfishly both have imposed their faiths.”

No, it is historical revisionism to credit the greatest terror of the 20th Century with ‘good intentions’ or to discredit their mass murder records by claiming that it was the work of just a few, a minority. Millions actively participated in the nightmares that became Totalitarian Communism. Millions bear the blame for its distinguished record of excess.

It is not an overgeneralization to credit Totalitarian Communism and its apparatchiks with the hunger to destroy the world in their lust for personal aggrandizement and self indulgence. It is not overgeneralization to credit Totalitarian Communism and its apparatchiks with the hunger to subvert, conquer, and destroy.

It is the common arrogance of any group that thinks they have the one true faith and destiny to impose on everyone else for their redemption. It is the common arrogance of any group that thinks they are owed more than their share because they are the ‘one true faith’ privilidged above all others for their service.

Rob

Thanks for the invite Mixie. Perhaps I will some day. We'll see. I appreciate your personal experiences and respect your opinions. But sometimes being too close to the trees obscures the forest. 3,000,000 Vietnamese died due to our poor vision.

You know, it's incredibly tedious when every thread has to become all about the United States. This thread is reminding me of the CNN headline the day after to London bombings: THE LONDON BOMBINGS: WHAT IT MEANS TO US!

Americans are fine people, and likeable people, but by God, does absolutely everything have to be about you?

It took a whole day for that headline to be used? wink Isn't it always about us (US)? Aren't we always the cause of others hating us, objecting to us, attacking us?............as one of the posters, I'll say good reminder chuck. Canadian Mounties to the rescue again.

Chuck, it always is all about us...always has been, always will be. Get used to it. Someday, when your country grows up, maybe every other nation on the planet will hate you as much as they hate us! I hope you realize this post is oozing with sarcasm.

I personally think it's safer if everybody forgets we're up here, just like a quiet little mouse hiding in the church balcony. And now back to Australia...

From my vast experience of the two times I've been in Australia I found it fair to say that Australia does have it's own fears and racism based on history and geography.

Yes, thugs are thugs, and although that's what the thread is, I'm just musing in general. Sorry, guilty of exactly what I complained of in my last post.

When there, I was aware that the 17 million people of Australia are floating underneath nearly 250 million Indonesians, not to mention a billion Chinese and the rest of Asia. The unease of the thought of "being overrun" is not unfamiliar to me, outnumbered 10 to 1 by my fine American friends to the south. (Fortunately, the US of A looks inward, not outward.) Ask any North American Native, or Australian Aboriginal what happens when superior numbers come calling.

The pioneer (on youjr own) spirit in a very straight forward people has nurtured the Australian spirit that has so much that is admirable about it. Unfortunately, no people seems to be immune from its share of alcohol fueled (or just plain natural) morons. May this episode be left in the past, where it belongs.

Did anyone see this piece in Sports Illustrated?

It appears racism is ripe in good old Italy too.

Paolo Di Canio