A quick heads up to a couple of things LP readers might find interesting.
John Quiggin and I have an article published in the Fin today (online for subscribers only) - “Bad Choices for Work” on the likely implications of WorkChoices.
Jason Soon has an excellent post at Catallaxy on the Cronulla riots. Go read!
Update: More on the Cronulla sharks at Andrew Leigh’s place. Rex looks at media and political reaction at Labor First, The Currency Lad has a different take, Gary Sauer-Thompson examines “One Nation nationalism”, Rooster questions the use of Australian symbols by rioters, Tim Blair describes the rioters as “beach trash” and links to RWDB reaction in the blogosphere, and Darp looks at how to go forward from an anti-racist perspective.
Further update: More on Cronulla by Glen and Andrew Norton.
I vented here:
http://stoush.net/comment/reply/100/504
Timbo is a decent bloke but some of his readers are plain frightening, especially that idiot named Amos
funny how Andrea or Timbo does not invoke his comments policy on people who clearly breach it!
A decent bloke? Pfft. He’s been a foremost dogwhistler, and now he wrings his hands at the result (while, of course, managing to blow the whistle again by spreading blame to “both sides”).
Some people just can’t help themselves, it seems.
Mark, they had to burn the school to get me out.
What is your point?
Homer, you shouldn’t assume I was linking to your comment!
Mark, where is your article in the paper version of the Fin, do you know? Looked through it three times now …
That Neil Shoebridge is rather prolific. Hope he gets paid by the word.
Crisis over. Mine had pages missing, found one not so cannabalised.
Trackback
“‘Cronulla’ is now a name forever associated with popularist racial violence. […] Beyond the racist/alterity/po-co angle, which I don’t feel like I can say much about, the media must pay the price for the unethical part they played.”
Glen, would you say that ‘Leb’ is also now a name forever associated with popularist racial violence?
As in Australian women being called “Christian whores,”, “white sluts” and “Aussie pigs.”
All those phrases, for the record, were used by the infamous Lebanese sexual terror gangs in Sydney.
Perhaps you should read Kim’s latest post and apply its message to accounts of Lebanese gangs marauding on Sydney beaches, telling white women in bikinis to cover up or be raped.
The commenter you linked to is an American reader, Mark. I don’t subscribe to all his views anymore than you subscribe to, say, all of mine.
CL just can’t bring himself to actually condemn a race riot. Shame, CL, shame.
Perhaps you should read what I published more twelve hour sago. Shame you can’t read.
Bill Posters’ usual tactic is to let loose with invective without informing himself: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2005/12/05/is-this-sedition/#comment-40892
A master of half-cocked indignation.
CL: read it, didn’t think much of it.
P. 22, Amanda, for anyone else looking!
err, yeah, CL, I _would_ associate ‘Leb’ with popularist racial violence because that is what the reactionary nationalist fools who rioted at Cronulla were shouting!
‘Cronulla’ is not just a name or a place, but a name of an event. I am not sure you are fully appreciating the scale of what has happened on the weekend.
The to-ing and fro-ing between idiots on both sides of the ethnic divide does not erase the fact that people like John Howard have used the divide to their own political advantage, rather than attempting to quell the tensions that exist across it. People in the media are just as bad describing Howard’s actions in almost reverentional tones ‘oh, he is such a good political operator’ and so on. No, Howard is a bloody hack who can not lead in any sense of the term; using an apt metaphor, he _surfs_ the hatred he whips up in the mass-population using a complicit mass-media. We are witnessing the effects of a decade of exremely poor social governance.
Howard is a punk. I am glad this riot has happened only because now historians will look back and see it as his true political legacy.
I think I understand what C.L. says, but s/he conflates too much in trying to find patterns.
C.L.: you’re not questioning your ideas enough. Look for potential problems in your ideas as well as confirmation.
Ban Him CL
“All those phrases, for the record, were used by the infamous Lebanese sexual terror gangs in Sydney.”
Which is just a discredited culture - warrior way of saying “All those phrases, used by a criminal gang, now in jail”. Dare I say that tarring the Lebanese community as a whole has been part of problem here. That they *arent* collectively responsible for the behaviour of specified individuals is surely the important message from the Cronulla Beerhall putsch.
Howard finally got around to making some comments at 1pm, condemning the action, which were apparently “non-racist”, in his warped, defensive view. I hope he spent a good bunch of uncomfortable hours this morning, realising what a pile of shit he’s turning our country into. “Worst PM ever” is written all over this sorry episode.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/australians-not-racist-says-pm/2005/12/12/1134235983741.html
I doubt that very much.
Picked up the Fin at lunch. Very nice work Mark (and John). Be interested in the responses (if any).
Probably right there Bill. However, Im sure he *was* squirming around figuring how to dodge the merest hint of responsibility; and worse, pondering how he’s going to spin this PR disaster in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.
On the popularist distinction (ie made by Howard in the article linked to aboce by lefty elitist) between racism and other events in this popularist reactionary nationalism see Jon Stratton’s book on Pauline Hanson _Race Daze_. Stratton investigated how Hanson could say that she wasn’t racist and, in one sense, be correct. He is also one of my old Profs from Curtin Uni.
“Within the Australia of European, ‘white’ multiculturalism, ‘race’ has become a marker of a cultural difference which is, in some way, incompatible with Australian, or Anglo-Celtic-Australian, or Anglo-Celtic-European-Australian culture. The variety of these terms signals the lived uncertainty as to how, precisely, the claimed ‘core’ Australian culture is composed. At the same time, race tends t be seen as not determinative of this cultural difference. Rather, it is thought of as a signifier of it. Certainly as I shall argue, this is how Hanson tends to think of race, hence her outraged claim that she is not a racist. For her, it would seem, the term racist is only applicable to those who think of race as determining ‘culture’ in soe way, not to those like herself who use it as a way of categorising culture and signalling an incompatibility of cultures which, it is thought, cannot be overcome.” pg 45.
“In the new racism, as in Hanson’s rhetoric [and that of John Howard], the connection between ‘race’ and ‘culture’ has not been lost, rather it is articulated differently. ‘Culture’ is now the privileged term. With ‘race’ no longer considered to determine ‘culture’, that is anybody of any race can assimilate into any culture, it has come to be used as a signifier which marks the claimed incompatibility of cultures. The point to keep in mind here is that culture is itself a term as problematic as race. As I have been suggesting, the image of culture as a discrete entity with clear limits and an internal cohesion is one that can be tracked back to both late-nineteenth0century anthropology and nineteenth-century claims about national cultures.” pg 63-64
CL’s atempted emblematic idenification of ‘Leb’ with sexist and racist acts or discourse fits perfectly with Stratton’s claim that race has come to be a signifier that “marks the claimed incompatibility of cultures.” Howard’s refusal to call these acts racist shows that he is refusing to admit a determinative relation between his use of the divide in ethnic tensions and race.
Lefty E - I don’t know what version of Howard’s comments you read, but it sounds very much like you scanned the SMH’s website headline: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-refuses-to-use-racist-tag/2005/12/12/1134235985480.html
That headline sets new standards in subeditorial dishonesty. Howard was asked if he thought “Australians” were racist. He said no (naturally), but went on to give his non-exceptional views on the culpability of the participants in the violence. The SMH then says he refused to apply the “racist” tag. Quite extraordinary.
Bismarck: another way of looking at it is that the SMH refused to fall for Howard’s rhetorical sleight of hand. Choose whichever explanation you prefer.
Have you read the article, Bill? I doubt it.
Carry on making up whatever you like about whatever I have or haven’t done, then.
Yes, Glen your Prof is right - problem is, loads of the supporters dont really get the culturalist angle, and blur the lines in the streets. Same happened with Hanson - all sorts of fringe crazies and old-fashioned racists heard the dog whistle and came running. Because ultimately, the more sophisticated “cultural incompatibility” argument is just a whistled refrain on the old tune. And its normally nothing deeper than a dressed-up reaction to the last group to arrive. She e.g. was actually worried about Asians (as “they form ethnic gangs and dont assimilate”). No-one is now.
I hadnt read the SMH - but I have now, and there’s the big wink to the rioters. All sorts of understanding flowing from the PM about ethnic gangs who dont integrate.; and a big denial from the PM that the rioters could themselves be considered a “gang” (being, of course, Anglo-mainstream folk).
Hopeless leadership.
Hopeless?
Or evil beyond any of our suspicions?
I’m still reeling with shock that this unspeakable disgrace has happened.
Peter Costello: ”We don’t want to see Australia become like this - it’s not the Australia we know, it’s not the Australia we want,”
Shorter Howard government: But if that’s the price Australians have to pay for us to retain power, it is the Australia we want, bring it on. Besides, we don’t fucking care because the states have to clean up the mess
Ooookay then. Obviously some of these subtleties are lost on some of us. To my mind, directly asking the PM whether the riots indicate that Australians as a group are racist and then using his denial to beat him with explores deeper semiotics than I am used to.
bismarck, do you mean ‘deeper signification’? because ‘deeper semiotics’ doesn’t make sense. ’semiotic exploration at a deeper level of signification’ makes sense.
anyway, it is not ‘deep’ signification at all, rather, it is purely superficial with the ‘racialising culturalist’ (instead of just ‘racist’) manipulation of people’s fears and prejudices on display for anyone to see in a blatantly obvious way.
Gough Whitlam: gave the green light to an East Timor genocide (250,000 dead) and called boat people unwanted “fucking Vietnamese Balts….”
Naturally, the left never calls their hero “evil.”
Howard: presides as PM while a bunch of yobs go beserk…
Laura: evil beyond any of our suspicions.
LOL.
CL, perhaps you should read some Foucault about the necessary conditions of a good genealogy. It is obvious to note, but there is very is little equivalence between post-9/11, ‘noughties’ Australia and the Australia of Whitlam’s era. Having said that, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think that what happened in East Timor is also a disgrace. Yet, the equivalences, if they had to be drawn, would not be between East Timor and Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, but East Timor and, say, Iraq… Did Australia actually send troops to East Timor to invade it? On the other hand, the South African rugby tour of Australia and Cronulla would involve similar issues. Except Gough’s Labor Government announced a boycott of apartheid South Africa…
Only on planet currency lad was Whitlam in charge of the Indonesian Army.
Actually, I agree with CL re Whitlam/ Timor, as he probably knows. I just dont see the connection with this thread.
Here’s our great leader, taking charge of the issue today:
“Its important not to over or under-react to this issue.”
Huh?
The biggest race riot in a century, and Howard’s mumbling incoherently into his shirt.
At least Iemma can say that racism was part of ‘a combination of factors’ with alcohol and the sun.
Izquierdista, as a Brisbane boy yourself as you say, wouldn’t you agree that the Brisbane riots in 1942 against American soldiers—especially the black soldiers—were the worst racist riots in the last century? Wouldn’t you also see the similarities of grog and heat and and common ignorant resentment?
Only on Planet Zarquon was radical hero Gough incapable of voicing a protest about Indonesia’s East Timor liquidation. Maybe he didn’t want any fuzzy-wuzzy boat people coming here either.
Interesting, Liam. There were many other smaller versions of the ‘Battle of Brisbane.’ I think it’s relevant that their causes were almost always related to women and the longstanding Australian aversion to overbearing arrogance.
At Cronulla we had wear a bikini and we’ll rape you. In Brisbane in 1942, we had suggestions from American troops that the Diggers’ women would be “taken care of” in their absence. At Cronulla, we had a strutting gang saying they “owned” the beach. In WWII Australia, the behaviour of the Americans was comparable in the minds of many humbly-attired and under-paid Australians.
You’ve swum miles out to sea on this Currency, without a life-jacket. Tread water and feel the currents, Lad.
A Clayton’s rebuttal, Christopher.
Noticed lotsa wavin’, just tryin’ to save a drownin’.
Us cretans can’t swim none too good.
Clearly.
These days it cant be easy being a supporter of multiculturalism - the doctrine that ethnicity should be basis of political culture. Our highly-esteemed cultural policy and polity makers have been encouraging ethnics to assert their identity for the past generation.
Now the ethnic chickens are coming home to roost, with a vendetta. First the London Bombings, then the Paris Burnings and now the Cronulla Bashings. All caused, or conditioned by, the ethnic-identified gangs of one sort or another.
The Larva-Prodders are indignant about the signs of an Australian nativist reaction. They have no one to blame but themselves. Newton taught that every action brings forth an equal and opposite reaction. So it makes a kind of twisted sense for Anglo-Celtic youths to face-off against Lebanese youths. The Skips are actually practising “multiculturalism with an Ocker face”. What did the Larva-Prodders expect? Dogs and Cats to finally make-up and mend their ways?
Intelligent Leftists in the UK have abandoned this doctrine. And the general populus is certainly swung to the “Right” on Culture. That is, to the Platonic-Lockean-Kantian position which emphasises citizenship over kinsmanship.
When will the Larva-Prodders finally stop twisting themselves into the intellectual equivalent of a pretzel and cave in, rather than defend the indefensible? After all, Leftists are meant to oppose racism, sexism and sectarianism. Yet multiculturalism breeds these three evils like the plague. The irony would be delicious if it were not soured by so much tragedy.
They should be pelted with dead dogs until they recant their foolish cultural philosophy. I have been issuing warnings of this for years, and copped nothing but abuse for my troubles. Still, at least I can say I told them so.
Well spotted Liam, (hyperbole, thy name is LE).
Lets say, then, worst race riots in 50 years, agreed?
To pick you up on the point though - the anti-black GI riots were in most cases an intra-US army affair, stewarded at best by puzzled diggers (including my Grandad, as it happens, in the Townsville version) -
so, you know, foreigners bringing their problems and not integrating! (etc…)
Indeed, many black GIs recount fondly Diggers joining them in fights against White GIs.
Far more public, if not ‘worse’ per se, was the Battle of Brisbane, as you no doubt well know - a three day riot between Yanks and Diggers. Not a racial element in that case, asa it took place in the CBD (where it was white yanks only).
The shorter Chris: “”
Howard clearly does not want to deal with the issue of racism. Wonder how that’ll go down with the ASEAN types?
Nice trick Jack. The Right stuffs it for ten years with race-baiting, populist wedges and then says “look, it doesnt work!”.
A confession is more apt than a gloat.
At Cronulla, we had a strutting gang saying they “owned� the beach.
…and that was just the lifeguards.
So bashing emergency service personnel is OK is it Robert? The Police Commissioner says it’s “un-Australian.” I agree with him.
No of course it’s bloody not, CL. I was being facetious.
You seem unable to comprehend that the people insisting they “own” the beach are the “Aussie” locals — or that the lifeguards are often just the respectable face of beach thugs, and drawn from the membership of gangs like the Bra Boys.
Here’s what the local MP said:
Heaven forbid that some outsider darkie should want to swim or kick a football on their beach, eh? Why don’t we install an apartheid regime wherein certain beaches are designated Leb beaches, so that upstanding white citizens (who would never dream of assaulting women or ambulance officers) can swim in peace.
Sigh. The mob concerned didn’t go to the beach to kick a football, Robert. As for the apartheid idea, I don’t support the all-whites angle - actually, yesterday’s yob mob included many non-whites. (Nice attempt at a whitey-darkie dichotomy). Quarantining neanderthals who threaten to rape women, however, sounds like a good idea. I suggest an unpatrolled and shark-infested stretch.
No, CL, the mob didn’t go to the beach to kick a football. But I daresay some of its victims did.
Absolutely. But unless you want to do what the mob did yesterday — declare that all “Lebs” are neanderthals who threaten to rape women — you’re going to have to face up to the fact that this is a fight between macho pricks of various ethnic persuasions, who are fighting over territorial claims to the surf and the sand — and the women. It’s about who gets to ogle the women and proposition them inappropriately. Both sides are disgusting.
Incidentally, and to play a game you play around these parts from time to time:
A chap called Dan, commenting at your blog, said the mob violence was “a sign of moral health”. He went on to suggest that we all call our violent mates to “leave them [Muslims] in NO DOUBT, that Australia belongs to you, will always belong to you”. Although you have read these comments, you have not criticised them. I will therefore take it that you endorse the sentiments.
Robert, you are spot on. Referring to the original lifeguard-bashing incident according to this report (but not mentioned here) it was a question of kicking a football:
“Premier Iemma said the riots had been a response to the bashing of two lifeguards at Cronulla the previous weekend after he told a groups of youths, said to be Lebanese, to stop playing soccer. (One man has been charged over the incident.)”
As a sidenote, where I grew up we created novel ways of curbing peer-group stupidity. First, when I was 5 (at primary school, with unsupervised play time for the first time) it was “skill”: the bum disease you got when you were showing off and you approriately said “skill” (like you were your own mono-syllabic commentator). Then it was label “hero”, which you received if you went it alone during a team ball sport, for example. These are just two examples. No one ever thought, “Oh, we had better curb the affects of peer group pressure because it might eventualy spiral into acts of utter stupidity.” But looking back that is what the net effect of such emergent cultural practices.
“Playing soccer” is another way of saying “a loosely organised sporting contest that allows young men to show off in front of their peers.” The machismo masculinity needs further investigation here. Where is my mate clif…?
Gee Glen, I wonder why the Tele didn’t pick up on the wisdom of an opinion piece in The Age entitled “A Potpourri of Causes: Bali, Tampa, 9/11.” (They left out “George Bush”, “Area 51″ and “Wapping”). I especially enjoyed the Muslim spokesman who denounced stereotyping by reference to the “Kath ‘n’ Kim” territory involved.
There was a brief, passing and grudging reference to the Lebanese sexual terror gangs on page two.
I think what you mean Robert is that I don’t apply an LP Stasi policy and ban people with whom I disagree.
This site ordered EP off the beach, as I recall.
Lefty Elitist on 12 December 2005 at 10:42 pm
No. The facts refute Lefty Elitist. The Cultural Right, under Howard, has managed to save Australia’s multi-racial polity from its feigned defenders. Mainly by attacking the rorts and posturing of multi-cultural politickers.
It is the Cultural Left which has practised race-baiting and race-hustling. When you encourage ethnic identity politics you encourage people to think of themselves in racial, rather than national, terms.
Here are the facts of alien intake and reception during the Howard decade:
Objectively, the overall rate of immigration.
Whats more, the NESB ratio is up to record levels:
Subjectively, the publics attitude towards immigration has softened over this period.
celebration of diversity”, of both the ethno-tribal multi-cultural and gangsta-global sub-cultural type.
It is the confluence of these two forms of diversity that are making urban life in the melting pot so “interesting” these days. The London Bombings, Paris Burnings and Cronulla Bashings prove that this sweet dream was always going to be a nightmare in reality. I have been warning of this for years. This gives me ideological vindication, but I would willingly trade this feeling to do without the street hassle.
Its time for the Cultural Left to ‘fess up, admit they were wrong about cultural policy and about face. They need to return to the Enlightenment tradition of free and equal citizenship.
Naomi, you are spot on.
Jack, I think you are getting there but not quite. You see, the problem isn’t mulitculturalism but capitalism.
These are tensions which have been grown and exacerbated by a certain class for its own benefit. In this case it was the Liberal Party political class and its allies in the media stirring up shit so as to distract people’s attention from the real crime in Canberra.
Am I the only one who remembers what happened in Canberra last week?
Am I the only one disgusted by the disembowlment of a socially responsible Australia through IR reform and Anti-Terrorism Tyranny?
Am I the only one disgusted that our involvement in Iraq will continue for another year?
My greatest fear is that they will fan this racism even more so as to encourage white hoons to go over to the middle-east for more war…
CL, your site’s comments policy is, of course, your own concern. If someone posted that rubbish here on my blog, I would have no trouble telling people I disagreed with them. But if incitements to racial violence (against Muslims, at least) go unreprimanded on your blog, then I think it’s fair to ask why.
I wonder whether you even read that article in The Age. It was Bruce Baird — who sides with the “Aussie” lynch mob — who blamed 11/9 and Bali, as well as the rape cases:
This is because he does what you do — make a list of every bad thing any Muslim has ever done, and hold them all accountable for it, while ignoring or at least downplaying the bad behaviour of the acceptable, white population of Cronulla.
For instance, your blog condemns one of the Sydney rapists because he thinks women have no right to say no. You paint that as a cultural trait common to Muslims — I’d say it’s something rapists have in common, regardless of their professed religion. I trust you will hang on every self-excusing word uttered in court by a white rapist, will hold all whites responsible for their attitude, and will post accordingly on your blog.
Naomi: it’s strange that Howard is playing footsies with the racist right? Politics as usual, surely.
Jack Strocchi, I think I speak for everyone here when I say you should put some pants on, your arse is speaking too much.
Who is it arguing that the beach belongs to everyone? Who is it arguing that there should be no no-go areas in cities? Who is arguing that people have a right to be safe both from gang and mob violence? Everyone is, Jack, wet and dry, or whatever.
You might consider it appropriate to use a terrible week’s events to ride your favourite hobby horse. I don’t.
So, the effective ghettoisation of Middle Eastern males by a maelstrom of anti-asylum seekers, anti-Lebanese, anti-terrorist propaganda form RW pollies and shock-jocks is contributing to a rennaisance in multiculturalism, Jack? To free an equal citizenship? Recent “facts” would suggest the opposite.
The problem Jack has, is that he takes a RW stereotype of what multiculturalism was in the labor years (when it was in fact support was quite bipartisan) and declares it real - when it was always rank nonsense. We’ve never had the type of ethnic ghetto-sponsoring policies - multiculturalism from Galbally on has always been seen as an integrative mechanism in a cross-generational sense, designed to faciltate poltical, economic and social participation, while allowing people to celebrate their home cultures (even as the kids drifted away from them, into new hybrid forms).
That that vision of multiculturalism is alive and well today, and unlikely in my view, to ever leave us, is *despite* the efforts of federal government over the last ten years. What Howard *has* done is to run a neat line with Hansonite insecurities, bringing Anglo-Celtic idenitity back to the historical centre-stage, while, as you note, in fact bringing immigration back to late Hawke-era levels. The problem with souble-act / lie, which is “you know what Im thinking, its gone too far” is that it a catalyst or two later and it breaks into this sort of public gang-type, ghettoised, territorial identity politics we’ve just seen in Cronulla - the very thing I would have though you might oppose, Mr Strocchi.
That Alan Jones link is gobsmacking. Wasn’t there a similar bloke on radio in Rwanda in 94?
Incidentally, on CL’s general beef: Im no Sydney boy, but wasnt the OZ classic 70s flim “Puberty Blues” set around Cronulla?
I seem to recall chicks weren’t allowed in the surf, certainly not on a board, cos it was a blokes bizness.
“Surfies. Defending our bitches from Muslim oppression since 1976″
Jack, the very same multiculturalism you condemn has led to the Bra Boys brokering a peace deal. It seems that multiculturalism does work for those exposed to it long enough like Maroubra, where the ‘wogs’ are part of the gangs. I do find this sort of odd, but whatever works …
http://smh.com.au/news/national/gang-peace-deal-appeal/2005/12/13/1134236033030.html
Robert, and many others, you are commenting on things you don’t understand.
The Lebanese gangs certainly do play soccer on the beach, but it’s not the innocent activity you think. They often deliberately cause their games to expand across areas where other people are lying, or even start the game using such areas.
This seems to be a deliberately provocative action and if the people lying on the beach complain, they will be threatened or attacked by the entire Lebanese group. In the odd circumstance where a local prevails in such a dispute, or has mates with him, or the police intervene, the Lebanese will summon more Lebanese using mobile phones.
It’s a no-win for the police, who would be attacked by the multicultural lobby. Under Ryan, it also looked terrible in their statistics-based reporting system.
Lebanese gangs have been known as a problem throughout Sydney’s eastern beach suburbs for many years, although most people know not to say so directly.
Historically, lifesavers have had no authority to intervene in beach disputes, and so didn’t. Recently they gained the lawful authority to intervene, partly in response to concerns about ethnic intimidation.
In the Cronulla situation, a woman being monstered by a Lebanese soccer game complained to a lifesaver, who asked them to stop. In typical Lebanese style, the Lebanese were reluctant to obey a command from a mere skip, and there was some argument.
Again, in typical Lebanese style, the soccer players returned the following day with a gang of about 20 and bashed the lifesaver. This is certainly racism, but it’s not by the Australians.
Voa’s schoolyard cry of “the Lebs started it” is echoed by Tony Parkinson in today’s Age, here
Naomi
You are close to the truth, however voa is closer to the mark. Both my wife and I attended UNSW in the mid eighties. Even then the “Lebs� were a problem. She maintains that no one is better at making you feel “like a piece of meat� (even when modestly dressed) then a bunch of young Lebanese men. It is not their race that causes such revulsion/aversion to these men, but the way that they make a woman feel by their actions. They cannot occupy a public space without puffing out their chests, acting like dicks and generally pissing every other group off. As soon as they arrive at a park (i.e. next to a beach) you can feel the tension. They have no respect for personal space. I do not condone what these yobs have done on the weekend but I understand the resentment that has fuelled this.
You just keep burying yourself in tendentious hyperbole, Robert. I didn’t say Muslims are more likely to commit rape, as a commonly shared trait. There were five gang rapes that became notorious in recent years. They all involved Muslims and four of the five involved Lebanese Muslims. I will continue to argue that Islam is inherently misognistic and inherently likely to lead to violence against them. As The so-called ‘Prophet’ was himself a rapist and a child molester, this is inevitable. If people don’t like me saying so, too bad.
Lets imagine if gangs of rapists - organised strictly on denominational Christian lines - had committed five consecutive attacks on Muslim women in Lakemba. Mmm - I wonder if the left would start making sociological comments about Christians, attitudes to women, a sick misogynistic culture etc etc. I’m guessing yes.
At my blog, comments are never deleted unless they’re legally actionable or peppered with four-letter words. The only one I’ve ever deleted was a comment by someone casting aspersions on the sexual preferences of Justice Kirby. So, please, don’t try on your moral postering with me. You ban people like Evil because they make you look silly with their arguments. Moreover, the commenter has been reprimanded by me before. This made matters worse so now I don’t bother.
I have to come to the defence of CL here re comments policy. When people directly pick fights with me on my comments thread, I’m too argumentative not to reply. But if they just say stupid things that I don’t agree with, there’ve been numerous occasions when I couldn’t be bothered and let them pass uncommented too. Comments are not representative of the views of the blog operator even if the blog operator does not respond to them or make any other attempt to distance himself from them - there may be numerous reasons for this, ranging from time constraints to not being bothered getting into a flame war. Like CL I too have an open slather comments policy and don’t have the luxury of just deleting everything undesirable, so it’s worth making clear.
Naomi
As I said previously - I substantially agreed with your prior post, however I just do not see it as a predominantly racial thing and I thought Voa is closer to the mark. I agree that boofy young men are intimidating (to both men and women), and that “Lebs� don’t have a monopoly on dickhead behaviour. However they are very big stakeholders in this particular area, and have been a prime cause of friction in the past in the eastern suburbs. Tasmanian hoons may be just as frightening to you, however we are talking about Cronulla.
A rather silly and intemperant remark Robert.
Even more so given the policy towards Evilpundit
Richard, Both my wife and I attended UNSW in the mid eighties.
I lived in Maroubra and Coogee in the early nineties. I cannot recall Lebanese-Australians being a problem back then.
Jason: at the same time, you don’t go around telling people that their failure to condemn one thing or another constitutes support for it. As I said, I was playing one of CL’s disingenuous games.
These damn Muslims keep causing problems!!
And CL, I’d argue to some extent that all religions are misogynistic, including Catholicism, that depicts women as nothing more that incubators, and not worthy to hold any position of power.
Within the church that is.
Cameron,
Perhaps you were lucky. I may be getting older but my memory is not that bad.
Shit! Harry Quick MP reckons racism might have been a factor in the Cronulla BierHalle Putsch. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1529572.htm
I dont know where he’d get that idea. I thought it was just a combo of too many Reschs and not enough sunscreen. “Just some good old boys/ never meanin’ no harm…”
I mean, take the following SMS which kicked it off. How it could be read as anything ele but an innocent call for a community BBQ is beyond me.
“All real Aussies come out for Leb and wog bashing day.”
Lefty E
Or wearing an Ethnic Cleansing Unit t-shirt, makes me wonder what you have to do to be labelled a racist today. This has been the real PC of the last decade. Kath and Kim suburb - tsk, what an ourageous slur.
Unsurprising to see the old fig leaf of racist activists of defending their women coming out again, like our flag they used, they’ll give themselves anything for an ounce of credibility.
I thought you were a bit hard on yourself on the hyperbole front for the worst race riots, this is worse - perhaps numbers can be argues but it’s a hope of progressive people that we’ve improved over the years and we seem to be doing the full circle. It’s like a 25 year old shitting his pants, sure they he have done more often as a baby but they should have moved on my then.
David, the kind of power Abbesses wielded in the Dark Ages wasn’t matched in the non-regal world until the twentieth century. It hasn’t been matched in the Islamic world yet.
Far from believing women are merely incubators, many of her most honoured exemplars never had children. So that’s a bizarre argument. Among the most powerful people in the Church’s schools, universities, specialist institutes, scholarly endeavours, pastoral programmes and modes of medical service are women. This constitutes the preponderance of the institutional Church’s everyday life.
In even ‘moderate’ Islam, women are yet to be permitted to wear stylish hat.
To buttress a true equivalency theory on this matter, try comparing the two founders - Christ and the ‘Prophet.’
Good luck with that.
Well said, CL. A matter of degrees no doubt, however, women have no say in the development of Church doctrine. A fairly good measure of equality I’d say.
Doctrine is not developed by individuals of either gender. It develops over time within the whole community of the People of God, whose collective sensus fidelium - spiritually guided sense of what is true and right in the faith - is the ultimate judge. In the ranks of that ecclesia women have always figured prominently - perhaps even predominantly.
Moreover, three of the Church’s officially recognised Doctors - that is, especially saintly and authoritative teachers of doctrine - are women: St. Catherine of
Siena, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Pre-eminent among the saints and patroness of the Church is Mary.
“In even ‘moderate’ Islam, women are yet to be permitted to wear stylish hat.”
I’m bitched and moaned in your comments aplenty on this CL, but there are plenty of women (turks and bengalis for example) that are allowed to do pretty much what the hell they want.
I also believe the disgraceful incident of 4 or 5 yobs at Crunulla on the weekend pulling off a young woman’s headscarf and yelling “get her” proves that these kinds of generalities are problematic.
Maybe its better just to condemn racially-motivated violence, whoever’s committing it? I think that’s the point a lot of people are making.