Editorial: Sydney riot has plenty to teach us

Opinion

When a city as close to us as Sydney suffers the kind of social trauma that was seen this week, the question needs to be asked, could it happen here? The rioting appears to be racial, but it involved two groups who, from this distance, are hard to distinguish. One side are young, second-generation immigrants from the Middle East, particularly Lebanon, who were dressed, and sounded, like the Australians they are. On the other side were young Australians full of liquor and resentment of the "Lebs", as they called them.

The tension seems to have been as much territorial as racial. The Anglo-Celtic Australians who went on the rampage at Cronulla on Sunday have regarded the beach as theirs and have not welcomed the visits of the "Lebs" and others from Sydney's poorer western suburbs. The city's social geography is the first comparison that might cause Aucklanders to pause. Here, too, beachside suburbs are generally better off than others. But there has been no sign yet that the residents assume the sort of proprietary rights that have become evident in Sydney.

Some blame the possessive attitude on the surf culture that is probably stronger there than here. Surfers like a wave to themselves and the local users of Sydney's surfing spots are inclined to try to limit the numbers they will allow in the water. But where there is tension for any reason between people who see themselves as different, grievances will be found.

The blame in Sydney was not one-sided. Lebanese gangs are accused of causing trouble around the beaches, abusing women who are not dressed to Islamic standards, vandalising property, trashing shops and allegedly committing an assault on volunteer lifeguards the Sunday before the riot. At least two people were stabbed in retaliatory gang attacks on Sunday night and police have been blocking roads to stop convoys of youths of Middle Eastern descent coming to Cronulla and other places to exact revenge. Both sides use cellphones to summon support and a crowd can assemble quickly.

The trouble has come as a shock to Australians who pride themselves on a multicultural society, as we do. The mob waved the national flag, sang Waltzing Matilda when a victim was found and beaten, and chanted the Aussie cheer in a newly chilling way. Whatever the minority group had done to provoke such an eruption of bile, it paled beside the ugly power of a crowd that knows it is the national majority.

Having glimpsed this side of itself, Australia must ensure there is no repeat. The images of Sunday will stay in the national consciousness for a lifetime and compel constant effort to deal with ethnic tensions long before they reach boiling temperature. This country, similar to its larger neighbour in many ways, should draw the same lesson. Most countries these days contain diverse immigrant communities, and for obvious reasons those from the Middle East or other Islamic places need to be treated with particular care at present.

The Sydney experience indicates that immigrant problems do not cease for the first generation born in the adopted country. Their position might be more difficult than their parents'. They do not know their parents' homeland nor do they feel fully accepted in the only country they know. If alienation drives them to form aggressive gangs and adopt extreme religious identities, police and social services need to be ready. Moderating cultural influences need to be brought to bear and law enforcement needs to make two messages clear: Minorities must practice the human rights and religious freedoms of their adopted society, and members of the majority must never take the law into their own hands. Australia is secure enough and mature enough to learn from this convulsion.