The people who were burning the Australian flag were just expressing themselves and there is such things as freedom of expression. This freedom of expression should in theory allow offensive cartoons to be published and it even allows people to masturbate in public if that is what they want.
Violence, on the other hand, is illegal. Rape is illegal, so some of those gang members may be guilty if caught. Even bashing someone because of retaliation is illegal unless it's serious provocation. Still, provocation cannot be against a race. The law considers people as individuals. There are no court cases such as Asians versus Lebanese. That's just silly. What somes of those Cronulla rioters did was go around bashing anyone with Middle-Eastern appearance. This can include virtually anyone, from Italians to Bill Gates with a mild tan. Definitely illegal.
The politicised morons in this country need to put the event into perspective. A few people were punched, a women had her hijab pulled of, BIG DEAL!!!
Anyone heard of Sudan??? 1.5 million Christians killed since 1984, the ethnic cleansing and displacement of Christians in Pakistan?????, the persistent murder of Christians/priest/destruction of churches in Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc etc etc?????????
There is probably a Christian being murded in one of these countries as we speak, yet we even bother talking about Crunulla.
What a joke.
One simple explanation for this is that some things are more entertaining that other things and news media is driven by ratings.
So the Asians and Islanders that were there, they were against multiculturalism as well?
They could be. They could be against the culture of violence and want to establish a monoculture of non-violence (perhaps through violence).
The funny thing that came out of this Cronulla incident, is that us white Australians are viewed as racist for retaliating. And, the Lebanese are viewed as the victims.
Viewed a racist or victims by whom? By you or by someone else? Remember there is no objective perspetive.
You should also be rallying against all protests that turn to violence, I didn't see you posting your outrage at the people at G20....
Silence does not imply support. It could be the result of not being exposed to the story. Perhap a certain news story has a 50% chance of getting a certain person's attention.
Whilst it does annoy me that some rednecks think assimilation means driving a ute, sinking pis s, and going to the footy, other cultures do need to assimilate - but to the changing evolving culture you talk about.
So you think that there should be assimilation but you don't want to assimilate to bogan culture? If you criticize a Lebanese who doesn't assimilate to your culture, how do you differentiate that from a bogan criticizing you maybe because you drive a sedan instead of a ute or maybe because you drink wine instead of beer?
Seriously though, grow up. Seeing the footage brought to mind images that come out of Germany occasionally of the hard (nazi) right. That isn't Australian.
If this behavior is "Nazi" as you describe it and if Australian soldiers fought against the Nazis then this behavior goes against what WWII Australian soldiers fought for, right?
Seriously though grow up,Cronulla was not Kristalnacht
Nazism is the belief by Adolf Hitler that the Aryans (blonde haired blue eyes people from Scandinavia) were superior to all other people and therefore all other people should be exterminated. Hence Jews were exterminated, disabled people were exterminated, etc. The Cronulla rioters probably weren't as powerful or organized or sober as the Nazis but don't you think their intentions were similar?
With the authorities sitting on their hands while a group terrorized the Cronulla area for 3-5 yrs
What do you think was going to happen?
One of the best ways of getting revenge on people who disrespect the law is to disrespect the law yourself by taking the law into your own hands?
Just because it happens all over doesn't mean you should ignore the problem where it's worst.
When my partner goes down the beach she doesn't get leered at and have disgusting remarks made at her by anyone else. I've even been with Lebs when they carry on like this. The way many of them think and act towards Aussie women is just wrong and unacceptible.
Even if Lebanese people are more likely to do this sort of behavior there's little you can do about it. If a group of people has a higher probability of criminal or anti-social behavior, collective punishment sets a dangerous precedent. Should ugly people be collectively punished because ugly people are more likely to commit crime? Should heterosexuals be collectively punished for the same reason? Should non-paraplegic people be collectively punished for the same reason?
Its a racism fuelling depot and what happened on dec 11 was a build up of anti leb for many years. However morrell brought up a good point. all cultures whether leb australian italian or icelandic there will be a group of men that love to disrespect the opposite sex. Saying lebanese are more prevalent is an overgeneralisation.
The issue may not have anything to do with nationality. Maybe these rapists were just raping because they had a high sex drive. That they were Lebanese may have been independent of their sex drive. A person observing the rape and observing the Lebanese nationality of the rapist make come to the conclusion that the Labaneseness causes the rape when it was the sex drive.
This is like seeing Commodore sales increasing and then seeing a ship sinking in the Pacific and then thinking that the Commodore sales increasing caused the ship to sink. Some things may be completely independent but beause of the human tendency to focus on salient things like nationality we have faulty inference.