The Shocking Cronulla Riots of 2005 in Australia - Research Paper Example

The Cronulla Riots of 2005 Introduction Australia experienced the shocking Cronulla riots in the year 2005 due to supposed racial tensions in the country. The incident sparked a lot of debates especially in the country over whether racism was an issue to the country. As according to the comments and report of the prime minister, John Howard, and the riots was not a representation of the existence of racial discrimination and issues in Australia. Australia is a country where there exists different races including the locals, the westerners and the Arabs. The tensions in 2005 claimed by the media to have originated from social tensions around the country, and especially in the regions of Cronulla. The following research will investigate the Cronulla riots that occurred in Australia in 2005. The causes and aftermath of the riots is a major issue analyzed in the research through the use of appropriate and reliable sources of literature. Further, the government addressed the riots through banishing the perpetrators and tried to reassure the country that there does not exist any racist discrimination in the country. This is a matter that the research will analyze through looking into the issue of racism in Australia. Investigating prior and the probability of future riots fuelled by racial differences will also be of concern in the analysis. It is important to investigate the reaction of the Australian government to the riots and how the appropriate authorities managed to deal with this issue for the purpose of creating an understanding of the racial issue in Australia. Racism is the discriminations against persons belonging to a certain minority race. This is a serious humanitarian crime. The research has the objective of analyzing whether racial discrimination in countries and regions is still a current issue. This will involve the analysis of racism from the context of Australia and also the rest of the world. The Causes and Occurrences of the 2005 Cronulla Riots in Australia The major cause for the Cronulla riots was the grave disagreements between the Australian locals and the Lebanese nationals. The Lebanese people are of the Arabic race and as their culture demands, they have a lot of caution for their attire, ad especially for the female gender. This was a source of conflict as the Australian people do not have such strict and conservative attire customaries. As such, the Australian ladies feel at liberty to dress in bikinis and enjoy the sun at the beach, much to the annoyance of the Lebanese male population (Reskin 2012). The Lebanese men, therefore, formed the habit of frequenting the beach, not to enjoy the sun, but to insult and harass the Australian women. Some of the offending comments hurled at the Australian women included them termed as “Aussie Sluts” while the Lebanese men threatened to rape them. This was a cause of a major disagreement among the two racial groups. It indicated a serious lack of respect for the culture of the Australian people and also for the law and order in the country. The immediate cause, however, for the Cronulla riots that occurred in the Cronulla beach in 2005 was due to the gang bash on Australian life savers after a group of Lebanese men attacked them in the beach. This could not have been an unusual incident if the arguments did not escalate into a fight, seriously injuring one of the lifesavers. The Australian lifesavers were a group of four people when eight Lebanese men confronted them over their presence at the beach (Wise 2009). This fact incensed the lifesavers since they were doing their work and they were nationals of the country, with a right to have presence at the beach. The Australian police had to break off the fight. Following this incident, the social media, and radio and television media all helped in escalating the tension that existed between the two races. Further, the police reported to have been the rising tension in the North Cronulla due to the disagreements between the Lebanese men and the Australian locals. Earlier in the same year, there occurred a riot in Cronulla, despite it not being racially fuelled. The riot escalated into a civil disobedience situated with the locals attacking the police. The atmosphere in Cronulla, therefore, was very tense. Due to the various incites, the two racial groups started texting each other in preparation of a riot. Among the texts surveyed include “100% Aussie Pride”, “Wog Bashing day”, and “Let us show them that this beach is ours” are among the texts that circulated among the Australian locals (Collins 2009). The Lebanese also retaliated and sent texts to each other in preparation for the Cronulla riots. Some of the texts shared among the Middle East men included, “All Arabs unite as one, we will never back down”. By noon, about five thousand Australian nationals had already gathered at the Cronulla beach in preparation for the riots. The riots involved the assault of various young men that looked like Arabs. The crowds shouted and yelled chanting while the riot escalated to attacking police officers. Effects of the Cronulla Rots in Australia Among the serious effects of the Cronulla riots were that there were a lot of injured people and some died due to assault and stab wounds. There were also several people arrested for charges adding up to forty offenses that included the malicious damage of property, offensive conduct, assaulting police officers and also resisting arrest. However, people from both conflicting races were charged with the various offences (Krieger et al 2011). The riots occurred for a series of nights where there was the constant destruction of property, threatening of the people assaulted and attacks on authority. The riots escalate and spread to other states that included the Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland. Consequently, the riots of Cronulla in 2005 have become the basis in which the people from the Middle East living in Australia become labelled with the term potential terrorists. In the effort of ensuring that there does not occur a repeat of this provocation of racial riots again, there has been the formulation of the “Middle eastern Organized Crime Squad”. The riots started as a result of the media instigating the young people to fight the Islamic intruders, who have the consideration of being inferior to the Australian locals, even in their welfare. As such, the State labor government, and in support, the liberals in opposition, decided to focus on the apparent victims of the fight, the Middle Eastern Population (Aly 2007). Despite these efforts, there still remains animosity between the two racial groups of the Australians and the Lebanese population. Another effect of the riots is that the Australian locals still did not feel satisfied or appeased with the outcome of the riot. Some of the locals wished they continue of the riots as witnesses in the first anniversary of the riot where there was the arrangement of a bikini march by the locals and it would happen right outside a Muslim mosque (Kabir 2007). The beach wear march was a highly supported event, even in the social media, by the ABC radio presenter Christine Hawkins and also the political party of the Australia First party. The bikini march, however, did not gain as much attention as it had been anticipated. Later on, there was the incident of Muslim boys pictured urinating on bibles. Without further investigation, the media frantically and hurriedly out up this story, condemning the evil mentors of the Muslim boys (Evers 2008). This represented a situation where there was the thirst for more retaliation against the Middle East population that resided in Australia. The 2005 Cronulla riots created a lot of long-term animosity between the races in Australia, a fact not previously anticipated. The Government Reaction to the Cronulla Riots Immediately after the Cronulla riots, most of the political parties, government institutions and officials immediately condemned the occurrence of the riots. The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, was among the first people to maintain that the riots did not occur as a result of racial discrimination issues in the country. Australia has the long standing reputation of being a country that accepted cultural diversity under the culture of multiculturalism. Since the Racial Discrimination Act signed in 1975, Australia has been a country that peacefully ad readily accepted all races into their country. As a result of this culture, Australia has had the reputation of being among the most peaceful countries in the world (Due and Riggs 2008). It accepts students exchange programs in the country and has an open policy to all races and genders. The occurrence of the 2005 racial discrimination, is therefore, a concern to the majority in the government. After the Cronulla rots, all levels of governmental authority in the country conducted researches in trying to understand the happenings in the country. This involved analyzing Australia and racial presence from the community, state, national and international levels. In the Sutherland Shire, for example, there exist harmonious habitation of all ethnic, social and racial groups through the involvement of the community in activities that enable for their social cohesion (Wise 2009). However, outside the confinements of the community levels, there exist very little investments ta enable for the tying of the people in a balanced environment promoting bonding and social capital. The government realized that there should be a bridge and mechanism of building a correlation between the local communities and outsiders, especially in the beach area. The lifeguards who patrol the beach area and also the police have the mandate of maintaining social security around the beach areas of Australia. The government and relevant authority should ensure that there is the proper training of the relevant authorities in the beach areas to ensure that conflicts that arise do not escalate and turn into gang violence (Bliuc et al 2012). Further, international occurrences such as the Bali bombings increase the racial tensions in Australia, and especially among the Middle East population in Australia and Muslim Australians. The international happenings spurn the discrimination against the Muslim groups and in retaliations, they learn how to hate out of fear and also prejudice. The government has put measures in place after the riots to ensure that there is responsible political leadership in the country that does not incite disagreements among different races. Another action taken by the government is to ensure the obedience of the law by all persons, and especially the media (Babacam & Babacam 2007). The media personalities that helped incite the Cronulla riots were charged with inciting hate ad conflict in the public. Engaging in responsible media and leadership are the main approaches applied by the government in ensuring that there does not happen a repeat of thee 2005 Cronulla Riots. Racism as an Issue There has been a lot of international efforts in ensuring that there is the banishment of racism in the world. However, all these efforts have not yielded positive results, because, up to date there still exists racial discrimination in the world. Most of the racial discrimination happen in different contexts, and have the determination of the social environment and setting in which one has adapted. The main concept of racism surrounds the belief that there exist superior racial existence and the attribution of certain characteristics to certain groups simply because of their color (Noble 2009). Racial discrimination is among the prime causes of prejudice, hatred and fear among people due to the negative effects of racial discriminations such as war and conflict. Among the negative effects of racial discriminations among people include the fact that they cause conflicts and mistrust among people. There is the inhibition of growth and development in a society that views others as having inferior or superior leverage in life due to the color of their skin. Some of the main causes of racial discrimination include the lack of awareness. The worth of a person does not depend on their racial background. Mass media is also another factor that have helped fuel the spirit of racism among the society (Poynting 2006). The media was a huge fuel for the 2005 Cronulla riots that occurred in Australia. Popular culture is also another factor that has enabled the spread of racism, with the white people posted as being superior and better than other races. This is a wrong depiction, since there exist other highly successful people in the society of different races. The stratification of the society is among the primary causes of racial discriminations across the world. With the example of the Australian community versus the Middle East population in the country, there was the stratification and division of the two communities. The Australians viewed themselves as being superior while the Middle East Islamic population despised the Australians (Johanson & Glow 2007). This discrimination and community stratification led to the defense mechanism of the Middle East men who forged deep hatred for the Australians, leading to the breakout of the Cronulla riots. The situation is not yet better, but through the intervention of the government, then the two communities can learn how to live in harmony. The rate of discrimination has gone down over the years due to the various efforts of humanitarian groups and organizations. However, there still exists discrimination amongst the communities. This discrimination is especially against the minority in the society including the Muslims, the Hispanics and the blacks from all over the world (Feagin 2013). The situation has sparked a lot of conflicts and hatred. Most people in the society has the awareness of the silent existence of racial discrimination in the society and instead of dealing with the uncomfortable situation, most people in the society choose to segregate themselves. There is the belief that the lack of intermingling with other races will reduce the effects of the racial discrimination. This is just a temporary solution to this problem of racial discrimination. Relating freely and without prejudice with other people regardless of their race is one effective way of ensuring the reduction of racism in the society. Conclusion Racism is still a major menace in the society in the current times. Choosing to deal with the situation from an individual level is one of the effective ways of ensuring that there is the stop of racial discrimination in the environment. Relating with other people has the benefit of ensuring that we learn of the culture of other people and have the capability of accepting different cultures and their uniqueness. Racial discrimination occurs in every environment and the society has the power of effecting on our behaviors, actions and thoughts. Through the acceptance of the racism that exists in the society from an individual and societal level, there is the possibility of eliminating this vice. It is not enough for the government to control the possible incidences of conflict resulting into riots and violence as witnessed in the 2005Australian Cronulla riots. These riots were as a result of the tensions and racial discriminations that existed in the country. Bibliography Aly, A. 2007. Australian Muslim responses to the discourse on terrorism in the Australian popular media. Routledge. Babacan, A., & Babacan, H. 2007. New racism and fear: the Cronulla riots and racial violence in Australia. Uluslararasi Hukuk ve Politika, 3, 147-152. Bliuc, A. M., McGarty, C., Hartley, L., & Muntele Hendres, D. 2012. Manipulating national identity: the strategic use of rhetoric by supporters and opponents of the ‘Cronulla riots’ in Australia. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(12), 2174-2194. Collins, J. 2009. 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