Cronulla Riots: five years later

I had meant to post something to mark the half decade anniversary of the Cronulla Riots but I was very busy at work at that time. I don’t recall there being much media attention surrounding this significant date. Crikey did offer something wishy washy that is utterly devoid of any theoretical base, critical analysis or sociohistorical context, and which also asserts that the ‘terror’ of political correctness has “not improved” since then. Clearly it is up to a small time feminist blogger to do the job properly – after I have a go at Crikey, that is.

This piss poor piece of writing (linked above) attempts to advance the surfer dude perspective as some kind of superior knowledge claim when it comes to discussing the Cronulla Riots. Yes, really. Because as we all should know, surfer dudes epitomise good ol’ aussie values (code for Whiteness), and surfer dudes are experts on all things to do with The Beach. Even unprecedented atrocities which are the result of myriad, complex sociopolitical macro and micro forces which surfer dudes are ill-informed about – if they happened to have occurred on a beach, then that is apparently enough for surfer dudes to be instant experts on said atrocities. The writer of the piece has discussed this issue with lots of other surfers from other parts of the country, leading to the shocking revelation that other men agreed with the racists at Cronulla. Well, who knew? The other example of ‘superior’ surfer dude insight put forth in the above piece is the observation that the primary riot occurred because there is a train station at Cronulla.

Starting with the train station furphy, which was actually widely reported at the time and not really a new observation, this is an example of the way in which White australia will grasp at any distraction in order to not have to see what is staring us in the face. The racism of australia/australians. It was suggested that because there is a direct train line to Cronulla beach that there is some kind of weakness or fault which allows foreigners to “invade” the area. If only the locals had put up a wall or something, this would never have happened. The week of the riots we heard a lot about the apparent “anti-social” behaviour of certain groups and individuals who visit the Cronulla Beach area. A lot of the discourse was manipulated by racist right wing talkback radio host Alan Jones:

Isn’t he a breath of fresh air? He was later found guilty of inciting violence but remains on air for approximately 17 hours a week, to this day. A fact that makes me cringe.

It was almost universally accepted at the time that a trigger of the riot was that Middle-Eastern men were habitually visiting Cronulla and harassing women. This is a common theme in the history of race rioting generally (Lieberson and Silverman, cited in Evans, 1975, pp.173-190). One group argues with another group over the perceived mistreatment of their women, because men as we know, think of women as their possessions, their resources. People in this area still attribute this mistreatment of women as the main cause of the Cronulla riots. According to local White dudes, only they are allowed to harass their women. This was a case of men fighting over women rather than on behalf of them, because women’s voices were largely absent from the discourse. It was that typical White dude thing where they use women’s oppression to further their own racist agenda, at their own convenience, effectively erasing women’s experiences. Bourdieu (1977, cited in Redmond 2007) has discussed the way that group dynamics can be manipulated by universalising a small incident, in this case the sexual harassment of White beach babes by Middle Eastern men, and making it seem suddenly relevant to an entire group.

Suddenly this sexual harassment was a pressing social concern when it was reported as being perpetrated by Middle Eastern men. However, violence against women generally, occurs at very high rates in the Sutherland Shire, disproportionately so for such an affluent area. This is never discussed by Shire residents ever, yet overnight the men of The Shire cared passionately about it and were willing to take measures into their own hands to put a stop to it. Oddly enough the issue of violence against women as a social concern is no longer of such urgency here. Last year a small collective of human services workers applied for community funding to organise what would have been the first Sutherland Shire Reclaim The Night march. They were flatly rejected.

Another significant aspect of the riots to consider is that of technology, which certainly played a role in the “swarming” of the crowd at Cronulla. Text messages were sent urging “Australians” to “…come to North Cronulla this weekend to support national Leb and wog-bashing day”. Seriously, are we 12?? This technology enabled easy and fast dissemination of information and must have been a contributing factor to previously unheard of numbers who gathered at the beach that day. This is consistent with the Le Bon (1897) theory of the “psychological crowd” which posits that a crowd can begin to swarm without the presence of individuals in one geographical location. Cronulla is an excellent example of this theory, as the psychological “crowd” had clearly been gathering within public consciousness in the lead up to the riot, with people publicly responding to Alan Jones’ (and the sly whispers of a certain ex-prime minister) urges to take action against this perceived threat, as well as sensationalist headlines in the mainstream print media. The 5000 strong army of righteous warriors, pumped to fight the abstract menace of political correctness, was already “swarming” days before the physical, face to face violence occurred.

5000 racist thugs gather at Cronulla to "take back" Australia.

If we look at the broader context we see a backdrop of political tension between the oil-rich Arab nations and the long history of their exploitation by Western capitalist nations. Anti-Arab racism has been simmering for years, according to Chomsky, but definitely was sparked after 9/11 and the Bali Bombings. This kind of sentiment was not limited to The Sutherland Shire or Cronulla of course, but add to that mix a relatively geographically isolated region characterised by beautiful beaches and inhabited predominantly by the straight, White petty bourgeois landed gentry, and suddenly a global issue becomes all about perceived entitlement to public space. Insiders against outsiders.

So, to bring it all together we can understand the Cronulla Riots as being triggered by a combination of macro and micro forces. There is the broader issue of world domination and tension between the West and the Middle East, and the long-running feuds over the planet’s resources. Promotion of insider/outsider rhetoric by Australian politicians and reactionary media figures, the use of anti-Arab sentiment as a distraction from the ever-widening social divisions and decreased job security created by right wing neo-liberal economics and globalisation. There is the issue of modern technology, in particular mobile phones, and the medium of talk back radio which has created a powerful platform from which privileged white conservative men spruik divisive hate speech. There is also the emergence of a false dichotomy over gender relations and the treatment of women, with the notion that white men’s treatment of women is somehow superior to that of men from Middle Eastern cultures. Then there is the issue of entitlement and sense of ownership of public space exhibited by conservative Shire residents, easily persuaded toward moral panic over The Enemy who is on the door step and must be thwarted.

To top it off the site of this atrocity is one that is considered by local men, surfers, as one over which they preside. They are the unofficial gatekeepers of the proud aussie shore line, and men being the violent thugs that they are, they were quick to answer the call to arms and indulge themselves in displays of primal chest-beating sometimes known as ‘masculinity’. There is a pervasive myth that The Shire is some kind of sacred paradise and is in fact often referred to by locals as ‘God’s Country’. The surfer dudes did not need much persuasion that their territory needed to be defended against the dangerous stranger and in the immediate aftermath of the riots the media and politicians all gave the surfer dudes plenty of space to provide their expert opinions on what had gone wrong. Even suspected murderer, Jai Abberton, of the Bra Boys surf gang was suddenly elevated to the status of chief adviser on All Things That Happen At Beaches. Male hegemony went to work, and police, media, politicians and pretty much every man on the street, united in order to deflect attention away from the real issues underpinning this particular expression of men’s violence.

Proud patriots

Social commentators at the time and even since then have written a lot about this stain on the australian history books. I have read many academic analyses of the issues, but none that I have seen has pointed out the elephant in the corner – that the common denominator in it all was men, men and their greed, men and their power trips, men and their violence. Then it was men covering up the truth for other men, and diverting attention from the sheer ugliness of December 11. If the piece posted by Crikey is any indication, men are still doing this five years on. Still obfuscating, still side-stepping, and still appointing themselves experts and dominating the discourse on issues that they refuse to be informed about.

Thankyou Google Images.

Chomsky, N. 1983, The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and The Palestines, South End Press, Boston

Evans, R. F. 1975, Readings in Collective Behaviour, Rand McNally College Publishing Company, USA

Kendrick, R. 2005, I’m the one that’s lead this charge: Alan Jones, Cronulla and the Theatre of White Australia, Refereed Proceedings of UNAUSTRALIA, The Cultural Studies Association of Australasia’s Annual Conference, December 6, 7, 8 2006 http://www.unaustralia.com/proceedings.php

Le Bon, G 1897, Crowd: a study of the popular mind [electronic resource]

Redmond, A. 2007, Surfies vs Westies: Kinship, Mateship and Sexuality in the Cronulla Riot, Journal of Australian Anthropology, Vol. 18, Issue 3, pp.336-350, December 2007, published online 10-2-09