December 23, 2005 4:09 PM Sydney racial riots highlight the relevance for Christmas message By David Busch from Capalaba Uniting Church Wednesday, 21 December 2005 RACIAL and religious tensions which have erupted into riots in parts of Sydney in the past fortnight must not be allowed to infect the Redland Shire, senior local clergy said this week. The ministers say Christians must reject racism and violence, and give a lead in emphasising friendship, compassion and respect toward all people in the community, regardless of race or religion. They say the riots give fresh urgency to the Christmas message of peace, goodwill and reconciliation. For Rev. David Groenenboom, lead pastor at the Redlands Christian Reformed Church in Ormiston, the Sydney riots showed the need for Jesus to deal with the violence and prejudices which are part of human nature. "The events in Sydney these last few days should have us all thinking about who we really are. Seeing the images of fellow Australians engaged in violent acts against other fellow Australians must break our heart," he said. "They should also get us asking, what can be done? Aside from the necessary response from police, we need a response that addresses the inner rebellion of humanity from one another and from God. "Jesus' birth assures us that God loves all people, and that he is serious about transforming people. Jesus came as Prince of Peace, and the one who would save from sin. "Thirty-three years later, that promise was fulfilled in his death and resurrection. His one act of selflessness, as it takes root in human lives today, will deliver the peace we seek, and the restored community we long for." According to the Rev. Peter Elliott of Cleveland Uniting Church, the Cronulla riots show us that racism is present in our society and can be inflamed. "Pride in one's nation and a zealous devotion to its welfare are common marks of patriotism, but historically, when national loyalties have been acclaimed above other loyalties, it has resulted in conflict. Patriotism may begin as a noble virtue but it may end as an offensive crime," Mr Elliott said. "As a man of Middle-Eastern appearance (the description used of people targeted in the Cronulla riots), Jesus could have easily suffered violence in these last few days in Sydney, even as his family fled violence at the time of his birth. "As Christians we believe that the only hope for true peace was born in the Middle East. Christmas reminds us that it was a Middle Eastern man, Jesus the Messiah, who holds the key to resolving the strife that bedevils our world. "Jesus is not merely the best of humanity, but he brings every human person into the place where no human distinctive, whether racial or social, can serve as a criterion for relation with God or with one another." Rev. Dr Bruce Allder, principal of the Nazarene Theological College in Thornlands, said the Sydney riots revealed the "default" setting of most people, who would see their perspective to be the right perspective. "In our selfishness, arrogance and insecurity, we often seek to impose that perspective on others," Dr Allder said. "Jesus showed us another way to live - rather than take the humanly accepted way of imposing his will on others, he lived a life of love that offered an alternative to imposition. "He didn't use military might, despite expectation that he should, but taught a radical, self-denying life of sacrifice, so that it wasn't the survival of the fittest but the survival of the weakest that was the guiding principle. "Jesus brought the strength of knowing who he was that allowed others to be who they were. Jesus offers the gift of relationship with God and others, but he never forces it upon anyone. "That's what Christmas is about - offering the gift of life, joy and relationship - but gifts are not always accepted. A gift is never imposed." Parish priest of Capalaba and Alexandra Hills Catholic parishes, Rev. Fr Peter McCarthy, said the mob violence and destruction of property in Sydney was not only un-Australian, but un-Christian. "Jesus' birth in a humble stable was symbolic of the message of peace and non-violence that Jesus would preach. In opposing violence as a way of settling disputes, Jesus showed us that love and compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation, are life-giving values that will ultimately resolve conflicts and disputes," Fr McCarthy said. "One challenge for each of us this Christmas is to be people of peace who are prepared to talk through our differences with one another in a spirit of compassion and love." ~~~ Australia - a racist backwater By Greg Barns - posted Thursday, 22 December 2005 Australia is a backwater, a racist and inward-looking country that turns its back on adventure and the opportunity to do better; a country that has rejected leaders who provide the chance for a multiracial, multicultural and independent nation to prosper in the region where it is, Asia-Pacific. It is a nation which periodically makes world headlines for its racist outbursts, whether it be the disgraceful campaign of the Howard Government in 2001 to demonise the wretched and the weak who sought sanctuary on our shores, or the media and political leaders who barracked for Pauline Hanson's inane and stupid rhetoric about Aboriginal Australians and Asians, or the racist thugs now taking it upon themselves to beat up anyone who looks as if they are from the Middle East. Attacks that Prime Minister John Howard refuses to see as examples of Australia's racism, which is exactly what they are. Perhaps that's because he is partly to blame for last week's appalling events and for the persecution of Muslims and Arab Australians in the community. For 20 years Australia looked as though it might move from its Anglo-European racist conservatism towards becoming truly cosmopolitan and modern. Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating all believed in an Australia that was different from the one in which they had grown up. Keating promised an exciting Australia that embraced Asian cultures, that saw itself as a bridge between European and Asian cultures and which finally rid itself of the British monarchy. The electorate, though - selfish and materialist, if not racist - felt scared and voted Keating out, replacing him with the most conservative Prime Minister this country has ever had. They replaced the positive confidence of Keating with the cringing, reactive conservatism of Howard. The conservatism that gives a wink and a nod to Pauline Hanson's racist attacks; the conservatism that attacks people on the basis of their religion and race; the conservatism that demonises people clinging desperately to leaky boats as they do what any of us being oppressed in our homeland would do - seek asylum in a free country; and the conservatism that allows the media and security agencies to talk up the links between Muslims and terrorism as though they are inextricable, despite not one charge being successfully pursued through the courts. It's the conservatism that dismantles the policy of multiculturalism, a policy Malcolm Fraser championed and which refuses to allow Anglo-European traditions to suffocate other great cultures and value systems. It is also a conservatism that refuses to let Australia grow up, a conservatism that forelock tugs before an English Queen and a British monarchy that is rancid and corrupt. The racist thuggery of the past week is the inevitable consequence of the conservatism of people such as Howard and former New South Wales premier Bob Carr, a conservatism that never challenges and dismantles the antics of such media as The Daily Telegraph in Sydney and shock-jocks such as John Laws and Alan Jones, who perpetrate a myth about Arab Australians being different and somehow less Australian than the rest of us. It's a media which shamefully subscribes to the view that the rape of European women in Sydney five years ago by a gang of young men, who happened to be Lebanese, was a battle between the values of Arab Australians and European Australians; a media which whips up fear and loathing by attacking the right of Muslim women to have their own time in a local swimming pool for religious and cultural reasons; a media which gives comfort to people such as Pauline Hanson by providing her with all the air time she needs and then, when she's on the political scrapheap, allows her to become a television celebrity. Why can't Australia be more like Canada, a nation that embraces civil rights and tolerance, with political leaders who stand up to racism and nastiness; a nation that sees its role in the world as an independent nation and which is not frightened to stand up and be counted in the global fight for a fairer world. Let's admit it. Australia has become a pigsty. The majority of voters have succumbed either to materialism or to the underbelly of their soul, an underbelly that gives free rein to fear, racism and xenophobia. This is the land of missed opportunity, the land where the alternative government is made up of populist conservatives such as Julia Gillard, sometimes touted as a leader, or Kevin Rudd whose capacity for imagination and vision seems severely limited. Why not leave? Because to cut and run is cowardly. There are decent people who wish for more and surely they will win out one day - if not for themselves, then for their children and grandchildren. First published in The Mercury on December 19, 2005. ~~~ Anything to feel proud, be it money or false belief By Clive Hamilton December 23, 2005 THE Cronulla riots and the responses to them are the third recent outbreak of mob violence in Sydney. In February Macquarie Fields was ablaze as some of the most economically and socially marginalised Sydneysiders expressed their resentment at the authorities. Last year the Redfern riots were reported around the world as years of anger from urban indigenous people boiled over into running battles with police and attacks on passing motorists. What is it about Sydney that makes it the cauldron of mob violence in Australia? Over the past decade or so, Sydney has been at the centre of Australia's economic and cultural globalisation. It has been infected like nowhere else by the epidemic of consumerism, money-hunger and affluenza, all captured in the collective madness of the property boom. In Sydney, more than any other part of Australia, a person's worth is measured by money. Money and what it can buy have become the great dividers, the symbols that mark out the winners from the losers. The extraordinary preoccupation with material acquisition inescapably confers a sense of worthlessness on those at the bottom of the income hierarchy no matter what their intrinsic achievements and personal qualities may be. It takes a great deal of psychological strength and an acute social understanding to protect oneself against the pressures to judge one's worth by the materialistic standard. So, despite the spread of affluence, many Sydneysiders have been made to feel bad about themselves because they couldn't or wouldn't play the money game. There are a number of ways to react to this implicit social rejection, a form of social exclusion of which they are reminded every day. Depression is one. Another is to club together with the other outsiders to express your anger and assert your difference. The riots in Redfern and Macquarie Fields fit this pattern. The causes of the violence at Cronulla and Maroubra are more complicated. Anglo Australians have deep if mostly latent reserves of intolerance, but in this they are not so different from people in most other countries. But as long as outsiders conform to the broadly accepted norms Australians are happy to live harmoniously with them. It is clear, however, that many Lebanese Muslims have not integrated as well as other waves of postwar immigrants. They are more insular and less willing to intermarry. The macho culture of young Lebanese men is out of tune with modern Australian attitudes about acceptable public behaviour. It is alarming that many of them are in their late 20s and early 30s and are still manifesting juvenile hoonish behaviour. The community fear that this misbehaviour generates has been building for some years. Six years ago I met a man from Sydney's west who had shifted his family to Canberra. When asked why, his response was immediate: "It's the Lebs, mate, the Lebs." While he may have been particularly intolerant of difference, the concerns he expressed are widely felt and have grown. According to their own reports, the isolation and alienation of Lebanese and other Arab communities has been intensified by the nasty turn of events in global politics which has led to the demonisation of "the Arab" across the Western world. And for all of his protestations to the contrary, these community divisions have been fanned by the Prime Minister, John Howard, who is a master at tapping into latent fears of the outsider. As a political strategist, Howard is often one jump ahead of others, a fact that helps explain his apparently incomprehensible but repeated claim that Australia is not a racist nation. A Herald Poll shows that 75 per cent of Australians believe that there is an underlying racism in Australia, and they are undoubtedly right. But they don't believe that they personally can be described as racist. Howard knows that Australians are prejudiced (he exploits the tendency as necessary); but he also knows that no one likes to think of themselves that way. So in saying that Australians are not racist the Prime Minister is reaffirming people's own comforting beliefs about themselves. He is telling Australians that there is no reason to feel they need to change their own views, an extension of his criticism of the "black armband" view of Australian history. It's clever politics, but it is also the reason why Howard will never be judged a great Australian prime minister however long he extends his term of office. The role of a leader is to bring out the best in us, not to exploit the worst. Yet that is how Howard plays his politics. When convenient he will manufacture and exploit division while apparently appealing for unity, a tactic dubbed "dog whistling" by Laurie Oakes. The trouble with blowing the dog whistle too often is that the gathering neighbourhood dogs may end up urinating on your leg. Clive Hamilton is executive director of the Australia Institute.
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