What did the Cronulla riot of December 2005 and its aftermath reveal about Australian society?

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What did the Cronulla riot of December 2005 and its aftermath reveal about Australian society?

Australia is renowned for being a land of multiculturalism, a country rich in culture and diversity, and accepting of the belief systems of their citizen, however the events of the 11th of December 2005 when a crowd of roughly 5000 Anglo Australian took to the beaches of cronulla attacking anyone of “Middle Eastern” appearance,  as response to an incident the previous weekend in which two lifesavers were injured after a confrontation with a group of Lebanese men.  What followed for several days were retaliation attacks by Middle Eastern groups, and constant fighting and bantering by both sides with young Australians travelling into the shire from other areas of Sydney to participate in the both sides riots. Through the cronulla riots and its aftermath, we see  aspects of Australian Society questioned and ridiculed through media not only nationally but also on the international stage.

Key to the organization of the riots and also the retaliation attacks were forms of media in which organizations of rioters and also communication between rioters was made. The use of text messages by the rioters was seen as the most practical form of communication between members of the mass conflict.  Text messages varied with a few simply stating “Bash a leb day” and with others stating “ This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North cronulla to help support leb and wog bashing day”. Attention was also brought to these text messages by large newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and also the Sunday morning herald who saw it fit to print articles featuring these text messages with headlines such as “Let’s claim back our shire” and  “Cronulla fights back”, only days before the riots had actually occurred .  Radio talk back shows such as Alan Jones 2GB brought attention to events which occurred at cronulla where lifesavers were attacked by a group of Lebanese men, the incident had been covered by television new cast and also newspaper articles however no racial profiling of the attackers was made until “what kind of grubs? Well I’ll tell you what kind of grubs this lot were. His lot were Middle Eastern grubs. And we’re not allowed to say that, but I’m saying it.  Jones continued to  his attack on the middle eastern community of Sydney by stating "we don't have Anglo-Saxon kids out there raping women in Western Sydney". Jones was not alone of his vigilante against the middle eastern community, Journalist Brian Wilshire, who described those of Lebanese heritage had low IQs and were “inbred”. Media coverage of the Cronulla riots clearly played a large part in not only spreading around information about attacks, but also were responsible for much of the organization and communication between rioters in not only the initial riots but also in the retaliation attacks. Media coverage of the first attacks on the lifesavers were exaggerated in the media creating, which created a false sense of the shire needing protection from groups of middle eastern decent.

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 The most common question and debate which was surfaced during the cronulla riots was the integrity behind Australia being a multicultural society welcoming nationalities from all over the world. In the 2006 “Where the bloody hell are you? Australian tourist campaign, there is a  scene featured in the advertisement of a girl walking on an unpopulated beach saying “we’ve saved you a spot on the beach”, this was questioned considerably after the cronulla riots as residents were not even able to share the beach with fellow Sydney residents . Through the Cronulla riots we see the changing evolution of the ...

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