Culture clash Down Under

TheSUn 16Dec2005 Culture clash Down Under CRONULLA BEACH: The barebreasted woman stepping into the surf is tanned golden brown. The face of the woman on the street, under her headscarf, is pale ivory. In the topsy-turvy language of race forced on anyone trying to make sense of Australia's riots this week, however, the brown woman is white and the pale woman is not. But beyond their skin colours, and their religion or lack of it, a clash of lifestyles played a large part in Australia's worst racial violence in living memory, commentators say. Cronulla beach, where race riots erupted on Sunday, and the streets of the mainly-Muslim suburb of Lakemba, are a short drive apart in Sydney, but they could be different worlds. To the government they reflect multicultural proof that the country has moved on from its despised "White Australia" policy and is worthy of acceptance by its Asian neighbours at forums such as this week's East Asia summit. To the white supremacists and neo-Nazis spotted by police at the riots at Cronulla beach, in which ethnic Lebanese from suburbs such as Lakemba were attacked by white mobs, the differences are intolerable. But somewhere between the flat denial of racism by Prime Minister John Howard, and the hatred on the faces of the drunken white youths attacking fellow Australians while draped in the national flag, lies the truth. The fact that many other countries, most recently France, experience racial unrest has been a constant point of reference in remarks by politicians here and in media coverage of the riots. And few would quibble with the government's claim that Australia has moved far beyond the days when this former British colony was viewed as home to "Asia's white tribe". Sydney is a cosmopolitan city where the racial violence has come as a shock simply because it is unprecedented. John Saleh, 23, a Palestinianbor n store manager, agreed, saying he had not experienced racism in his adopted country. "It's beautiful, friendly, I get along with everybody," he said. "Those who made the problems should be arrested." At Cronulla beach, the question of who "made the problems" usually elicits the answer: "Lebanese gangs." Some politicians have suggested that the violence was partly fuelled by anger over militants, but young "white" workers at the Alley Break beachfront cafe don't mention religion in their assessment of the riots. Scott Veltmeijer, an ethnicDutchman born in Australia, and Melanie Campbell, 21, say large gangs of ethnic-Lebanese men descend on the beach at the weekends and spoil it for others through boorish behaviour. "They play soccer and kick sand all over people, they make rude remarks to women, they intimidate everybody," said Campbell. Girls in bikinis are called sluts and whores, the gangs play loud music and leave rubbish on the beach, local residents say. While the clashes have been described as being between whites and people of "Middle Eastern appearance", it is the Lebanese community that is singled out for criticism. "The Lebanese have been left behind compared with other g roups such as the Chinese, Vietnamese, Greeks and Jews," said James Jupp, director of the Centre for Immig ration and Multicultural Studies at the Australian National University. "Their level of education and therefore their level of employment and employability are lower than average. "So there is a lot of resentment there: they haven't done terribly well and they feel that they are not being treated like Australians and that they are being picked on." ­ AFP