Rape menace from the melting pot' : racialisation and the moral panic over 'ethnic gang rape' in Sydney, 2001-2002

This paper analyses the ideological elements of the moral panic about 'ethnic gang rape' in Sydney over 2001-2002, following a series of group sexual assaults in western Sydney in 2000 for which a number of a group of young Lebanese-Australian men were convicted. The interwoven ideological threads of the moral panic involve common-sense 'orientalism' of the Arab/Muslim Other's masculinity as deviant, immoral and dangerous; it is racialised and criminalised. These contradictory racist themes include: Lebanese/Muslim men's purported disrespect of women in general; Lebanese/Muslim men being allegedly brought up to regard 'White', 'Western', 'Caucasian', etc, women as 'sluts' and thus 'fair game'; 'ethnic gang rape' as an expression of anti-'Aussie', anti-White, anti-Western hatred which is supposedly encouraged in Muslim communities at large; Muslim and 'Third-World' cultures as barbaric, uncivilised, violent and misogynistic in their law and their morality; condemnation of laxity and indulgence in the Australian legal and political system towards transgressors and calls to mete out 'their own medicine'.