Abstract
On the sweltering Sunday afternoon of 11th December, 2005 at Cronulla beach, an alcohol-fuelled throng, widely estimated as five thousand strong, violently attacked beachgoers and passers-by identified as being of 'Middle Eastern appearance' (King and Box, 2005: 1; Murphy, 2005: 4). Intervening police and paramedics tending the injured, were also attacked, with fists, feet and bottles; they attested that it was sheer luck that no-one was killed in what Moses (2006) identifies as a 'pogrom'. A young Arab-background man was beaten and had bottles smashed across his back another youth was found by police, bashed and lying in a puddle of blood, residents looked on while a group of men jumped on another victim's head (Overington and Warne-Smith, 2005: 20). By the Sunday night, at least thirteen people were reported injured and twelve had been arrested (Kennedy et a!., 2005: 1). The Sydney Morning Herald, perhaps with more hyperbole than history, called it 'possibly Australia's biggest racist protest since vigilante miners killed two Chinese at Lambing Flat in 1860' (Murphy, 2005: 4).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Lines in the Sand: The Cronulla Riots, Multiculturalism and National Belonging |
| Editors | Greg Noble |
| Place of Publication | Sydney, N.S.W. |
| Publisher | Institute of Criminology Press |
| Pages | 44-57 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780975196786 |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
Keywords
- race riots
- racism
- race relations
- multiculturalism
- Cronulla (N.S.W.)