I thought this was a teriffic op ed on the Cronulla riots.
It’s got a ‘down the middle’ format that many Troppodillians will know that I’m attracted to. But I think the points it makes about the standard left and right views of the issue are spot on.
I would have liked to have added that it seems highly implausible that even with the incitement by Alan Jones, a racist riot of the kind that occurred would have developed without genuine grievances.
As a resident of the area said to me once some gangs act aggressively and a particular ethnicity is identified rightly or wrongly (in this case Lebanese Muslim), the blame can continue to be sheeted home to them even when other gangs do the next bit of dirty work.
And of course pretty obviously even if the gangs against whom the rioters were rioting were Lebanese Muslims and they’d done aweful things, it hardly detracts from the outrage of attacking anyone who’s got a passing resemblance to them. What a horrible thing it was and how fortunate that, at least to this point, things have calmed down so decidedly.
