Introduction

Abstract

On December 11, 2005 an outburst of violence and a breakdown in public order descended upon the southern Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla. The Australian public watched, surprised and aghast, as the latent tensions within Sydney’s communities flared into an outright conflict that became known as the Cronulla riots. Two groups who identified respectively as patriotic white Australians from the southern suburbs and ethnic Lebanese Australians from the western suburbs targeted one another, and in so doing drew in unwilling bystanders who bore a passing physical resemblance to either group. The immediate trigger for this violence was the assault of two lifeguards by a group of men of ‘middle Eastern appearance’, following many months of sexually demeaning slurs directed against young white women at beaches by groups of youths of ‘middle Eastern appearance’. As a result, a mass demonstration of up to 5,000 people — mostly white males — gathered, brandishing Australian flags and beer bottles while chanting nationalist and racist slogans. The crowd violently assaulted a number of individuals, who in many cases were not even necessarily of ‘middle Eastern appearance’. They were, however, identifiably ‘non-white’. In retaliation, convoys of cars from the western suburbs sought to enter Cronulla, forcing the police to set up road-blocks and checkpoints, effectively locking down many southern suburbs of Sydney.