Race Riots in Sydney

Three nights of racial violence in eight suburbs of Sydney had prompted the state legislature of New South Wales to reconvene in an emergency session on Thursday in order to pass extraordinary legislation giving police sweeping powers to deal with the riots. These were the worst racial riots to hit Australia in decades and resulted in the tightest security clampdown witnessed in Sydney since the 2000 Olympics.

The reported attack by Lebanese youth on two white lifeguards - the epitome of white Australian beach culture - in a Sydney beach led to a retaliation by 5,000 white youth on Arabs in the Cronulla beach last Sunday. Screaming white youth kicked and punched men of Middle Eastern origin and ripped off the head scarves of Muslim women. This provoked a retaliation by Middle Eastern youth who proceeded to shatter store fronts with baseball bats, smash cars, hurl rocks at police and burn the Australian flag later that evening. White men were stabbed. Australia was stunned at the three nights of racial violence. A church hall, next to an Islamic center, was set on fire while shots were fired at a Christmas carol service at a primary school. Cardinal George Pell condemned the last incident as "apparently motivated by religious intolerance". These in turn fueled isolated attacks on Arabs across Australia. The police , which is now on high alert, has clamped down anticipating a possible re-eruption of race riots this weekend.

The race riots has prompted renewed criticism of Australia's multi-cultural immigration policy. Australia has a population of 20 million, approximately a third of whom are of Anglo-Saxon heritage. 4% have a Chinese or Vietnamese background. Middle Eastern and other Muslims account for 1.5%. Indians account for 1%. The country has witnessed a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Bali Bombings in 2002 that resulted in the death of 88 Australians, a series of gang rapes of white women involving Pakistani and Lebanese men in 2002, and last month's clampdown on Islamacist cells in Melbourne and Sydney pre-empting what was thought to be a major terror attack aimed at Australian civilian targets. The bombings in Bali by Islamic fundamentalists were intended to kill Australian tourists. The recent incidents have tarnished Australia's reputation as a bastion of tolerance and racial integration. As Kuranda Seyit, of the Forum of Australian-Islamic Relations, put it "There is racism running deeply in the Australian psyche. Its been simmering for years".