Today marks the 1 year anniversary of ( I think) one of the darkest days in Australian history.
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Cronulla 2: the non-event
From "The Bulletin".
With the Cronulla riots still resonating, NSW police will be all over the beaches this summer, but critics say this is a political overreaction and that Anglo-Lebanese tensions are easing anyway. Adam Shand reports.
At the height of last summer's tensions at Cronulla a text message circulated in Sydney's Arabic community conveying a darkly humorous vision.
The NSW government was said to be building a new freeway between Punchbowl and Cronulla - The Middle Eastern Distributor. The inference was that an army of Australian-Lebanese would descend on the beach for regular battles with the so-called Sons of Anzac.
On December 11 last year, as 5000 people gathered for one of modern Australia's worst racial confrontations, it was easy to believe that this was just the beginning. The well-organised "revenge attacks" by Australian-Lebanese youth heralded a descent into open warfare.
A year later, the worst fears of the community have not so far been realised. Despite a concerted effort by sections of the media to set the stage for Cronulla 2, there are no indications that hostilities are set to explode again. And if they did, the NSW police are far better equipped to handle it.
Operation Beachsafe is the most visible evidence of that readiness. Eighty officers will be patrolling the beaches; there will a dog squad, and police on horseback and in golf buggies cruising up and down the sand.
Yet enforcement alone will not avert a repeat of the violence and hatred that was beamed around the world. Officers involved in the riots were well aware of the threat that day and could do little to prevent what took place. Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin, the officer in command that day, has challenged the findings of the Hazzard report into the riots, which found that the police had been taken by surprise by the scale of the mob. In a letter to Police Commissioner Ken Moroney, Goodwin says the risk assessment was raised from medium to high two days before the riots. A range of standard measures were taken to meet the heightened challenge. Still, the police could not fully contain events, which were fuelled by alcohol and white supremacist rhetoric, he says. Nevertheless the commissioner has opted to boost the visible force on the ground.
Manning levels have been increased in the Cronulla area. Thirty officer cadets fresh from the Police Academy will be stationed there next year. As a result, Bankstown will now receive only 16 new officers, compared with an earlier estimate of 30, say local officers.
Some officers say this is political policing. Beachsafe officers will spend the summer working on their tans rather than catching crooks.
Certainly with an election due in March next year, the government cannot afford a repeat of the riots and the political fall-out which led indirectly led to the demise of Police Minister Carl Scully.
Senior police also recognise that to prevent "Cronulla 2" requires a deeper grassroots response. The Anglo-Saxon and Australian-Lebanese communities had to be reconciled, not simply held apart by a thin blue line of police. A team, led by Acting Inspector Nigel Webber, has been liaising between community leaders in Cronulla and Bankstown.
Police Ethnic Liaison Officer Gandhi Sindyan has been leading parties of Arabic youth leaders such as Fadi Rahman of Lidcombe Youth Centre on familiarisation tours of the Cronulla beaches, where they meet local police and surf lifesavers. The tours are designed to help both sides get to know each other, to bridge the gap of ignorance that helped to create the riots.
Rahman is a hero to a generation of disaffected Australian-Lebanese kids in Sydney's west. A one-time bad boy, he says that until recently he did not have the confidence to tell Muslim youth they could trust police.
"After going down to Cronulla with the police, I have much more confidence to pass on a message that community-based policing is working and promoting harmony," says Rahman.
"The police are reaching out now and listening to our problems. We are getting to know each other. It's still not perfect; it's a gradual process of building up trust and cooperation but we are far ahead of where we were last year."
It would be much easier now to prevent a retaliation force travelling from Bankstown to the beaches if there was a repeat of last year's violence.
Sindyan, who works in the Campsie local area command, says the level of cultural awareness of police when dealing with non-English speaking people is far higher now.
A community-based policing approach in the region has helped to cut crime and deal with disaffected youth. "If incidents occur we can quickly get on the telephone and get to the heart of the problem with the key stakeholders in the community," he says.
Police Citizens Youth Clubs in the south-west are also playing a key role with beach-oriented programs. Groups of Muslim kids from Lakemba are learning to become surf lifesavers on Cronulla beaches. Others are involved in sailing lessons with "Aussie" kids.
"There are bonds forming between the kids that were simply not there before," says Sindyan.
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Cronulla 2: the non-event
From "The Bulletin".
With the Cronulla riots still resonating, NSW police will be all over the beaches this summer, but critics say this is a political overreaction and that Anglo-Lebanese tensions are easing anyway. Adam Shand reports.
At the height of last summer's tensions at Cronulla a text message circulated in Sydney's Arabic community conveying a darkly humorous vision.
The NSW government was said to be building a new freeway between Punchbowl and Cronulla - The Middle Eastern Distributor. The inference was that an army of Australian-Lebanese would descend on the beach for regular battles with the so-called Sons of Anzac.
On December 11 last year, as 5000 people gathered for one of modern Australia's worst racial confrontations, it was easy to believe that this was just the beginning. The well-organised "revenge attacks" by Australian-Lebanese youth heralded a descent into open warfare.
A year later, the worst fears of the community have not so far been realised. Despite a concerted effort by sections of the media to set the stage for Cronulla 2, there are no indications that hostilities are set to explode again. And if they did, the NSW police are far better equipped to handle it.
Operation Beachsafe is the most visible evidence of that readiness. Eighty officers will be patrolling the beaches; there will a dog squad, and police on horseback and in golf buggies cruising up and down the sand.
Yet enforcement alone will not avert a repeat of the violence and hatred that was beamed around the world. Officers involved in the riots were well aware of the threat that day and could do little to prevent what took place. Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin, the officer in command that day, has challenged the findings of the Hazzard report into the riots, which found that the police had been taken by surprise by the scale of the mob. In a letter to Police Commissioner Ken Moroney, Goodwin says the risk assessment was raised from medium to high two days before the riots. A range of standard measures were taken to meet the heightened challenge. Still, the police could not fully contain events, which were fuelled by alcohol and white supremacist rhetoric, he says. Nevertheless the commissioner has opted to boost the visible force on the ground.
Manning levels have been increased in the Cronulla area. Thirty officer cadets fresh from the Police Academy will be stationed there next year. As a result, Bankstown will now receive only 16 new officers, compared with an earlier estimate of 30, say local officers.
Some officers say this is political policing. Beachsafe officers will spend the summer working on their tans rather than catching crooks.
Certainly with an election due in March next year, the government cannot afford a repeat of the riots and the political fall-out which led indirectly led to the demise of Police Minister Carl Scully.
Senior police also recognise that to prevent "Cronulla 2" requires a deeper grassroots response. The Anglo-Saxon and Australian-Lebanese communities had to be reconciled, not simply held apart by a thin blue line of police. A team, led by Acting Inspector Nigel Webber, has been liaising between community leaders in Cronulla and Bankstown.
Police Ethnic Liaison Officer Gandhi Sindyan has been leading parties of Arabic youth leaders such as Fadi Rahman of Lidcombe Youth Centre on familiarisation tours of the Cronulla beaches, where they meet local police and surf lifesavers. The tours are designed to help both sides get to know each other, to bridge the gap of ignorance that helped to create the riots.
Rahman is a hero to a generation of disaffected Australian-Lebanese kids in Sydney's west. A one-time bad boy, he says that until recently he did not have the confidence to tell Muslim youth they could trust police.
"After going down to Cronulla with the police, I have much more confidence to pass on a message that community-based policing is working and promoting harmony," says Rahman.
"The police are reaching out now and listening to our problems. We are getting to know each other. It's still not perfect; it's a gradual process of building up trust and cooperation but we are far ahead of where we were last year."
It would be much easier now to prevent a retaliation force travelling from Bankstown to the beaches if there was a repeat of last year's violence.
Sindyan, who works in the Campsie local area command, says the level of cultural awareness of police when dealing with non-English speaking people is far higher now.
A community-based policing approach in the region has helped to cut crime and deal with disaffected youth. "If incidents occur we can quickly get on the telephone and get to the heart of the problem with the key stakeholders in the community," he says.
Police Citizens Youth Clubs in the south-west are also playing a key role with beach-oriented programs. Groups of Muslim kids from Lakemba are learning to become surf lifesavers on Cronulla beaches. Others are involved in sailing lessons with "Aussie" kids.
"There are bonds forming between the kids that were simply not there before," says Sindyan.
