JustWonders wrote:Quote:"We got a text message from our boys to come down today, but we don't want any trouble," said a young ethnic Lebanese man, Ahmad, who wore a camouflage baseball cap backwards and long baggy shorts with a mobile phone clipped to them.
From Punchbowl, an inland suburb of mainly Lebanese immigrants, Ahmad showed the text message: "All Arabs unite to let the Aussies know we can't be pushed around."
That's from the CNN report posted by ossobuco.
That might be the biggest part of the problem Auistralia is facing. Despite living there, some of the Lebanese immigrants don't feel Australian.
Dunno.
That is a complex one...but I suspect here is somewhat analogous to the US? Do people not talk about being Italian American/Chinese American etc?
Thing is, Sydney is a bit different, perhaps, so I cannot respond for there. They tend to get the really big influxes as each new wave of migration hits, so tensions tend to be very clear at the coal face there, but where I live, Lebanese/Greek/Italian/Vietnamese/Chinese/Malaysian/African etc tend to identify depending on the situation.
Multiculturalism has tended to be the theme here, with culture and traditions being maintained (indeed, often ossifying) as well as broader Oz culture being taken on. Films and books and such lead me to believe that roughly the same occurs in the US?????
Here are some examples:
A young Greek Australian, with traditional parents, will say to me when explaining something about his parents: "Ah, they're Greek, you know...they don't understand me and what I want to do." A young Greek Australian woman, with traditional parents, will say that FAR more vehemently.
Both young people will be ecstatic when Greece wins the soccer, and will loudly proclaim their Greekness.
A friend of mine, whose parents live in Hong Kong, was VERY "Australian" in his outlook....upsetting his parents by his un Chineseness. He married another friend, whose parents migrated from Holland. When they had their first son, the Chinese Oz friend's mother was shocked at how traditional her son suddenly became....."Aieee" she said "You're behaving just like an old Chinaman!!!"
As is common in immigrant countries, the last wave of immigrants is most against the next. A number of Vietnamese Austraians I have come across are vehemently racist re the newer waves of Afghanis, people from the Arab countries, and Africans.
"They are un Australian!!" I have heard them say: "They don't understand Australian ways!"
Next breath, to child: "You can't do that, it's not Vietnamese!"
Where I am, people from Lebanon (many of whom are in their third generation, with the fourth in arms) still identify strongly with Lebanese culture, but go to the footy and have barbies.....
People tend to intermarry a lot in Oz, too.
In my circle, I have two Anglo friends married to Africans, several to Chinese, a number to people who identify as Aboriginal, looooooots of Greek and Italian/Anglo marriages, a couple married to people from Vietnam, Thailand, the Middle East etc.
But.....I know in areas of Sydney racial tensions have been very high, at times.....and elsewhere, I am sure. And Australia has its full share of racist pigs, frank Nazis and other nasty or simply ignorant idiots.....not always Anglo, either. Other cultures are fully as racist as we are....working for years in an Asian restaurant taught me that, if I didn't know already.
So...it sounds like the split is big in Cronulla (and elsewhere no doubt) but the identifying thing can be very benign, too.
An irony in viewing this as racist, exactly, is the fact that the Anglo thugs were actively asking for Pacific Islander people to come and join the bashing, "cos they don't take any ****"......while I have no doubt many of the thugs were frankly racist, I suspect the tensions leading to the riot were more complex than that.
We had three close neighbors that immigrated from Hong Kong. I have some great memories and lasting friendships from those days growing up. Our neighborhood (and my school) was practically a mini-U.N.
