Let's start with the good, because the bad is a fucking disgrace.
At Telstra Stadium (formerly Stadium Australia, the main stadium during the 2000 Olympics) on November 16, the Australian soccer team (the Socceroos) qualified for their first World Cup in 31 years after beating Uruguay in a penalty shoot-out. Photos after the events showed Australians of all backgrounds dancing in the streets to celebrate the fact that their team had finally made it through.
And why wouldn't you describe as their team? As Michael Cockerill said in the Sydney Morning Herald the next day:
In a multicultural nation in a fractured world, the Socceroos can bring together the sum of their parts: Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican. German, Lebanese, Polynesian, Croatian, Italian, Melanesian, Greek. It is a rich tapestry but last night they - and we - were one thing only. Australian.
While that may have been the case nearly a month ago, it certainly wasn't yesterday.
After a disgraceful attack on two lifesavers last weekend in Cronulla, on Sydney's southside, text messages and e-mails had been flying around, urging "Anglos" (those of European, mainly English, extraction) to get revenge on the "Lebs" (which basically means anyone who looks Middle Eastern).
Sure enough, large groups of people gathered at Cronulla throughout the day - at first peacefully, before the effects of alcohol, sunshine and testosterone combined. Beginning with one man being punched around 11am, the mob surged every time they saw a person of Middle Eastern appearance, attacking them with fists, beer bottles, cowardice. No one that looked like a "wog" was spared - not even young girls. One "hero" even ripped off a girl's headscarf as she tried to get to safety.
Of course this racist show of aggression wasn't going to go unpunished by those who felt their brethren had been attacked. So we then had the fun of more testosterone-filled hoons attacking the original mob or burning the Australian flag.
Onya guys. Between both groups, you've successfully managed to get the ugliest part of any society into the world news, managed to undo any good work the Socceroos victory had achieved, managed to get your revenge(s) in the most despicable way possible.
But you know what the absolute pits was?
The original mob draped themselves in Australian flags and sung the Australian national anthem while beating the crap out of people they didn't consider Australian enough.
Excuse me?
What do they want: a return to the white-bread Australia, where a special meal was meat and three veg instead of the usual two? And anyway, why does it matter when one's ancestors came over here? If that were the case, then those idiots that started the trouble yesterday would absolutely revere our indigenous people as being the most Australian of them all, although if many of them could even spell "indigenous" or "Aboriginal" I'd be surprised.
If you're going to use OUR flag and OUR national anthem, do it somewhere that's going to help national pride. And for those from both sides that participated in the riots: don't bother cheering for the Socceroos in Germany next year.
You've clearly shown you're not Australian.
No comments:
Post a Comment