2005 Disgusting Ockers at Cronulla

.Cronulla Riots: triggers, aftermath, and lasting impact on Australia > .

One Sunday in December 2005, five thousand Australians gathered at Cronulla, singing and waving the national flag as they "reclaimed" the beach. Fuelled by drink, the crowd became a mob, hunting down and beating anyone who looked Middle Eastern.

That night and the next, carloads of hundreds of young men of Middle Eastern descent headed for the beach suburbs to launch similarly random and savage acts of revenge.
The shocking TV images flashed across the world. At home, Australia's ugliness was disowned as "un-Australian". Political leaders called it a problem of law and order rather than racism.

So what should Australians make of the Cronulla explosion? Was it a nation-defining event that should sound the alarm about growing racial division? Or was it something less, a turf war, or a clash of tribes that some have likened to the '60s rumbles between rockers and surfers?

Four Corners looked for answers not from social commentators but from the participants - the young Anglos who joined the seething mob at Cronulla on 11 December, the Middle Eastern men who took part in revenge attacks, and the police who were stuck in the middle.

The 2005 Cronulla riots were race riots in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. They began in the beachside suburb of Cronulla on 11 December and spread over the next few nights to additional suburbs.

The riots were triggered by an event the previous Sunday, when an altercation turned physical between a group of youths of Middle-Eastern appearance (referred to as "Lebanese" or "Lebos" by their opponents) and Anglo-Australian lifeguards on the beach. Following the reporting of this event by the tabloid media and "shock jocks" on local radio, a racially motivated gathering was organised for the following weekend.

A crowd gathered at Cronulla on the morning of Sunday, 11 December, and, by midday, approximately 5,000 people had gathered near the beach. The police eventually intervened. Violence spread to other southern suburbs of Sydney, where assaults occurred, including two stabbings and attacks on ambulances and police officers. Travel warnings for Australia were issued by some countries but were later removed.

The riots were widely condemned by local, state and federal members of parliament, police, local community leaders, and residents of Cronulla and adjacent areas. A large number of arrests were made over the subsequent months, from both the initial riot on 11 December and the retaliations over the subsequent nights. Some media were criticised and well-known radio personality Alan Jones was formally censured and fined for his broadcasts during that week.

The Australia First Party, in particular its youth wing the Patriotic Youth League, were involved in the riots.