Lessons learnt as a result of the Cronulla Riots
For Morris Iemma:
A rule of thumb is that a gang will get progressively more violent and aggressive if it can get away with their activities.
If you can afford on December 16, 2005 to recruit online for fifteen non-uniform jobs in the NSW police force, including a $73,000 a year media liaison job, you can certainly afford to add more front line police officers.
Most members of the public are unlikely to admit to being Australian if contronted by two car-loads of Lebanese-hoons at three in the morning.
Bondi residents probably won't thank you if you extend the Eastern Suburbs railway line to Bondi Beach
For John Howard:
If you say the moon is made from cheese, or that a lynch mob isn't racist, expect the pesky media to then hang on to every word you say.
For the neo-Nazis:
Learn to spell. It is embarrassing that your warcry via SMS had more spelling mistakes than your enemy's poetic call to arms to the Lions of Lebanon
Lebanese-Australians have generally been hard-working and law abiding citizens, including governor Dr Marie Bashir, Premier Steve Bracks, Bulldogs star Hazem El-Masri and the poet John Malouf. But if you still want to beat up a Leb, why not start with your leader, Jim Saleam?
For the French:
When you see Wellington bringing up his cavalry, or German panzers rolling through the Ardennes forrest, or the Viet Minh assembling artillery on mountains surrounding your encampment, it is a good idea to react to events as they occur. Doing nothing doesn't help. Repeatedly doing nothing on successive nights of rioting by a bunch of kids will also not produce a desired outcome. It is amazing how much trouble a few strategically placed roadblocks can save you.
For the Malaysians:
When Malaysia has a refugee migration programme, then its Prime Minister will be qualified to make comments on the Cronulla riots.
For the pontificating armchair leftie sociologists who actually have never lived in Sydney but believe that any social theory can be applied universally:
I can dig the notion that explaining bad behaviour is not the same as endorsing bad behaviour. You are free to speculate of the social dynamics that led to the Sydney Gang Rapes and I won't think you are sacrificing your anti-sexism principles for the sake of your anti-racism principles. However, you risk looking wilfully ignorant and hypocritical when you don't support sensible measures to confront the root causes.
If the Cronulla mob didn't target Japanese, Greeks or Russians who use the beach, then perhaps the issue lies with the behaviour of the people who were the targets.
No matter if the words are Fuck off Lebs! or Hey good looking, I really like you, don't take too seriously anything said under the influence of alcohol.
For the Cronulla residents:
The maxim of an eye for an eye appears in both the Bible and Koran. So regardless which son of Abraham you are decended from you should therefore be totally aware that retribution will come when you attack a member of somebody else's tribe.
If you are territorial about your beach, don't expect widespread sympathy from the wider community. How many Cronulla surf nazis are ratepayers anyway?
For the Bra Boys:
The quickest path to a Nobel Peace Prize is to be a reformed thug like Yassir Arafat playing the role of peacemaker, even if you are negotiating with a questionable mandate and haven't really achieved peace.
For the Lebanese gangs:
If a country like Tonga with a population that barely runs in the six figures can still field a world class rugby team, it is probably not a good idea to antagonise their young men by burning down their community church.
Australia now has laws against sedition and the physical infrastructure required to deport or detain thousands of people if required. The public at large didn't give two bob to the hundred plus who died in the Siev X debacle, and there will be even fewer sympathetic if a crackdown takes place. DIMIA ain't the kind of bureaucracy that you will want to put an appeal through if they knock on your door at six in the morning to start deportation procedures against you on character grounds. With that in mind, Australian citizenship prolly ain't such a bad thing.