Monday 19 December, 2005

Riots in Blogworld (6)

While Prime Minister John Howard was saying he didn't think the Cronulla riots reflected underlying racism in this country, and nor would they effect how Australia was viewed overseas, the riots topped Technorati, a site which searches blogs around the world. There were 500 blogs on the subject on Monday and more than 4000 by the end of the week. Most compared what is happening here to the riots in Paris and characterized the violence as 'Anti-Arab'. Sploid, a site with a taste for lurid headlines, ran a piece under the headline, 'Aussies Hunt Arabs':'Massive race riots have erupted on the beaches of suburban Sydney, with 5,000 whites hunting down Arabs and savagely beating any they caught,' and mentions Bruce Baird's contribution to the debate, 'A federal lawmaker made the bizarre excuse that the riots were in retaliation for the Bali bombings in 2002, which killed several Australian tourists and which have been blamed on Indonesian terrorists, not Lebanese nor Arabs at all.' Subzero Blue, the personal weblog of Tunisian Mohamed Marwen Meddah writes, 'the instigators were presumed white supremacists who protested in this disorderly and illegal way their discomfort with Australia's multiculturalism (and/or the Muslim community) and immigration policies,' but he was more upbeat about John Howard's contribution to the debate, writing, 'The Aussie Prime Minister John Howard was quick to condemn the racist attacks' . Mexican blog, World News A La Mexicana quoted Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour, 'Arab Australians have had to cope with vilification, racism, abuse and fear of a racial backlash for a number of years, but these riots will take that fear to a new level,' and American Feminist blogger, Echinde of the Snakes asked whether the riots were, 'The fruit of 9/11, the Bali bombings [or] multiculturalism gone bonkers?'

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