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Well, things do get heated sometimes - that is in part why we lock threads - to give everyone a chance to sit back, think a bit and decide whether they want to carry on discussing the subject at that pitch, or indeed at all. Peter has had a pretty bumpy start to his time on Barbelith, almost entirely as a result of his own actions and tone - the quite clearly erroneous claims about Hebrew timekeeping, the application of the theory of evolution to the cosmos and the role of quantum physics in Bishop Berkeley's theories, followed by rag-losing being a good example on less sensitive grounds, but you never know - people have bad days, or drinking binges, or manic episodes.
Having said which, Peter, regarding this fixation on rightness and wrongness, in particular in the context of this big ol' lie:
You also stated that the conviction of Bilal Skaf and eight other young men of Lebanese descent
You keep insisting that I denied that the events of 2000, involving 14 charges and 9 convictions, took place. I said nothing of the sort - you keep fibbing about that, and I'm not sure who you seek to convince here. Presumably not me, and I hope not yourself, and I don't think anyone else is going to believe you, no matter how many times you say it.
What you actually said was:
Furthermore there were a number of high profile gang rape convictions, involving groups of up to fifty Lebanese men at a time
I took this to mean, because it is the only way that it makes sense in English, "there were a number of high profile convictions, involving groups of up to fifty Lebanese men being convicted of gang rape". Any basic reader of English will tell you that this is what it means. As such, I took you to be claiming that there had been a series of convictions for gang rape, involving up to fifty Lebanese men being convicted in each conviction. This is what you actually said, and is clearly a fantastic claim - an absurdly incorrect assertion. However, this is what you said.
As you then conceded:
Clearly this number 50 (which you used) cannot be substantiated
I assumed from your use of this unsubstantiable number that you had imagined another set of cases, not involving Bilal Skaf, that had taken place after the cases involving Bilal Skaf - that is, closer to the Cronulla riots about which you were talking. I happily accept that you had in fact simply taken an unsubstantiated statement from the time of the trial of Bilal Skaf and in doing so represented it - describing a series of trials in which up to fifty Lebanese men at a time were convicted of rape - in a fashion that made it unrecognisable, not to say fantastic, because you expressed yourself so badly as to function as deceit. So, what you claim to have said, and what you sincerely believe that you said, sadly do not resemble what you actually said. The conviction of Bilal Skaf, of course, did not involve up to fifty Lebanese men, nor did any of the other convictions at the time. You may cry semantics, but if you want to keep any sort of benefit of the doubt around here I would recommend that you don't.
All of which does not one whit affect the simple fact, as noted not only by me but by many others in this thread, that you are quick to talk about "Lebanese crime" and, while claiming not to be justifying the attacks on foreign-looking people by the Cronulla rioters, list all these reasons, the relationship of which to fact I have already discussed, why people could reasonably feel jolly ticked off with the foreign-looking. You have not at any point considered what else might be going on there. Without even looking at social factors, how many assaults on Lebanese youths had taken place at the beach over the same time period? How many of those went unreported, on the assumption that the Police would not be interesting in violence _against_ young Lebanese men, or believe them to be innocent victims? How much violent crime took place not involving Lebanese people at all? How much of that was reported? For that matter, where is the evidential support for the anecdotal increase in harassment in the run-up to the riots, in terms of actual crime reports? Did you genuinely not notice that this behaviour - the beach assaults - is what you are identifying as "Lebanese crime", until it becomes clear that Task Force Gain was not aimed at beach hassle and lifeguard assault, when suddenly "Lebanese Crime" is all about the firearms and the drugs?
More broadly, and probably terminating my involvement in this unlovely resurrection - clearly, the Lebanese community in New South Wales has some specific problems - unemployment is high, family income is lower than average, crime rates - as often happens in poor communities - are high, through a combination of desperation, disenfranchisement, anger, lack of other social opportunities for young men und so weiter. You may remember this setup from South East Asian immigrants a half-dozen years ago, from Greeks and Croatians before that - there's always a set of barbarians ready to burn down the gates of the emerald city of Oz.
Clearly there need to be efforts made to deal with this. It is complicated by cultural differences between some people in Australia - some of them recent immigrants - and others. These differences should be respected, but without subverting (if you like the rule of law) the rule of law or (if you don't) the individual's right to live free of violence.
However, what doesn't need to happen is, for example, high crime rates in the Lebanese community being represented as a simple and inalienable fact - not, say, something that is susceptible to social conditions - while also using questionable statements to provide a context and motivation for the Cronulla rioters. This is not, as I have said from the start, giving a "fair go" to the Lebanese Australians - or indeed any of the other ethnic minority Australians and others who were made to live in fear of violence during the riot, because it denies them any status except that conferred by the activities of a small group - small and now shrunk from a number of gangs of up to 50 convicted felons to 9 imprisoned people. It also shows how quickly one bumps up against the stated value of "tolerance", of course. |
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