When the sands ran red : Melbourne Indymedia

As fears of fresh riots gripped Sydney about warring beach tribes and the tensions behind the brutal race battles last weekend, this weekend there was less trouble and little to show of it really, accept for the empty beaches, loss of income for local businesses, limited freedom for the whole community and the brutality of the NSW Police Force.

It is said to be the lucky country, where the beach culture more than any other phenomenon symbolises all that is breezy, open and inclusive about Australia.

But the cocktail of fear, alienation and youthful anger spawned by the Howard Government's scapegoating of Muslim communities over the past five years. Pro-Government Mainstream media giants promoting nationalism, inciting violence and announcing the event time and place. Cronulla beach had some of the worst racial violence ever seen here and now threatens the traditional Christmas of sun, sand and surf.

Overkill

Summer was effectively cancelled along 125 miles of the New South Wales coast this weekend as the authorities urged people to avoid beaches for fear of revenge attacks by armed hooligans.

But some people think that this was overkill because of the recent introduction of new police powers and if you search the boot of every vehicle or the pockets of every person then you're bound to find more implements, personal drugs or minor things like bracelets you put on with spikes (traditionally Gothic fetish clothing symbols) etc.

If you take everyone's phone then you're bound to get information that is private and confidential and all that nonsense is very Un-Australian indeed.

So claims of more arrests and seizures are related to stronger police powers too. Seizures and arrests from stronger police powers appear at first glance to validate those powers however this is simply not true, just because there is less privacy and more arrests.

The violence could disrupt the annual Christmas Day pilgrimage to Bondi Beach, Australia's most famous strip of sand, by more than 50,000 British and Irish expatriates and tourists. Morris Iemma, the Labor leader of New South Wales, apologised for massive security measures across Sydney, its biggest police operation since the 2000 Sydney Olympics. 'It is a long-term fight to ensure the hooligans, thugs and criminals who create disorder will not win,' Iemma said.

He said nothing about both the Liberal Government and Opposition Labor party promoting it by scapegoating the Muslim and Islamic communities for the last five years. Suggesting they threw their children in the water and now it's the terrorist phenomenon. He seems to think the kids got the idea from somewhere else and that these people weren't described as terrorists but they were. This was a generation of kids that grew up under the radical Howard government's policies, used to politically manipulate the population with fear and the target was the Muslims and the Islamic communities.

Hooligans and thugs that see all Muslims and Islamic people as suspected terrorist's leave little room for consolation. Boiling point is more easily reached because of the persecution of the Muslim and Islamic communities on the one hand and the raising of suspicion, generated by the Howard government and the pro-government media giants constantly, on the other.

The civil unrest gripping Australia's biggest city began two weeks ago after allegedly two teenage lifeguards at North Cronulla beach, in south Sydney, were allegedly attacked by a Lebanese Australian gang.

Why I say allegedly is because no one yet knows of the bias of the 'umpires' or lifeguards on the beach and they too are known to have bias. So we must get to the bottom of exactly who started the argument if it is going to be broadcast in the 'national interest' above everything else, which it needn't have been? So why was it in the 'national interest' anyway? Seems like a local 'community' or 'police' issue to me.

There had allegedly been reported anecdotes of sporadic violence and intimidation at Cronulla by groups of Lebanese Australians over several years, possibly due to police not policing them according to Tim Priest an ex NSW policeman. But others say that the root cause could also be that police were working with Lebanese Crime Gangs and of course what comes with that is protection from arrest and prosecution.

That is not to say that there had not been anecdotes of sporadic violence and intimidation at Cronulla by groups of Australians over several years and names have come up like the Bra boys the alleged defenders of the beach, according to some locals 'it's their way or the highway'.

This alleged attack on the lifeguards, made it a big issue because lifeguards are one of the most iconic of Australian symbols and that went too far for many people especially racist nationalists.

'It was a culmination of so many things over so many years,' says Danny Hanley, a resident whose daughters Renae and Simone were killed in the Bali bombing. He blames it on many 'crimes against ordinary Australians'.

Referring to Indonesian state sanctioned terror for the war on terror, which is terror but that's another story.

The result last Sunday was an ugly trip into the dark side of the Australian Dream. Images flashed around the world of young mates, full of alcohol, beating up a luckless few as the sun shone and the surf rolled.

They were chanting as if at a sports event: 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, Oi, Oi'. There were bursts of 'Waltzing Matilda' and Australian flags were waved in the assembled throngs.

Some groups attacked people with swarthy complexions. One youngster had written 'Love 'nulla, fuck Allah' on his T-shirt. Police waded in to defend people being assaulted simply because of their skin and hair colour.

Rumours spread that 'gangs' were travelling in by train from the western suburbs, and a crowd headed for the station to find only a handful of passengers. Even these bewildered visitors were not spared the crowd's wrath.

Elsewhere, young men smashed the windows of a car before the terrified occupants made a rapid escape. This was racist scapegoating at its worst: the two occupants were Bangladeshi exchange students living at Cronulla.

In a few hours' mayhem, the comfortable, familiar sense of a stable society was blown away, revealing something malignant and ugly underneath.

Over the next two nights, when the sun went down, convoys of young Lebanese with baseball bats, stones and iron bars made for the beachside suburb to exact revenge. Local people were challenged through a megaphone to come out and fight. This was a message: the police do not control the streets.

These events have left a nasty blot on Australia's reputation - and its boast - of being a tolerant, all-embracing society. 'That was the ugliest manifestation of racism we have seen so far in this country,' said Keysar Trad, head of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia.

But the Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, re-elected last year on a hardline anti-immigration platform, claims the riots are criminal, not racial. 'I do not accept there is underlying racism here,' he said. 'Some of it is just incredibly bad behaviour fuelled by too much drink.'

Many Australians feel Howard is ignoring the problem. Others say his narrow response shows how well he has read Australia's mood. But by not condemning the racism, Howard and Labor leader Kim Beazley have both arguably failed to show moral leadership.

Amanda Wise, of Macquarie University's Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, says: 'If a group of young people standing on a beach calling out "Let's kill all Lebs and wogs" is not racist, I don't know what is.'

Amid finger-pointing over who is to blame Australians are not questioning whether multiculturalism works they know it works and anyone who has chosen to undermine that is traitor to the Australian people and the Australian way of life.

There are fortunes to be won and lost no doubt

The ascent of Howard has given new authority to phone-in radio, shock jock, his preferred medium for reaching ordinary Australians. But Alan Jones, the Wallabies union coach, had taken a leading role in inciting last week's violence.

If I was one of those people damaged by this I'd be sending my claims to 2GB for the urgent attention of Mr Alan Jones and that may be the only thing that will stop him promoting his Nationalists point of view.

In the days before the riots, Jones of Radio 2GB warmed to callers who were inciting violence under a national banner and the spirit of Australia.

One caller named Charlie suggested all junior footballers in the Sutherland Shire, which includes Cronulla, should gather on the beach to support the lifesavers. 'Good stuff, good stuff,' Jones told him.

'I tell you who we want to encourage, Charlie, all the Pacific Island people because they don't take any nonsense. They are proud to be here - all those Samoans and Fijians and they say, "You step out of line, look out." And, of course, cowards always run, don't they?'

But when Berta - 'not of a Middle Eastern family' - rang to say there were two sides to the story she was cut off. Jones said: 'Let's not get too carried away, Berta. We don't have Anglo-Saxon kids out there raping women in western Sydney,' he said, referring to gang rapes five years ago involving Lebanese Muslims.

As if Australian's don't pack rape women and the Bulldogs football team are angels?

Brian Wilshire, 61, another 2GB presenter, was pulled off the air and forced to apologise on Friday for suggesting some Lebanese people were inbred, which gave them low IQs.

Rival broadcasters, politicians and community leaders believe shock jock radio stoked the racial tensions that have led to 101 people facing criminal charges. 'A number of presenters from the same station seem to have fuelled racism,' said Mr Trad of the Islamic group. 'They are fuelling racial division.'

There are an estimated 300,000 Muslims among the 20 million Australians. But just 600 of them live in Cronulla and the rest of the Sutherland Shire, a secluded area 40 minutes from central Sydney nicknamed the 'insular peninsula', which is separated from the rest of the cosmopolitan city by two rivers, an ocean and a national park.

It is where Britain's Captain James Cook dropped anchor in 1770, and generations of its residents are proud of its claim to be the birthplace of Australia.

The area represents the Howard's kind of patriotism - relaxed and comfortable - as well as the xenophobic fears stirred up by his government and Pauline Hanson's anti-immigration policy that he stole from the One Nation party in the Nineties.

'It's a part of Sydney which has always represented to me what middle Australia is all about,' Howard said. But last week's violence illustrates its parochialism and the territorial impulses of its residents.

Cronulla, the setting for the novel and film Puberty Blues, which explored the misogyny of white surf culture, is a parochial surfing stronghold, the scene of pitched battles between locals and interlopers since long boards arrived 40 years ago.

Jennifer Cornwall, who has just completed a history of the Sutherland Shire, says there have been confrontations between local surfers and those coming to Cronulla from the western suburbs of Sydney for decades. 'Really, it's partly about protecting your territory from outsiders and sticking with your mates,' she says.

Her view is that the violence is not just about race or any fundamental social breakdown. But the sharp differences between cultures, particularly of young men, in many parts of Sydney go back for many decades. In the Fifties and early Sixties, rival gangs were called Bodgies and Widgees and later Surfies, Sharpies and Whoies. Parallels can even be drawn between Sydney's new conflict and the seafront skirmishes between Britain's Mods and Rockers at Brighton in the Sixties.

But the bigotry of the ignorant Anglo-Saxon youths last week is different from that of some of their enemies in the disengaged and aggressive Lebanese gangs because of the Howard governments scapegoating of the Muslim and Islam community as suspects and alleged terrorists all the time in his war on terror, which is terror.

Constantly we've heard nothing but terror and the fear of it, used to manipulate political power, that has now backfired on the whole community, because it sets a very bad example of respect for all people no matter what race creed or colour.

Cronulla declared war on Australia

The indiscriminate retaliatory attacks by a gang of Lebanese men, has sickened law-abiding citizens too. And it has shocked an Australia that still considered itself the relaxed, sunburnt country portrayed in Dorothea MacKellar's iconic poem, My Country.

However it was Cronulla who had declared war on Australia. The Lebanese, Muslim and Islamic communities did not declare war on anyone.

In reality, Australia's national disquiet started more than 200 years ago when Cook and his crew confronted Aborigines in Botany Bay.

This has only added to a growing awareness that all is not well in the unlucky country. Shame on you John Howard shame!

Related:

Thousands march against racism

"You can't be under the influence of alcohol and paint your massive banners with racial slogans on them or you can't make t-shirts while you're drunk so it can't be accepted as an excuse."

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9780

'Melbourne' Anti-Racism - Friday

Masses of Melbournians unite to demonstrate as a response to Racism and the Terror War.

http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=62646&group=webcast

Laws against Muslim scapegoating

John Howard is not responsible to lead this country which has caused the bigoted violence as Sydney braces for the prospect of another fiery weekend.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9775

Sydney beaches unsafe

Those who ignore the advice will have their cars searched at checkpoints and will be turned away by police, unless they have a valid reason for going into the areas.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9773

Melbourne protesters march against racism

"It's not only that political leaders lack the will it is because they're winding the rest of Australia up and are making people hate Muslims by insinuating that they are all terrorists."

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9771

Racial violence continues in Sydney As Australian media covers up Howard's role

At Maroubra Beach, 300 young men associated with the "Bra Boys" gang and armed with crowbars and cricket bats gathered for a prearranged fight. Journalists had to flee the area after being threatened and spat on, and rocks and flares were thrown at police. Police found a replica pistol on the beach, and seized 30 molotov cocktails and crates of rocks in South Maroubra.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9744

HoWARd's Muslim scapegoat captives ask for mercy!

So the only difference here is that these men are being used as scapegoats by ASIO via john hoWARd to wipe their arse on, anytime they feel like it, based on what this group allegedly said in a private conversation. Shame hoWARd shame on you!

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9767

Many groups are calling for a demonstration against racism

The National Union of Students said: "Racism from some of the media and political leaders have whipped up fear and anger to lead to the disgraceful violence at Cronulla. This rally wants to show that people are fed up with this racist violence and that enough is enough."

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9761

Military plan will rob the community of its social fabric

But why would any person make a decision to take away from the social fabric, workers, and desperate, disadvantaged, disabled and mentally ill people and plough that money into military hardware to kill people? Where is the logic in that? Especially for an illegal and degrading war like Iraq.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9759

Australian state government prepares savage attack on democratic rights

Likewise, in the wake of the racial violence, there will be no public discussion or even the semblance of a parliamentary debate on Iemma's new legislation today. Having created the social and political climate that has led to the clashes in Sydney, the political establishment is rushing to exploit the situation to further its own right-wing "law and order" agenda.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9748

Government and media provocations spark racist violence on Sydney beaches

Both the Liberals and the Laborites are committed to implementing deeply unpopular right-wing economic reforms--exacerbating social inequality, eliminating job security, and driving down wages and living conditions. The two parties seek to deflect opposition to their agenda by fomenting racial divisions in order to channel the insecurity and disaffection felt by millions of ordinary people into deeply reactionary channels. At the most fundamental level, that is what caused Sunday's events.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9723

Race Riot Nationalists spread to third Sydney suburb

The latest violence comes after a racially motivated pro-government right wing Nationalist media taking John HoWARd's lead, ended up in a riot at Cronulla Beach which saw several people of Middle Eastern appearance attacked. Shame HoWARd....Shame on you!

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9717

Cronulla race riot

The lifesavers asked for it!
The Mainscream Media asked for it!
The Police asked for it!
Then the community decided it was ok to be racist!

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9715

Australian treasurer steps up ideological offensive against welfare recipients

The treasurer's comment piece was released shortly before the Senate passed the Howard government's "Welfare to Work" Bill on November 6. The new legislation will slash welfare payments for thousands of new claimants, and force single parents and the disabled into low-wage jobs. By driving down the living conditions of some of the most vulnerable members of the community, the government intends to create an enlarged pool of cheap labour available for exploitation.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9710

Australian treasurer steps up ideological offensive against welfare recipients

The treasurer's comment piece was released shortly before the Senate passed the Howard government's "Welfare to Work" Bill on November 6. The new legislation will slash welfare payments for thousands of new claimants, and force single parents and the disabled into low-wage jobs. By driving down the living conditions of some of the most vulnerable members of the community, the government intends to create an enlarged pool of cheap labour available for exploitation.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9710

International Human Rights Day

One of the events for International Human Rights Day in Melbourne was a rally outside the State Library attended by about 100 people on Saturday December 10. Issues canvassed by speakers included opposition to mandatory detention of asylum seekers, treatment of indigenous Australians, opposition to the "anti-terror" laws, and scapegoating of the muslim community.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9714

As long as we can get to Kmart and back it should all be sweet right?

The article is crap, right from the headline - "when the sands ran red". The violence occurred near the beach, but not on it.

This wasn't the worst, sorry. Nobody got killed (or gang raped) as in previous examples of racial violence.

the Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, re-elected last year on a hardline anti-immigration platform

Hang on a second, the whole article was lifted from a UK publication - http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1669960,00.html can't Melbourne Indymedia do any better? Perhaps something a bit closer to home, if not mildly accurate?

Of course Nazihunter's real agenda is that he is happy to collaborate with Nazis, <i>even when they attack other Jews</i>, because it helps to further his Zionist and anti-Arab agenda.

The sands were clearly embarassed ie RED! I SEE RED, I SEE RED, I SEE REEEDD!

Have you know imagination? Down in your hole!

The worst racial violence! Otherwise state your case don't bullshit because you don't like the article put up or shut up I say. So Google your other example! And we're talking about riots not the little girl down the lane!

John Howard was re-elected last year on a hardline anti-immigration platform by a bunch of Ne-Nationalist racist scum if you really want the truth!

Hang on a second, the whole article was lifted from a UK publication - http:

It was re-written by an Aussie!

Two tribes go to war

With supremacist 'Anglos' battling it out with 'bloody Lebs' on Cronulla beach, it looks like being a long, hot summer down under. But the reality is that Australia is no more racist than Britain, argues Germaine Greer

Thursday December 15, 2005
The Guardian

'We are the Sons and Daughters of the Anzacs. We cannot expect our treasonous government to protect us in these times, they are the ones that bought us to this very place. With 150,000 Arabs entering our nation 'legally' each year, it is time Australians stood up and were counted. For we are the Sons and Daughters of the Anzacs, the men who protected us from threat and invasion in years gone by. Now it is your turn, OUR turn, the guard has changed, the times have changed, but true patriots shall never be silenced."

Article continues
So runs the latest communique of the commanders-in-chief of the "Anglo" side in the south Sydney beach wars, summoning me and other "Australians" to Cronulla next Sunday to do battle with the foreign invader. Under freshly invoked emergency powers, the Australian who sent it to me could incur a fine of A$5,000 (£2,130). Meanwhile, Arab-Christian and Arab-Muslim organisations are desperately trying to impose a curfew on their communities; Lebanese mothers are being asked to use their authority in the family to keep their sons at home next weekend.

The "can-Australia-really-be-racist?" approach of the British media to reportage of the battle of Cronulla is gratuitous and silly. Australia is as racist as Britain, no more, no less. Australian racism derives from the same bottomless source as British racism - from universal ignorance and working-class frustration, reinforced by an unshakeable conviction of British superiority over all other nations on earth, especially the swarthy ones. If Australia had been colonised by any other nation but the British, it would be less racist. As it is, it is dying hard.

The governor of New South Wales, Marie Baashir, is Lebanese; her husband is Sir Nick Shehadie, Lebanese hero of Australian rugby union, while rugby league's greatest-ever points scorer is another Lebanese, Hazem El Masri. Christian Lebanese have done particularly well in multicultural Australia, dividing the expatriate Lebanese community along class lines. One troubling aspect of the present friction is that shots have been fired by the ubiquitous "men of Middle-Eastern appearance" during a carol service at the Catholic primary school of St Joseph the Worker in genuinely multicultural Auburn. The school is attended by many Catholic Lebanese children. But it wouldn't really matter if the Queen herself was Lebanese: nothing is going to change the mindset of the new Anzacs.

Beach wars are nothing new. Australian satirists have been deriding moronic surfie culture for 50 years. The best beaches are territories that must be defended against all-comers, especially car-loads of "greasers". For seven years, according to some observers, gangs of "bloody Lebs" have been descending on Cronulla beach, mainly because neighbouring Maroubra Beach was barred to them by the multicultural surf gang "the Bra Boys". Then, on Sunday December 3, two young men, said to be surf lifeguards but not, in fact, identified or acknowledged by the Cronulla Life-Saving Club, were bashed to insensibility by four "men of Middle-Eastern appearance", who summoned others by mobile phone. What provoked the attack is not known, but a few days later, people chatting on the beach, referring casually to the trouble caused by "bloody Lebs", were overheard and narrowly escaped a bashing of their own.

The latest events might be no more than skirmishes in the usual beach wars. But it does seem that Australian-born Muslim teenagers have finally had enough. Antagonism towards them has been mounting for years, so that even the most presentable middle-class young men of Middle-Eastern appearance find themselves routinely turned away from clubs and effectively ostracised from mainstream youth culture.

One case in particular has become a lightning rod for racial tensions. In 2002, Lebanese Muslim Bilal Skaf was convicted of organising gang rapes of Australian girls on three separate occasions. The crimes were horrible, and had been daily described throughout the tortuous proceedings in salacious and inflammatory detail by the Australian media. In what seems a knee-jerk reaction, Skaf was sentenced to an astonishing 55 years. This was widely denounced by redneck commentators as not enough. With Skaf and his brother in prison, the media dogged the rest of the family. When one of the three verdicts was overturned on a technicality, nine years of Skaf's sentence had to be set aside. The redneck media howled in rage and disbelief, and continue to howl, keeping the issue alive. The Bali bombings and Australian involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq have only reinforced the image of the universal enemy, the agent of evil, as the "man of Middle-Eastern appearance".

In the week that followed the first attack on Cronulla beach, redneck broadcaster Alan Jones encouraged his listeners to ring in and relieve themselves freely of their load of racist hatred. He also broadcast the text message that summoned people of like sentiments to "support the leb and wog bashing day", which was the following Sunday, when drunken "Anglo" gangs armed with beer bottles turned up to get a beating from the police, who laid about them like madmen. The "bloody Lebs" then retaliated, coming in car-loads, armed with clubs, metal bars and anything else that would split a skull, even guns. Peaceable residents caught in their onrush were bashed.

The place where all this happened is not a multicultural area, being entrenched white lower-middle-class, but Cronulla was one place where Lebanese families could reach the seaside. They did not surf, but they picnicked with their families and their hubble-bubble pipes in Guanamatta Park. The Anglo population had mostly accepted their weekly incursions - except for the moronic surfie fringe, who resented their very presence.

Even if the police manage to lock Cronulla down, the new Anzacs will regroup in the time that it takes to send a text message, faster than the police can reorganise to intercept them, and Lebanese Muslim youths, inspired by rap, ablaze with bling, armed to the teeth in their customised cars, will race to meet them. Already "patriotic" troops are massing on the Gold Coast and in the suburbs of Perth. This looks like being a bloody summer in Australia.

Germaine has been watching way too many gangsta movies.

Sigh,

Try this link for evidence that this wasn't the worst racist incidents.

Then you might like to think about what it means that the two Middle Eastern thugs, arrested with bottles of petrol at Bondi, were carrying "Howard's riots – how racist policies breed racist violence" pamphlets.

This violence is going to continue until all thugs are taught that respect and non-violence are the only solutions, irrespective of whether they are black, brown, white or purple.

Trying to blame Howard and holding only the white community to account for the actions of a small minority of white people will just make things worse.

"Then you might like to think about what it means that the two Middle Eastern thugs, arrested with bottles of petrol at Bondi, were carrying "Howard's riots – how racist policies breed racist violence" pamphlets."

He was carrying petrol to refill his friends car which ran out. The fact that police are racist loons who see a pamphlet for a meeting by the group organising demonstrations *against* racist violence as evidence of terrorism doesn't actually prove anything.

And if you'd gone to the anti-racism rally in Melbourne you might have noticed that it was mostly young Arab men who were making sure that the rally stayed peacefull and nobody got agressive.

While rp they couldn't keep their stories straight. One said to fill a car up the other said to sniff petrol.

This is what the court was told happened.

One of the pair bought $2 worth of petrol near Epping Station and took it by train to Central station in a 5 litre can, where he and his mate from Melbourne poured it into drink bottles.

If his mate's car had broken down at Bondi, why didn't he just go up the road to the servo on Bondi Rd to buy some petrol or call the NRMA?

You say the cops were racist. Do you have any evidence? Of course you don't. The police were just doing their jobs and have arrested people from both sides of the conflict. You can't expect people carrying potential petrol bombs to be given the benefit of the doubt simply because one of them claims to be sniffing it and the other claims to be helping a mate.

Once again, you are trying to make excuses for the actions of one group and not the other. At least pretend to be consistent.

oh please
by carrying petrol is not illegal Tuesday December 20, 2005 at 12:57 PM

$2 worth of petrol is not a bomb. Probably the reason they did not buy it at a servo is that they were taking the train in from the city and it was on their way. Honestly, if you wanted to blow something up don't you think there would be easier and more effective ways than $2 worth of petrol?

Here we see the problem.

You are quick to condemn the actions of one group of young thugs but make all sorts of excuses for the actions of the other group.

You try to tell me that the cops are racist for arresting middle eastern people, but then you are silent when they arrest white people too. How can they be racist when they arrest everyone?

Now you are pretending not to know about molotov cocktails. Instead you expect me to believe this unlikely story:

Man in car breaks down at Bondi Beach, rather than catching a bus or walking up the road to the nearest servo (a 5 minute bus ride or 15 minute walk) or calling the NRMA he calls his mates in Epping (which is at 23 kms from Sydney city).

Mate of the man with car decides to go to help. He collects his other friend and they walk or catch a bus to Epping station, while carrying bottles and a 5 litre can for the petrol. Why they need bottles when the 5 litre can would be more convenient is not explained. They stop off for the petrol. Second mate is not told what the petrol was for, but decides he would like to sniff it anyway.

Then they change trains at Central station, after decanting the petrol into the bottles, they board the train to Bondi Junction a further 6 kilometres from Central.

Their they board a bus to Bondi Beach. Somewhere along the way, they pick up a brochure blaming all the recent trouble on John Howard. Simply a coincidence that they are heading to Bondi, where trouble was expected, clutching anti Howard propoganda and bottles full of petrol.

Do you see how ridiculous this story is?

This is the main problem! And the goose who thinks that it's not is trying to take the responsibility from the Howard government's scapegoating of the Muslim and Islamic communities for the last five years and placing it on the shoulders of every other respectable citizen.

Let me tell you if a war criminal is leading a country then you can always expect trouble. And in this case of the worst kind of trouble.

Yes you owe John HoWARd a trip to the Hague! If that is covered up and consealed then you can expect this country to fall apart into a civil war!

I just hope hoWARd is worth it to the nationalists who think so!