The Other Side of the Cronulla Riot, by A Cronulla Mum. Australia 2005, before the riot in Cronulla, a beachside suburb in Sydney. What the media won’t say.

Before the riot:

A trip to the local park was certainly very interesting. Our local reserve was Shelly Park, where Cronulla’s accommodating and welcoming nature was always on display. Large Middle Eastern families picnicking — the delicious smell of Middle Eastern meats on the barbecue remains with me even now, long after I moved house. Groups of men sitting around their hookahs and shooting the breeze, their children and grandchildren romping on the swings, slides and jungle gym.

A girlfriend and I decided to take our sons to play in Shelly Park one weekend. Our boys, both 10-year-olds at the time, headed over to the play equipment, only to immediately return upset that they had been told by the Middle Eastern kids on the play equipment to “f**k off, this is our park”.

What did we do? We did what the locals had done for years. We accepted the bullying, packed up our kids and left.

Another day we wanted to swim in the ocean pool at Shelly Park, only to be greeted by a row of Middle Eastern men linked arm-in-arm across the full width of the pool and blocking all comers from entering the water. When we asked if we could get through so we could swim we were told, “No, our women are swimming”.

What did we do? We did what the locals had done for years. We accepted the bullying of these arrogant men, just as we had accepted the bullying of their children. Like father, like son. Should we have summoned the police? Would they have done anything if we had called them?

Why, out of all the many families of so many different ethnicities that flocked to Cronulla on weekends, was there only one group that showed no respect, no flexibility, which staked sole claim to what had been, up until then, available to all? …

Because Islam gives them the cultural confidence (to say nothing of the sense of superiority and unwillingness to fit in) to behave this way. To take and to bully. And they were right — the Australian media and police backed them up.

After the riot:

And, of course, after that afternoon of pushing and shoving, there came the reprisals, as convoys of Middle Eastern men and youths poured out of the Western suburbs to teach the rest of Sydney a lesson. We still hear a lot about the riot itself, much less about the far more appalling attcks on innocent citizens that followed. …

On last year’s 10th anniversary of the riots, Race Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said 57% of Muslims had experienced racism. I’d like to survey those living in Cronulla before and after the riots to see what percentage were subject to, as was I, blatant and exclusionary racism at the hands of those we welcomed without judgment to our beautiful suburb.

In retrospect, at this distance of years, perhaps we should have been just a bit more judgmental.

Commenter Andrew Griffiths:

I remember the ME revenge hoodlums were provided with Police escorts while they marched along streets smashing car windscreens, no action from the coppers.

Commenter ianl:

Tim Soutphommasane and his many allies deliberately conflate culture with racism.

Not only is done deliberately to inflame divisions within the population, but it is deliberately intellectually dishonest. The MSM are not just complicit in this dishonesty, they are the leading edge of the pack.

If you fearfully let the leftoids set the language, you’ve already lost.

Commenter padriac:

In 2007 I attended a high school class reunion at which was a classmate who lived in the Shire. One of his friends had two daughters who used to go swimming regularly at Cronulla. He told us that in the time leading up to the incident in 2005 there were occasions when the girls had finished their swim and were lying on the sand on their towels young men of ME appearance used to run over the top of them, kicking sand in their face and calling them sluts. This was just one of many of the untold stories and realities that led up to Australians of non ME appearance having had a gutful.

hat-tip Stephen Neil