Aboriginal Struggle, Anti-Racism

Trade Unionists, Ethnic People & All Anti-Racists Must Unite to Open Up Cronulla Beach to People of Colour!

Above, December 2005: Hordes of rednecks bash any coloured or other “ethnic” person they could find on Cronulla Beach and surrounding area. Ten years later (Right), it was militant anti-fascists who formed the loudest, most prominent demonstration in the area. The opposite of ten years earlier, it was any racist filth who were present near the Beach who would have felt the most intimidated, at least if they were within the area near the anti-racist march route.

Ten Years On after the Filthy , Violent White Supremacist Riot:
KICK THE RACISTS OUT!

13 December 2015: Ten years ago, hordes of extreme white supremacists and garden-variety rednecks rampaged through the area around Cronulla Beach bashing any non-white person they could find. However yesterday, the loudest, most prominent demonstration in Cronulla was a 150-strong march of anti-racists. They opposed a gathering of extreme white supremacists who ended up having to confine their race-hate event to an isolated park out of sight of most people. Unlike ten years earlier in Cronulla, at least in the vicinity of the anti-racist demonstration, it was more dangerous to be an open racist than a coloured person. The few racist provocateurs who were foolish enough to infiltrate the space occupied by the anti-racists were surrounded and confronted by militant anti-fascists and at least one fascist was dealt with in a decisive fashion. The message for racists watching on television is that you had better be careful about openly acting on your prejudices or getting active with far-right groups because you could meet militant opposition.

Despite weaknesses, and the all too predictable hostility to the action by the capitalist media, the anti-racist mobilisation was overall a partial victory against far-right racists. Nevertheless, the fascist Party For Freedom were still able to get away with holding their racist gathering – an “anti-Halal BBQ.” The racist gathering was three times smaller than the anti-racist mobilisation. Despite being formally banned by the courts from holding a planned rally to celebrate the 2005 Cronulla riot, the event held by the Party For Freedom and their allies was protected by a massive mobilisation of heavily-armed riot police. In facilitating the extreme racists’ gathering, the police adopted heavy-handed tactics towards anti-racist demonstrators. They arrested two anti-racist activists, although neither of the arrestees was charged. One of those arrested was a one-armed Aboriginal activist in his late 50s, who the police had earlier knocked to the ground when he tried to go around the police lines to get at the fascists. This underscores the need for the mobilisation of the working class in the struggle against fascism. It is the social power of the working class that can compel the police to stand aside so that the fascists can be swept off the streets.

12 December 2015: Anti-fascists on the march at an anti-racist action on Cronulla on the tenth anniversary of the white supremacist riot there.
12 December 2015: Anti-fascists on the march at an anti-racist action on Cronulla on the tenth anniversary of the white supremacist riot there.

Participating in yesterday’s anti-racist action were student activists from Sydney University, anarchists, supporters of Socialist Alternative, Aboriginal activists and Trotskyist Platform supporters. A weakness of the mobilisation was that it was not able to win many newer people into the anti-racist struggle – that is individuals not connected to any of the activists circles involved in organising the demonstration. Furthermore, other than for several Aboriginal activists, the coloured people in our Trotskyist Platform contingent and a handful of other coloured people, there were not that many non-white people taking part in the anti-racist action. The combined effect of the intensely racist and repressive political climate in the wake of the Paris attacks and coloured peoples understandable fear of going to Cronulla in the absence of the guaranteed backing of a mass trade union mobilisation, kept coloured people from Sydney’s southwest largely away from the event.

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On the day of the December 2005 Cronulla riot the police forces present were strikingly minimal even though the police’s own intelligence made clear to them that a large, explosive rate hate mobilisation would occur. Yet when anti-racists mobilised ten years later, the police were unleashed in massive numbers to corral the anti-racist demonstrators (Left) and to protect the violent racists who had gathered to celebrate the December 2005 riot. The police even in a very cowardly manner arrested a one-armed Aboriginal man in his late 50s (Right) – one of two anti-racists that they arrested on the day.
On the day of the December 2005 Cronulla riot the police forces present were strikingly minimal even though the police’s own intelligence made clear to them that a large, explosive rate hate mobilisation would occur. Yet when anti-racists mobilised ten years later, the police were unleashed in massive numbers to corral the anti-racist demonstrators (Left) and to protect the violent racists who had gathered to celebrate the December 2005 riot. The police even in a very cowardly manner arrested a one-armed Aboriginal man in his late 50s (Right) – one of two anti-racists that they arrested on the day.

In the lead up to yesterday’s rally, Trotskyist Platform emphasised the need to bring a large number of working class coloured people into Cronulla as part of a multi-racial action to challenge the defacto exclusion of most working class, coloured people from Cronulla Beach over the last ten years. The need for such an action was plainly obvious yesterday. Before the 2005 racist riot, Cronulla Beach had been Sydney’s most multi-racial beach. However, when we were there yesterday, the area in and around the beach, including major restaurants in the area, were close to 95% white. Furthermore, when our multi-racial contingent got out of our cars in Cronulla to meet up with other anti-racist activists and when we at that stage looked like ordinary  beachgoers, we received hostile stares from both people driving past and people looking out of their houses just because coloured people formed a major part of our crowd.

At one point yesterday, a sizeable minority of the anti-racist demonstration flooded onto a part of the beach to make a statement. However, most of the remainder of the rally had not yet been won to an understanding of the necessity of desegregating the beach. Furthermore, there was not a high enough proportion of coloured people in the anti-racist demonstration for its presence on the beach to represent a serious challenge to the defacto exclusion from the area of working class, coloured people from Sydney’s southwest – who the recent ex-mayor of Sutherland Shire and racist rednecks alike refer to as “thugs from Lakemba.” To make an effective stance against the de-facto exclusion of most coloured youth from Cronulla Beach, we need an action in the future that brings in such a large number of working class, coloured people that it exceeds what is considered an acceptable token level by the conservative Shire Council and garden-variety racist locals. Such a “threatening” mobilisation of coloured people from Sydney’s southwest together with white anti-racist activists and the power of the trade union movement would be a powerful statement against both the on-going segregation of Cronulla Beach and the wave of racist attacks that non-white people are facing throughout the country. If the working class movement was to play a major role in such a future mass action that opens up Cronulla Beach to people of all colours, it would boost working class inter-ethnic unity and strengthen the workers movement’s confidence in its own power.

Taking the Beach: A chunk of the demonstrators at the 12 December 2015 anti-racist action in Cronulla jumped down rocks to symbolically stand on part of the beach where ten years earlier it was racist hordes who violently rampaged and where since the riot the number of coloured people using the beach has drastically diminished. A task remains for the workers movement and Left to build a mass convoy of trade unionists, coloured people and anti-racists to go from Sydney’s multiracial, working class southwest to Cronulla Beach to assert the right of people of all colours to safely use this public space and to finally re-open the beach to coloured people. One of the Trotskyist Platform banners carried at the December 2015 demonstration (Left) advocated this perspective.
Taking the Beach: A chunk of the demonstrators at the 12 December 2015 anti-racist action in Cronulla jumped down rocks to symbolically stand on part of the beach where ten years earlier it was racist hordes who violently rampaged and where since the riot the number of coloured people using the beach has drastically diminished. A task remains for the workers movement and Left to build a mass convoy of trade unionists, coloured people and anti-racists to go from Sydney’s multiracial, working class southwest to Cronulla Beach to assert the right of people of all colours to safely use this public space and to finally re-open the beach to coloured people. One of the Trotskyist Platform banners carried at the December 2015 demonstration (Left) advocated this perspective.

The leaflet that Trotskyist Platform distributed at the 12 December 2015 action can be found here.