Liz Jackson presents the definitive account of the riot at Cronulla and its aftermath, as told by those who were there.

Riot and Revenge

Reporter: Liz Jackson

Broadcast: 13/03/2006

One Sunday last December, 5000 Australians gathered at Cronulla, singing and waving the national flag as they "reclaimed" the beach. Fuelled by drink, the crowd became a mob, hunting down and beating anyone who looked Middle Eastern.

That night and the next, carloads of hundreds of young men of Middle Eastern descent headed for the beach suburbs to launch similarly random and savage acts of revenge.

The shocking TV images flashed across the world. At home, Australia’s ugliness was disowned as "un-Australian". Political leaders called it a problem of law and order rather than racism.

So what should Australians make of the Cronulla explosion? Was it a nation-defining event that should sound the alarm about growing racial division? Or was it something less, a turf war, or a clash of tribes that some have likened to the '60s rumbles between rockers and surfies.

Four Corners looks for answers not from social commentators but from the participants – the young Anglos who joined the seething mob at Cronulla on 11 December, the Middle Eastern men who took part in revenge attacks, and the police who were stuck in the middle.

This report is an insiders' account that reveals the motives of those who rallied at Cronulla. It exposes an abiding sense of threat in white suburbia. Among some people there is a deep and genuinely held fear about being outnumbered by Muslims in an Islamic state under sharia law. "Once they get the numbers they can vote their members into parliament," says one young man.

To many Arab-Australians, Cronulla represented an attack on their entire community; to some it demanded a rapid, physical response. For the first time, a participant tells publicly why he – twice - joined the revenge convoys: "When I watched the TV, like it hurt me, it hurt everyone… they hit our innocent people… so why not, may as well do the same thing."

From these and other testimonies award-winning reporter Liz Jackson presents the definitive account of the riot at Cronulla and its aftermath, as told by those who were there.

"Riot and Revenge" - on Four Corners, 8.30pm, ABC TV, Monday 13 March.

This program will be repeated about 11pm Wednesday 15 March; also on ABC2 digital channel at 7pm and 9.30pm Wednesday.

Program Transcript

Read the full program transcript of Liz Jackson's report on the Cronulla riots, "Riot and Revenge".

Video

View an edited version of Liz Jackson's interview with NSW Premier Morris Iemma, about the Cronulla riots and their aftermath.
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Video

Liz Jackson questions NSW Liberal Leader Peter Debnam about his views on the Cronulla riots.
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Video

Superintendent Philip Rogerson, of NSW Police, Maroubra, recounts the violent confrontation between men of middle eastern appearance and patrons of the pub opposite the beach in Maroubra.
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