dec 05 SMH
Understanding traditional social structures of the Lebanese would go a long way toward avoiding the racial clashes seen at Cronulla this week, writes Paul Sheehan ...
"We got north Lebanese, disproportionately Shiite, mostly peasants, mostly uneducated, who didn't want to be here in the first place," Kennedy says. "They come from a very patriarchal culture. They don't go in for the greater good. Their families have survived a brutal civil war. They are tribal. They are aggressive. They are in your face. And they are not grateful.
"Historically, they have always been shafted, and so they are used to looking after themselves. When the Turks ran Lebanon, the minority Sunnis controlled government contracts. When the French took over, the Maronites got the contracts. The Sunnis and the Maronites developed a healthy business relationship. The Shiites were left out, they did the lowest jobs, and they were lower than working class." ...
Though the Lebanese Muslim community is about 40,000 - just 1 per cent of Sydney's 4 million population - Kennedy believes the social gulf has drifted to the point of social danger: "The mismanagement of this situation by politicians, lawyers and police has taken us to the point where we could see violent civil disorder on a scale we have not seen before. The minute you talk tough, and these Lebanese guys lose face, they only know one thing to do. Retaliate. You saw it immediately after the Cronulla riot.
"They react with emotion. Violent emotion. You've seen the funerals in the Middle East where people are tearing their hair out. There is also the mentality you see in prison, where any failure to retaliate, immediately, and with violence, will mark you as weak, and therefore vulnerable. This is the logic of the street, not society, and they have completely insulated themselves from society." ...
Kennedy believes police have failed to absorb even the surface of the complexities of the traditional social structures of the Lebanese, which often revolve around the za'im, who controls the patronage and kinship relationships, and the qabaday, who backs him up. In an Australian context, this tradition is seen as "muscle", but in Lebanon, where the state was weak, the concept of protection is entirely different ..."You can't beat these people into submission," says Kennedy. "It will empower the most violent. The police can only keep a lid on things. This is about politics. Politicians can't expect the rank and file to sort out the messes they have been creating. If they want to run the state like a business, then we are going to see stress in the culture down in the grassroots. This is a symptom of something much bigger."
