Race riots in Sydney. The riots over the weekend in Redfern, a suburb of Sydney, have hightlighted the often hidden problems of race relations in Australia. For the majority of Australians, race plays little part in their day to day life. Certainly there are neighbourhoods in the big cities where immigrants from a certain nation or region (Italy, Viet Nam, China) seem to congregate. But this is nothing new nor a surprise. It is a common human impulse to seek out those like ourselves, and when moving to a new country, especially one with a different language, it is only common sense to move to an area where people have the same language, religion and culture as yourself. Racial violence is unusual however. Australia has a reputation (despite the "White Australia" policy of two generations ago) for being "multicultural", a term that has various meanings depending on whom one is talking to. Multiculturalism has been used to mean anything from a completely open embrace and tolerance of all cultures, to calls for a common "Australian" culture that incorporates elements of all. It is a question of "multi-" meaning "many" or "varied".

The incident in Redfern demostrates that there is a gap, or at the least a perceived gap by at least one of the parties involved, between Aboriginal society and society at large. The violence was triggered by the death of a young boy. Depending on the source (the police or the Aboriginal community) the boy died after being chased by police or believing he was being chased by police, which led to him losing control of his bicycle and impaling himself on a fence. This led a demonstration by Aboriginal members of the Redfern community that culminated in violence against the police in which 40 officers were taken to hospital. Of the more than 150 members of the crowd, only 4 were arrested. Certainly there are issues about the treatment of Australian Aborigines, and social problems (drugs, alcohol, unemployment) that will take many measures over a long period of time to address, but in the short term, there is the problem of what to do when these sorts of incidents occur. Forty officers injured and only four arrests seems to me an unacceptable ratio. The laws to deal with street violence, vandalism, and assaults against the police are in place -- they should be enforced to the letter. The riot was recorded by many television cameramen and media photographers. There should be few problems with identifying the rioters, and these people should be arrested and prosecuted. Violence against police should never be tolerated. The first order of business, before dealing with the problems that will stop an event like this from occurring again, should be to deal with the crimes that were committed at the time.