It is really bad for the Australian image. I'm quite ashamed really.
If they had a problem with what was happening on the beaches they could have at least had a discussion or debate or something.
But what's really bad, people weren't just bash people who were looking for a fight. This Middle Eastern man was just walking down the street and got bashed. Sure, if two ethnic groups want to go hammer and tong, then hell, let them. But leave the innocent parties out.
Now, this may sound racist, but it's not my intention. A couple of months ago, we had to cast a vote on what we wanted our final school year emblem to be, all the students designed them and what not. Now what really pissed everybody off was that an emblem that had a picture of an Australian Flag and a Kangaroo with a Cricket Bat won by a major amount. However, we werent allowed to have it, because it would offend certain ethic groups (We had a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian originated students at my school). A lot of people were very upset about this, especially when some students were saying "It would look a lot better with a Lebanese flag on it" and "**** Australia, I'm not wearing that ****".
I'm not advocating or happy about what happened, all I'm saying is that if you come to a country you have to be prepared to follow some of the traditions and things. I wouldn't go to America and say "Those stars would look a lot better in the pattern of the southern cross".
I've got many friends from different backgrounds, and all of them would agree with me. This kind of thing is not on.
And also the crowd didn't just attack Lebanese, they attacked Greeks, Italians, Portuguese...anyone that looked different from them.
Oh that makes me feel good about going there.
