A Lebanese 'problem'?

As the wave of violence spreads from the Cronulla chaos, we must resist efforts from our leaders, the Prime Minister included, to downplay the social significance of the events.

It is impossible to deny the significance of race this time, as the Left did after the gang rapes in 2002 or when the Lakemba police station was attacked in 1999.

For once people were able to say the word Lebs in polite, bourgeois circles. The word now rings loudly in mainstream Australia. It can take its place in the global vernacular of racial marginalisation, along with Paki in the United Kingdom and nigger in the United States.

While the immediate cause of the riots may have been heat, alcohol and a territorial stoush between two groups of hyper-masculine but socially powerless youth, it was still the outward eruption of a simmering problem.

The behaviour of some of the drunken louts was a national disgrace. There is no argument there. But, there is a Lebanese problem. It is not an Arab problem, nor is it really a Muslim one.

The Lebanese community come from many shades and migrated from all social classes. There are more than a few outstanding citizens like the NSW Governor Marie Bashir or the Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, Their contribution to Australian life has been great.

In fact, it is a fairly specific segment of the Lebanese community and a result of the particular migration of poorer farmers and lower class Lebanese Muslims after the civil war in 1975. Their numbers and concentration are greatest in south-western Sydney.

There is a rampant anti-social character to some of the youth from this segment which stems from unsuccessful child rearing.

They quickly had large families. The fathers were often absent while they worked multiple, unskilled jobs trying to provide. The mothers lacked the extended family support they may have had at home. Parenting was often focused on the daughters, for in the world the mothers knew women needed more discipline and attention if opportunity and marriage was to beckon. The men were often placed upon a pedestal and few behavioural limits were set. A relatively absent father in many families compounded the problems.

There are bad kids from all walks of life, but this group is producing a disproportionately higher number.

It is obvious to anyone who has worked in public education, the health sector or the police in south-western Sydney. I have seen it working in hospitals where children as young as five regularly abuse and swear at staff with minimal retribution from parents. In mental health, young Lebanese boys make up a disproportionate number of those who present in a drug induced or chaotic, violent state. Once the possibility of a psychiatric disorder is ruled out, the patients are inevitably referred to the police.

An experienced detective like Tim Priest has said as much for a number of years.

Janet Albrechtsen’s column in The Australian (December 14, 2005) quoted a young professional woman who has seen the anti-social behaviour for a long time in her area. Anyone who socialises in nocturnal Sydney has seen as much.

The problem has to do with religion in that the lower classes in Lebanon were more likely to have been Muslim.

The more worrying link with religion is the attitude towards Western women. A decent Muslim would undoubtedly be taught to respect women in all their varieties. But all families teach a brand of womanhood, and it’s imparted primarily from mothers and enforced by fathers. If a person is taught that a good woman acts and dresses modestly, it is plausible for them to deduce that a bad woman may dress in a revealing manner. This is particularly true if the young adults are already on an anti-social trajectory.

The repeated insults during revenge attacks on innocent women along the lines of “Aussie slut” are particularly worrying and strike a chord with the gang rapes in 2002.

Muslim youth do have unique difficulties in coming to terms with their identity, especially when they have conflicting value systems at home compared with school or work. This can produce greater deviance or psychiatric disorder, a point better measured in Britain where South Asian youth have a three times higher rate of mental illness.

But there are other Muslim youth from many different countries living in Sydney. Other Arab Australians from Egypt, Jordan, Iran or Syria do not have the same problem. If you meet them, they will be quick to point that their community’s migration was from a more skilled base. They had smaller families, focused on their children’s education and integrated more easily.

It is difficult to place blame on communities that wanted nothing but the best for their children. They are certainly not evil. But it is time to acknowledge that there has been a real failure in specific sections the Sydney Lebanese population. Only then will we have a better chance at helping them. Otherwise the word Leb will leave an even greater linguistic stain in the future.