Ten years on, Cronulla has learned its lesson. But has the rest of Australia? | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on Fri, 11/12/2015 - 9:56am

The ugly outpouring of anti-Muslim hatred seen in the beach riots of 2005 could easily be repeated again today anywhere in Australia

A decade ago a toxic brew of anti-Muslim hatred, alcohol, social media foment, threats to the mono-cultural beach scene of the Sutherland Shire and the noxious shock jock-ery of, among others, Alan Jones, manifested in the Cronulla riots.

There’ve been inquiries and endless community consultations, conversations and parsing over the factors that contributed to one of the ugliest incidents, post-second world war, of racial violence in Australia.

Words and symbols can be potent weapons. Cronulla began with an exchange of heated words. Then came some punches