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Nick Squires

Is Australia a racist country? Ask Ali Saleh and he says it depends on where he finds himself.

'If I'm around here, then everything's fine,' the 21-year-old said, surveying the sun-baked streets of Lakemba, a Sydney suburb with a large population of Middle Eastern origin.

'But if I go to the city centre or other parts of Sydney, people look at me as if to say 'what the hell are you doing here?' It's a look of disgust, as if they're saying 'get out of here'.'

An intense debate on the extent of racism in Australia has been under way since last month, when a mob of up to 5,000 white youths descended on the beachside suburb of Cronulla and started chasing and beating people of Middle Eastern appearance. The rampage was supposedly in retaliation for the assault of a pair of young lifesavers by a group of men of Middle Eastern appearance.

Some white beach-goers say the Middle Easterners act in a deliberately provocative way and try to pick fights, while the Lebanese youths complain of feeling alienated and subjected to racism.

'The prejudice has always been there, it's nothing new,' Mr Saleh said, sitting by the kebab shop he runs with his brother Hussein, 17.

'If I'm out with my mother and she's wearing the hijab [head scarf] people will call out 'Arabs go home'. But I was born here. I've been here all my life. My father moved here from Lebanon when he was eight.'

Lakemba is one of Sydney's Little Beiruts. Middle Eastern groceries and halal butcheries jostle for space in the main street with Sinbad Rugs and the Al Madina Bakery.

Men sit outside cafes drinking strong, sweet coffee and playing backgammon. The smell of spices and cooked lamb fills the air, and Arabic signs are everywhere.

But many people of Middle Eastern origin feel under siege. Lebanese  leaders say the behaviour of their young men is a reflection of deep alienation and anger.

Thousands of Lebanese came to Australia after civil war engulfed their homeland in 1975. There are about 120,000 Australians of Lebanese descent in Sydney - about  3 per cent of the population. The community found it harder than many ethnic groups to integrate, and now suffers from high unemployment, low levels of education and plunging self-esteem.

The crisis of identity has been worsened by the 'war on terrorism'. The September 11 attacks on the US, the Bali and London bombings and the recent discovery of an alleged plot by Islamist radicals to target Melbourne and Sydney have fuelled anti-Muslim sentiment.

Young people feel alienated and marginalised,' said Nada Roude, of the Islamic Council of New South Wales. 'We are talking about second-generation Australians of Arabic background who are saying they still feel they don't belong here. This is a big wake-up call.'

The ethnic violence was an international embarrassment and a humiliation for Australia, Ms Roude said.

Iktimal Hage-Ali, a youth leader with a Muslim advisory group to the government, said the Lebanese community felt it had been demonised by politicians who have stoked fear of Muslims amid anxiety over homegrown terrorist cells.

'They have an 'us and them' mentality. A lot of young people feel they are not accepted as either Australians or Lebanese,' she said. 'They are in transit between the two.'

Ironically, the riots may have helped forge a pan-Arab identity which did not exist before, Mr Saleh believes.

He said: 'Before the trouble, the Lebanese were divided into Sunni and Shia, Muslim and Christian, and between different suburbs. After Cronulla, everyone came together. The rioters did us a favour.'

A shift has taken place in relations between Muslim and white Australians, he believes.

'Before, we suspected people didn't like us. Now we know they don't like us. That's a very different thing.'



'Before, we suspected people didn't like us. Now we know'