What are the personal reactions I have encountered since the riot?
1. Women in headscarves, normally a very common sight in Sydney's CBD and on the campus of the University of New South Wales, were nearly absent.
2. A university professor: "What were they hoping to accomplish? It seems so senseless."
3. A postdoctoral scholar: "Surely it is only a small minority that behaves this way."
I haven't yet had a chance to talk to my neighbors about it.
Two newspaper editorials to add to those quoted before: one decrying the exploitation of Australian multiculturalism for violent ends, and the other decrying American blindness (and by extension Australian blindness) about the degree of extremism rampant in the Muslim world.
From an editorial posted on CNN:
ReplyDelete"Clear-eyed observers will notice that these periodic uproars are rarely, if ever, spontaneous. They are almost always contrived by political actors for political purposes."
See http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/17/opinion/frum-video-free-speech/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
The good news one month on: there have been absolutely no repeats. Sadly but understandably, there were no women with headscarves visible, either in Sydney's CBD or on my campus, for several days after the riot. They have now returned in all their many beautiful colors. Apparently there were some arrests, not just of people at the riot itself, but afterwards, as police worked WITH Muslim community leaders to identify those who planned to incite further riots. Clearly the underlying issues still exist, here in Australia as well as wherever there are Muslims, but calm prevails for now.
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