ihavenothing said:
Sudanese people I know are very kind and have been properly and warmly welcomed into Australia and there is almost no bad blood between them and Aussies. On the other hand, there are problems between them and the Muslims (not just Lebanese) as they have had bad experience in their homeland with people forcing their religion on them.
On the other hand, i believe with the Lebanese the government turned their back on them when most of them arrived in the 1970's with the Civil War as well as the culture shock which was a very Anglo-Saxon and Christian society they had been brought into and therefore had nothing in common. In countries in Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico) the Arab population is very well integrated and not much prejudice is brought by. On the other hand Lebanon is one of the "recovering" rich countries in the Middle East and a slow but steady rate of re-emigration from Australia is occuring.
Now with the Shire residents efforts at reclaiming the Beach i think there may not be a very bright future for the beach...
There was a situation in Sudan a long time ago- a war between them and eritriea- it was seen as a muslim christian thing but i reckon it was all sparked during the cold war when America and Russia backed opposing sides then switched sides and dumping weapons all over the place.
Later on, with the weapons filling up the country a civil war broke which was very recent- Arab militias (this is what i got from the news) have been attacking sudanese- and from the media reports ive seen they didnt discriminate between muslims and christians. Its just that the christians have a resistance force and they want to establish an independant state. All this intolerance of each other- it can only lead to destruction.
North Africa i believe was christian before it became muslim- berbers, visigoths populated the place - but i doubt they were catholics- they were either coptics (in Egypt), judeo-christian as in eithipia etc and some other sect of christianity (as in the NW where i believe they were a more monotheistic form of christianity and rejected by the church). Nigeria today is like 60% muslim but it has been under both muslim and christian rule- muslims have ruled it for the last 400 years but they didnt force the religion on the christians or the other faiths there.
With regards to the lebanese migration, i was under the impression that most lebanese migrants were of christian origin (?) Lebanon is a christian country believe it or not!
I just hope this situation will ease down calmly so we can work together and fix it- ive been to cronulla and seen heaps of lebs there but they all left before sunset and didnt this happen at night??? Theres different kinds of lebs- and a small fraction of the lebanese population (im not leb - but ive got heaps of leb friends) are into gangs- a very small proportion- there used to be a gang behind my street: its called teleopea street if u remember the news.... but now all the gangs have dissapeared that u wouldnt know they ever existed!
its just like Al-Qaeda for those of you who watched that doco on sbs today- its like it never existed!!