EFFORTPOST [EFFORTPOST] Crime, Good Food, and Race War- a history of the Lebanese in Australia

Most posts about Australia (including my own) tend to feature either mayos or Aboriginals. That's fair enough because those are the two most dramatic groups in Straya today, but there is one group that has been left out- the Lebs.

(Lebs is a derogatory term for the Lebanese btw and one I will use from here on in)

1. Boring context

To begin with, the Lebanese were pretty much nonexistent in Australia before the 70s, because of the White Australia Policy that did exactly what you'd expect it to do and is a whole effortpost in itself. During the Lebanese Civil War, the Australian government decided to provide a special pass for Lebs to enter the country and some 30-50000 did so by the end of the 20th century. These were mostly Muslim refugees with a significant number of popechads as well, and they mostly settled in and around Sydney.

2. Oops, we've created ethnic ghettoes! I'm sure this will be fine

As all chuds know, when you import large numbers of refugees with little regard to integration, they tend to form insular communities in the bottom of society. What does this mean? Crime of course!

Illustrating this is a Reddit thread @Blackpokemon found from 5 years ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/2rs73q/question_about_lebanese_in_australia/

Wherein, a Lebanese cryposts asking why Aussies hate them so much. We find out it's because Lebs-

• Are involved in crime

• Go around harassing people in gangs

• Are generally violent people

• R*pe mayofoids (this will come up again later)

So, now we have an idea of what we're dealing with. However, there is one more description of Lebs that may sound familiar to Aussies from shitholes across the country-

Which brings me to-

3. Eshays and HSP- what did the middle easterners do for us anyway?

Now it's time for the middle easterners (mostly Lebs but I haven't found anything to outright prove it was them) to give back and genuinely culturally enrich their adoptive country.

First we have the Eshay-

While nowadays adopted by the scummiest mayos across the country (including my mate's little brother), this youth subculture emerged as Leb culture and stereotypes mixed in with the rest of Western Sydney, and then unfortunately throughout the rest of the country. They dress the same as Lebs, act the same way but mostly don't have the muscles to back it up.

The second middle eastern cultural innovation given to Aus is the Halal Snack Pack or HSP for short.

This will give you a heart attack but it is a life well spent

Now, you may be wondering where the race war promised in the title is. It indeed may be the only reason you clicked. So, with no further ado, here is-

4. CRONULLA C*NT

Remember those r*pes I said would come up later? Well yea that kinda became a culture war thing in the early 2000s. Rightoid "shock jocks" (generally radio personalities that would say outrageous things for ratings) especially after started (not entirely incorrectly) painting Lebs as violent louts who hate Australia and Australians. This plus some cultural tension that I as a Victorian am unable to delve into (there are NSW dramaussies who should be able to patch this in the comments) boiled over in December of 2005 when a group of Lebs assaulted a surf lifesaver at a local beach. Said shock jocks snapped into action doing there usual thing, made even worse by the fact that they didn't really have to exaggerate much for this one. Read the Wikipedia article for the riots if you want to know what happened next

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots

TLDR: mayos rampaged around beating up people of middle eastern appearance, Lebs returned the favour, the cops stepped in and cockblocked everyone after that.

The reactions were and are similarly fun- for example, every couple of years the prime minister up to 2007 John Howard says he still thinks the rioters (meaning the mayos) weren't racist. He last did it a year or two ago causing immense sneed- I can't find it easily because frick Reddit's search engine but if someone can find some threads from the time I'll add it in here.

Tell me if I've forgotten something big, but otherwise I think that's everything. Have a nice day