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'Violence damages the Aboriginal cause'
The Australian papers respond to the clashes

February 18, 2004 - The Guardian (UK)

Herald Sun
Editorial, Melbourne, February 17

"In an aftermath reminiscent of the Los Angeles riots, the Block in Redfern in the cold light of day was littered with wreckage. In a knee-jerk response to a problem that has been simmering for years, the New South Wales government promises probes into how teenager Thomas Hickey died in a cycling accident and whether the police contributed to it, as claimed by locals. The police deny this and are backed by the NSW premier, Bob Carr.

"Also to be established is whether agitators exploited the community's grief to foment the violence in which 40 police were hurt. Mr Carr believes they did ... But no inquiry is needed to find the root cause of what happened on the Block. It was a doomed social experiment from the 1970s - when it was established to help Aborigines - but deteriorated into an Aboriginal ghetto in central Sydney. Crippling social disadvantage afflicts the people in this festering place ... [But] violence damages the Aboriginal cause - it does not belong in Australia."

Townsville Bulletin
Editorial, February 17

"The rioters' actions could not be described as heat-of-the-moment reaction to an approach by police, as it now seems the riots followed lengthy preparations, including positioning bins in the streets and filling them with ammunition such as bottles and bricks ... [But] there is obviously a general underlying current of distrust ... in sections of the community for NSW police to address.

"It must also be accepted that there is still much work to be done in tackling the discrimination and disadvantage some members of our community are regularly subjected to. But the kind of wrong-headed, hate-filled, and harmful course of action those rioters resorted to in Redfern is unacceptable and can only fuel further division and grief."

Piers Akerman
Daily Telegraph, Sydney, February 17

"What the people of NSW need to know are the names of all those who sought to exploit Thomas Hickey's death for their own evil ends and trash the fragile truce that had existed between the residents of Redfern and the police ... There are those who have tried to change Redfern through their gentle influence over the years, but sadly they are being swamped by the tide of intractable, unemployable youngsters who displayed their contempt for society at the weekend. The Carr government must take a measure of responsibility for this ... and implement ... new strategies that do not merely ... pander to the failed social engineering policies of the past."

Ray Minniecon
Sydney Morning Herald, February 17

"Redfern is a good community. It is a good place to live ... For me, as an Aboriginal person, Redfern is a place where one can interact with a powerful collective will to struggle against imperial forces that continue to interfere with - and endeavour to reinterpret - our history, our identity, and our future prospects from a very different colonial perspective ...

"What did I see on Sunday in Redfern? I saw an Aboriginal mother grieving with her family and friends over the sad and tragic loss of her son. I saw an insensitive system attack that mother in a very insensitive and inappropriate way and at the most inappropriate time in her life. I saw a community grieving over another senseless loss of one of our young men. I saw our people struggling, continuing to adjust to the new nation. I did not see the new nation-builders offer this mother comfort or compassion ...

"I live with this hope that my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will find our place and our space in the most alien and inhospitable place of all to Aboriginal culture and people - the city of Sydney."

Source: The Guardian (UK)

Further information:

• Redfern Riots clippings and background

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