Opinion writers, ignorance and riots

Your contributors to the Opinion section, Farish A. Noor (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 16) and S. P. Seth (Dec. 17) are totally ignorant of the reasons behind the recent violence in Sydney. Underlying it all is a decade or more of unchecked criminality by Lebanese gangs. Among the many atrocities they have committed, the murder of a Korean-Australian schoolboy and the targeted rapes of Caucasian women stand out.

Toss in control of the drug and prostitution rackets, as well as random robberies, murders and bashings (physical assaults) and Sydney has been under siege since the early 1990s.

The police are unwilling or unable to do a thing about it and the State Labor government ignores the issue because it is totally enthralled with the ethnic lobby, in general, and the Lebanese in particular. Hence, the popular outrage after the bashing (physical assaults) by a Lebanese gang against two volunteer lifesavers at Cronulla. It has nothing to do with John Howard, the war on terror or killing Tasmanians 200 years ago. It is just public disgust at Lebanese criminality.

Noor's ignorance can be excused as he lives in Berlin -- so why write about something he clearly knows nothing about? But I wonder where Seth lives: In all his articles about Australia he may as well live in Bogor for all the lack of insight he brings to the page.

N. R. WATSON, Canberra, Australia