The Lebanese community, particularly in Sydney, are frequently singled out for criticism for all sorts of anti-social behaviour. At various times, commentators and politicians have accused the community of an indifference to gang rape, car rebirthing, drug dealing, gang violence, arms dealing, and so on. The intimation in much of this commentary has been that there is an Islamic or, at best, Arab cultural dimension to all this: that is to say beneath all the bravado and aggression that characterises the popular portrayal of Lebanese gangs is a kernel of eman (faith) or loyalty to Lebanese or Arab culture.
It seems that there is certainly a cultural dimension to much of the problems of Lebanese youth but it is not Arab culture or Islamic culture that is to blame. Rather, it seems, that a minority of Lebanese youths have been more influenced by the noxious gangsta culture of the ghettos of North America than anything identifiably Arab or Islamic. The following television footage provides a useful insight into the sort of subculture that has developed amongst some Arab — Muslim and Christian — youth in this country.
So. What is to be done?
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Being familiar with the black American “ghetto culture”, I can look at these videos and see very clearly that they are immitating the American blacks that live in the ghettos.
I was just very surprised to learn how powerful groups like NWA have been in shaping the outlook of youth so long after their dismemberment.
One does not have to do much study to know that this is a dead end. Even after many of these “gangtas” embrace Islam, they have a hard time leaving the “gangsta” culture
Two words: Sha3ab Te3ban.
There is no equivalent in the English language for that comment I guess.
I think the starting position for many of these youths is a feeling of disenfranchisement and an exaggerated sense of victimhood. These are sentiments that a lot of the NWA-style gangsta rap speaks to, so it’s not surprising that a lot of these youths have latched on to black American ghetto culture and tried to adapt it to their own circumstances.
I think the starting position for many of these youths is a feeling of disenfranchisement and an exaggerated sense of victimhood.
I agree Amir, the key word applicable here is a FEELING of disenfranchisement. They appear to have disenfranchised themselves. , the time period where Muslims (and ethnic minorities) will be able to continue to abuse the hospitality granted to them in Western countries is likely to end soon,inshallah, Allahu alam. Allah Masta’an
There are two issues here, the behaviour, imagery music itself and the criminality that necessarily flows from it.
One can understand the sentiments of the wider population who are aggrieved by this behaviour by Lebanese youths, but unfortunately it is not confined to just them.
I think that we can address the culture by tackling the criminality, for example
1. aggressively pursuing a zero tolerance policy against this group of people, defecting their cars, impounding and then destroying them
2. revoking driving licence privileges for 5 years for anyone convicted of a criminal offence
3. mandatory death penalty for rape, drug pushing and homicide, .
4. Target the criminal parents of these children , many of whom are in organised crime through the seizure of assets, tax audits, failure to return library books , j-walking, whatever. This should break up enclaves of criminality and ghettos in SW Sydney
5. Making it a criminal offence, punishable by jail-time if one is less them completely courteous to a police officer, public school teacher or nurse
6. Making public funding to community organisations like the LMA conditional on measurable improvement in community behaviour and participation in volunteer work (which should be a mandatory part of rehabilitation after incarceration). If community wide criminality increases, the LMA looses part or all of its funding, that could be applied to all community groups (ethnic, religious or location). That would get the self appointed leaders of their fat arses.
7. Re-introduction of school uniforms including hair and piercing codes and make these mandatory part of school attendance.
The second way to attack this culture is to aggressively stop funding it with public money
1. Our best “buddies” at SBS have been running the disgraceful program “FAt Pizza” for several year that has been saying the sort of things that landed Hilali in trouble. For example one episode compared sexual relations with a Lebanese woman to that with a donkey. Yet this is supported by your tax dollars and teaches Lebanese youth normative behaviour and cultural symbology that they act out. It is ironic that one of the actors died as a result of the culture he championed on television
2. A recent “festival” in Melbourne sought to engage Muslim youth through the symbols, music and imagery of the same culture.
http://austrolabe.com/2006/08/.....ern-islam/
Perhaps we should re-think that approach.
3. The Muslim community has a really peripheral role in all of this as the culture extends beyond Muslim and Lebanese and immigrants, for all those who think it does I have one word; Frankston.
4.Making parents criminally responsible for the crimes of their under 18 children including the costs
5. By Imams actually talking about this at the Jumma khutba
As parents what can we do? Elliot Berman talks about “media and community monasticism” in his book the “Decline of American culture”. One can shape normative behaviour of ones children by selling the TV and limit their exposure to popular culture and those elements in the community that unconsciously transmit it.
When many Australians look in the mirror , they should see that they are part of the same culture, and that while it maybe most visible in Lebanese youths, many “white” children exist in a similar world.
http://womensspace.wordpress.c.....the-rapes/
Here is an even better one, complete with posing with guns and Lebo hair styles. Lebs may have ripped off the hip hop but they are 100% creative on the hairstype front.
Several years ago I remember seeing a documentary about John Howard’s old school (that had continued its fine tradition of producing socially dysfunctional people). The episode centred around one particularly dysfunctional Arab teenager (lets call him “Beast”). The teachers had done everything short of breast feed him on camera ( I’m not sure that they didn’t off camera), and yet unsurprisingly he was still a delinquent.
His family life provided the insight into “Beast’s” personal issues, His father who was enormously fat was in a perpetual state of recumbency, and had availed himself of the full measure of the generosity of the public purse, his mother was illiterate. There was no religious environment within the home and the only point when religion was discussed by Beast was in the context of trying to get out of school thing, and thus using religion as an excuse.
Beast’s pastimes were fornication, attempted fornication and preparation for fornication, between which he listened to music and preened himself like a peacock.
The only “Islamic” culpability in this scenario is the complete lack of any Islamic ethos within the home or in Beast’s personality.
When he finally achieved a “D grade”, the teaching staff at the school erupted with spontaneous emotion at yet another success of lassie fare education.
I was in tears too.
I thought the hoon laws were already brought in this year. Or was that only in Victoria?
These days most youths tend to just goto Calder Park to show off their cars.
Instead of giving more funding to the community groups that seem to be doing nothing, the government could instead fund competitions for the youth to show off their cars in a controlled environment.
But it should also come down hard on anyone caught in the streets doing this. As far as I know the laws are already out where the car is impounded/destroyed.
If not there should be laws put in place.
This is not simply an issue within the Lebanese/Arab or even just the Islamic community. It is across the spectrum off Australian youth and even worldwide. They love doing up their cars and showing it off.
Why else would AutoSalon be so big?
http://autosalon.org/index2.html
Here is a forum dedicated just to Calais Turbo
http://www.calaisturbo.com.au/
It is not only the rap culture, anyone heard of the movies Fast and the Furious? My nephews were not even interested in cars before they saw these movies.
But I see nothing wrong in people taking this on as a hobby, doing up their cars and entering competitions. I also see it as a way of getting them off the streets.
And the police also should not have to put up with the disrespect shown in those videos.
Clearly not enough is being done but we cannot simply look at punishments alone, we also need to find preventative measures.
Baybers, on 09 Dec 2006 at 8:06 am:
Please demonstrate that there is a necessary, rather than a merely contingent, link.
…one assumes the examples are intended to be a satirical jab at the right-wing extremist One Nation policies.
salam,
well i’m not too surprised too see this due to various reasons…including disenfranchisement…But in all honesty these wannabe kids havent faced nearly as much hardship as african american community that forced them into such groupie and ghettoized mentality. These kids are just acting up-they only need to spend a few nights in the cage before they get some sense into them.
Another funny thing is that Khaleej region seems to be having a similar problem with every single khaleeji kid acting as gangster wannabe eventhough most of them are well off…I guess what really attracts them is all the bling, big cars, booze and girls and a sense of satisfaction that they can afford it…
I’m assuming some of Bayber’s suggestions were tongue in cheek, but I agree that there needs to be a law enforcement dimension to the solution. However, one also has to be careful not to feed their sense of resentment and, I suspect, going after them for the entirely subjective crime of not showing enough respect to police or school teachers is going to feed that quite substantially.
Also, I’m not sure that the parents are mostly involved in criminality themselves. From what I have seen firsthand, most of the parents of these kids are either disinterested, have given up and blame the society, or they simply tolerate the wayward behaviour of their boys provided they don’t bring up a non-Muslim girl at the end of the day.
E, Its a pleasure to have you on the site
Yes you are correct,
Amir and I were hoping to start a debate on the causes and solutions for this problem. That required taking certain provocative positions in the interest of stimulating discussion. But I do contend that the immediate solution here is law enforcement and not anything useful can be contributed by the Muslim community. So people can keep there stolen library books and be safe from capital punishment
I also contend that criminality is a necessary outcome from such a culture. The evidence is analogy. As a Muslim I believe that a certain praxis, thought, action and dress allows and encourages me to behave in a way that is pleasing to God. The opposite must also therefore be true, that constant exposure to hyer-sexualised lyrics, dress, behavior, celebrating criminality must lead inevitably to criminality.
There is no empirical evidence that I know of, either way. Do you?
Adding on to Baybers list:
- The government should reintroduce compulsory National Service. Upon turning 18, all Australian male citizens should have to join the military and do extensive community service such as cleaning streets, wiping graffiti of the wall, working with the fire brigade etc…
I would assume this would give a really good boost to social cohesion and integration of minority groups, as you will be having Australians of different backgrounds, skin colours and religions working side by side.
Baybers, on 09 Dec 2006 at 10:54 pm
There seems to be quite a bit of academic work on various related topics to do with children of migrants, delinquancy and criminality (see a sample below). From what I can glean, ‘culture’ in the traditional sense seems to play no statistically significant role in criminality. (That it comes to be seen as significant speaks to problems of insularity of the ‘dominant’ community.) But you’re obviously not talking about ‘culture’ in this sense.
I suspect you’re mixing together some different things in referring to ‘culture.’ African American music, clothing and mannerisms are one thing, while problems relating to family life, unemployment and so on are another. The first is, to my mind, an effect rather than a cause. It enters into the ‘imaginary realm’ (as some sociologists like to call it) as a cognitive coping response to material conditions. The second set of variables are better thought of as ‘material’ in their nature, and for my money have a more immediately causal role.
The broader causal context into which that fits, I think, is probably related to social position. Anecdotally, in the UK, we see problems with some Pakistani youth - but not in Australia. Note the difference in social position: in the UK, first-generation migrant Pakistani families were generally poor, working class; first-generation migrant Pakistani families in Australia were generally middle class. In Australia, we see problems for some second-generation Lebanese kids - again, note that their parents hailed from relatively poor, working class backgrounds. (Note also that the Macquarie Fields riots occurred in Macquarie Fields, and the Redfern riots occurred in Refern - not St.Ives, Pymble or Vaucluse.) Of course there are no one-to-one relationships here and no single causal factors - but issues of economic disadvantage do seem to be pervasive in these cases.
———–
Aside: a few interesting things:
Freilich, J.D. et.al. (eds). 2002. Migration, Culture Conflict and Crime. Ashgate.
Killias, M. 1989. “Criminality among Second-Generation Immigrants in Western Europe: A Review of the Evidence”, Criminal Justice Review, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 13-42.
Junger, M. et.al. 1997. “The Interethnic Generalizability of Social Control Theory”, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 34(1): 79-112.
Junger-Tas, J. 2001. “Ethnic Minorities, Social Integration and Crime”, European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research, 9: 5-29.
The difficulty with sociological instruments is that only very rarely do they amount to scientific evidence, or that the level of evidence that they reach is low and would itself not constitute evidence in other scientific disciplines (for example public health)
The very best that one can do is retrospective cohort analysis between migrant communities in different parts of the world and either ignore or try to adjust for the vast differences in the societies.
So much of the scholarly work is little more (or even less) than my earlier assertion.
Anther point is to what extent is social position itself a marker of a biological or behavioural pattern and therefore to what extent can we modify it. As a Muslim I believe that Allah (SWT) religion is accessible to all regardless of intelligence or social position (otherwise it would not be merciful) and that a way of dressing, behaving and mixing with people is the primary way that determines our behaviour in other spheres for better or worse.
The famous Prophetic(PBUH) hadith that is loosely translated, that one is on the religion of ones friends, also supports this view.
So despite being poor and poorly educated and migrants and living in ugly housing it is my assertion that it is primarily this evolved tribal culture that is the key ingredient for criminality. That is why it exists in Frankston, in Macquire fields, Brixton and south central LA.
That is also why they do not occur in other very poor but socially conservative areas (although these are rapidly vanishing)
For example a more normative Islamic interaction with cars and road behaviour can be found here:
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/f.....ing-p1.php
Note how all the participants are appropriately Islamicly dressed, and are courteous to other road users.
That is psychotic.
As for the topic at hand I find it far too simplistic to be implying that these guys are like this because they listen to too much DMX or Tupac.
Also from the videos posted above, it seems that there are only a few dominant males in the pack and the rest just follow the leader.
But how economically disadvantaged are youths that are running around in the latest sneakers, holding the latest mobile phones, and driving relatively expensive cars or cars that have been “hotted up” at some expense to the owner? They are certainly not poor by the standards of the countries their parents hail from and I would suggest that they are not even poor by Australian standards.
Some of those paint jobs alone cost in the thousands of dollars.
You guys are discussing some really interesting, and needed subjects! I pretty much agree with all that has been said already, but keep up the good work!
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