Trouble down under

When we were in Sydney last week, at least one of the tabloid papers ran a series of articles about how a local beach was being taken over by Middle Eastern gangs who were frightening off the locals. It may very well have been true, but the tone of the articles (with pictures of frightened looking blonde Aussie girls) was fairly clear: "they" are taking "our" beach and scaring "our" women and something needs to be done about it--the incitement wasn't explicit, but you could read it pretty clearly even as an outsider. Well, it sounds like things have since gotten way out of control, with nightly rioting and racial attacks. I don't know what any of it means, but it seems really out of place in laid-back Sydney...