When a 200-strong gang of bat-wielding Arabs swarmed through Maroubra smashing cars, throwing bricks and attacking whomever stood in their path, one man took em all on...
What did you make of the whole anti-Arab/anti-Aussie thing that went down over the Christmas break? If you're like most, you probably didn't dig on the Cronulla riot but felt maybe they were driven to their group madness after years of intimidation; were appalled when the burning of the Australian flag and the destruction of cars in Maroubra went down; and confused when the NSW police didn't arrrest a soul immediately following the revenge attacks.
But this isn't story about rights or wrongs, religion or the philosophical question of whether certain people can or cannot co-exist. This is story about a single act of courage that has elevated one man to near God status around 2035. He was born Jamie Gore 36 years ago but everyone knows him as Froggy. Grew up in the housing commission estates with a pensioner mum and has lived in Maroubra since the eighties. When he's not working as a lifeguard he's tending security at bars around Sydney, dropping buckets of sweat as a brickie's labourer or working security at ASP events - he's the big cat who protects Andy or KS when they're trying to get through the crowd and to the water's edge. Last year, after doing the Billabong Pro he worked as a deckhand on the charter boat Cascade through Tahiti and the outer atolls of the Tuamotus. / On his spine, the Bra Boy tattoo descends vertically. On his right shoulder, is an American Indian theme including portraits of Chief Joseph and Apache leader Two Hatchet. Froggy knows his Indian history and connects with the mindset that honour comes from truth and honesty; that you need to be able to face your neighbour as a whole person.
"Froggy's the most honorable man I know," says Koby Abberton. "If you're upset in your life, if you're about the fight the biggest guy you've ever seen, he's there for you. Doesn't matter what it is. He's there. Always." Life most of us, Frog watched the Cronulla riot with embarrassment, wondering how the hell it'd come to this.
"I was ashamed to be Australian. It was like a red-neck lynching," says Froggy, a man of average height but with the wingspan of a passenger jet and a bodyfat-to-weight index in the single digits. Froggy's sitting on a stretch of grass in front of Koby's beachfront rental at the north end of Maroubra. He's just finished a day of labouring but is only an hour away from a training session. He's not overly keen to talk of what went down, but Frog's a straight-up sorta guy and will answer whatever you throw at him. All you gotta do is ask. So, what did go down? Turns out Frog had been on the turps all day and was rounding out what had been a pleasant evening with several Tasmanian-sourced ales at the Maroubra Bay hotel. He'd seen TV footage of Cronulla earlier in the day but there was nothing to suggest his own suburb would be under attack. And then the mostly Australian-born Arabs, who'd gathered in their cars at a mosque in the outer-west suburb of Punchbowl before driving east, rounded the corner. Mobile phones lit up in the pub. Someone screamed, There's lebs smashing cars!
Froggy, being Froggy and this being his home, thought he'd investigate. He ran across and up the road just as the 200-strong mob rounded the corner on Marine Parade. Someone yelled at him to watch out. But Froggy was committed. "I ran at them. There was no turning back. They would've overtaken me if I'd tried to run away." Not that he would've. "I wouldn't have been able to look at myself," he says.
Onlookers say the immediate exchange went something like this:
Froggy; What's going on here?
Arab: Fuck, a Bra Boy!
Froggy: I sure am!
Froggy saw a baseball bat swing at his head. He blocked it with his forearm. He threw a hook at his attacker who crumpled. From behind, another bat hit him five times. His face opened up, his skull was fracturered and he fell to the ground unconscious where blows continued to rain.
Next thing he remembers is being in the emergency ward of the Prince of Wales hospital in Randwick.
Two months later, does he harbour dark thoughts of revenge? "I'm a world traveller. I get along with everyone. What happened happened. I'm happy to forgive and forget."
What Froggy's worried about is a continuous cycle of attack and reprisal. "What happened in Cronulla was ridiculous. I don't know how we became involved in that shit. I've got Lebanese friends, I've got Turkish friends. We've got enough problems down here without this. My thing is, it'll be one of the kids round here roaming the streets who'll get caught out."
And the question on Froggy's and everyone else's lips round these parts is: where were the cops? "How did that many guys walk a kilometre down the street smashing cars, chucking bricks through windows and burning stuff without being confronted?"
At the time of going to print, the weak-as-piss Labor government had yet to provide a satisfactory answer.
Posts: 17
Reply #17 on : Tue November 25, 2008, 17:37:21