Bali, Tampa, 9/11: a potpourri of causes THE flashpoint for the race riot came when a teenager of so-called "Middle Eastern appearance" made his way defiantly through the car park heading for Cronulla beach. According to one witness, when the mob jeered him, the 17-year-old yelled back: it was his beach, too, and he had every right to swim there. The mob, freshly fuelled up on a cocktail of booze and racist propaganda from the Australia First movement, thought otherwise. A mob gave chase, screaming racial obscenities, hurling beer bottles and turning on police who tried to stop them. "They...