Title: Lebanese immigrants in Sydney, Australia: a special case of
segmented assimilation?
Author: James (Jim) Forrest
Affiliation: Macquarie University, Sydney
Abstract: Lebanese immigrants to Australia began arriving during the 1960s as
refugees from civil war. They comprise two distinct fragments: one Christian,
one Muslim. Most of the Christian Lebanese (56% of this group by ancestry)
arrived by 1976. Muslim Lebanese were much more evenly spread by decade
after 1967. Sydney, Australia’s foremost immigrant-receiving city, absorbed most
of both fragments. But while Christian Lebanese have largely integrated,
Muslims generally, of whom Lebanese are the main component, are a significant
‘out group’. They have suffered from demonization following 9/11 and the ‘war
on terror’. Unemployment among Lebanese Muslims was more than 20%,
(Sydney’s average was just over 5%) at the 2001 census. Sydney’s recent (midDecember 2005) experience of a weekend of rioting in some eastern beach
suburbs between a younger Anglo surfing subculture and a Muslim-LebaneseAustralian youth subculture from western Sydney highlighted the social and
economic separation of the latter group, making of the two Lebanese immigrant
fragments a special case of fragmented assimilation in the Australian context.