Yet that day remains a deeply disturbing portrait of Australian culture, regardless of whether such a portrayal is accurate. So confronting were the events that the very word "Cronulla" has since had, and likely always will have, a second meaning: it became a byword for the raw xenophobia and hatred of difference that some Australians feel, yet manage to hide most of the time. The mass, unashamedly open expression of racism, by such a large number of people, was just as shocking to many as was the brutality of the riot.

Nonetheless, it is wrong to try to use the crowd's violence on that day to define Australians, or to inflate a problem beyond itself. Yes, the thousands of white, mostly male locals had gathered in Cronulla that morning to "defend" their beach against non-whites, and especially against people they perceived to be Middle Eastern or Muslim. And, yes, their actions and slogans were profoundly racist.

Yet similar fracas – albeit far smaller – had long been part of Sydney's beach culture, as local boys and young men fought to protect "their" turf from "westies", or from gangs from other beaches. The then prime minister, John Howard, called the rioting "incredibly bad behaviour fuelled by too much drink"; opposition leader Kim Beazley said Australia was not a racist country but there were "some racist elements involved on both sides" of the riots and the reprisals. The two politicians were criticised in some quarters for playing down racism as a motivation. In hindsight, they were likely right.

Racism was certainly among the underlying causes, but so too were social displacement, tribalism and a sense of being treated unjustly (in this case, the perception that police were failing to protect locals from abuse by Lebanese-Australians, who visited the beach from western Sydney). Indeed, the Cronulla rioters might not appreciate the comparison but their motivations likely echoed those of the Macquarie Fields public housing tenants who had attacked police 10 months earlier, or the Aborigines of Redfern who had rioted the previous year. This is not to excuse the behaviour of anyone who took part in the attacks sparked by the Cronulla protests. The police pressed almost 300 charges, though it is a great shame that hundreds of other people who probably deserved punishment avoided it merely for want of evidence.

Perhaps the main lesson this week, as we reflect on those sour events of 10 years ago, is not that Australian society is innately xenophobic. Rather, the riots remind us that, even in a democratic, wealthy nation such as ours, the rule of law remains fragile, and that usually decent people can be tempted quickly to ignore it. It is not a comforting reflection.