Apex Gang (ATOM Study Guide)

Synopsis

March 2016. Amid fireworks and festivities, Melbourne’s Moomba festival is disrupted by a youth riot. Pepper spray and police horses are called in to break up an unprecedented brawl in the heart of the city. Fear reigns.

In the papers the next day, a new group is blamed for the fracas, the ‘Apex gang’. The media embraces this new story with gusto. The Apex gang is tied to the growing wave of crimes committed by young men in the outer suburbs, and pretty soon, in the public’s eyes, they are tied to the growing South Sudanese community.

But what if it’s not so simple? Court reporters, police, criminologists all tell us that the hysteria is out of proportion, and that the kids committing these crimes are part of a ‘United Nations of offending’. This is the story, of a story gone out of control. Of a gang that may not have ever existed, and a community under siege. The South Sudanese are at the start of their journey as Australians, and history tells us that recent migrant communities can sometimes have a rocky ride. They are not the first group to be demonised and scapegoated, and they probably won’t be the last. The Italians, Greeks, Lebanese, Vietnamese and more, are all communities that have weathered a storm. Now this storm breaks on the South Sudanese community. This film examines their story, and seeks to balance the ledger. Are these newly arrived migrants a threat to modern multicultural Australia, or just the most recent victims of a cycle of blame? And, it asks, are South Sudanese community leaders crying foul and blaming others for faults and flaws among their own people, or are they looking at the issues faced by their young people honestly, and coming up with practical solutions? How can the South Sudanese community forge its way through the media storm, and find its way within multicultural modern Australia?

Curriculum Links

Apex Gang Behind the Headlines is a resource that could be used with Year 9-12 students to explore a number of important topics:

• Immigration
• Urbanisation
• Identity
• Change over time
• Multiculturalism and integration
• Refugees
• Citizenship
• Media and social media