It is hard to get a get a grip on the slippery intellectual rigour, and perhaps dissemlitude, of posters knocking the thread of the article.

In her concluding statement she says “Australia can be proud of its liberal, democratic, humanitarian and egalitarian culture. It must not be abandoned in the wholesale and uncritical adoption of an ideology that, in its extreme forms, is at odds with those values we cherish.”
It is probably an oversight on her part that the plural was not used - “ideologies in their extreme forms”. There are enough of these around to make the hair curl on anyone having hopes for society’s continuing improvement.

The more social mixing for common purpose the better, but why should there be any fostering of silos of culture, aspects of which Australian society has for many years worked progressively to abandon?
The best opportunity for continuing real progress is via the younger generation coming together in common educational environments, swapping lunches and stories of home; so that good aspects are introduced, the unsavoury abandoned. That is unlikely where community funds go towards such regressive aspects as mono-culture education centres; and so-on.

From eccollect

>>in our society race and culture are frequently used synonymously,>>

But they are NOT synonymous and I for one refuse to participate in the charade that they are.

I freely admit to being anti-Islam.

I do not admit to being racist.

Islam is a belief system. In a secular democracy that values free expression I have a right to express my disdain, my contempt even, for ANY belief system. I intend to avail myself of that right.

And you know what? If you go around tarring people who express a disdain for a belief system with the racist brush then evenutally they will turn around and say "OK, I am a 'racist.'" And where that leads we don't want to go.

Incidentally there has been much media discussion about a recent survey showing than many Australians have a negative attitude towards Muslims.

Well guess what? As this Pew Global Survey shows, many Muslims in Muslim majority countries have a negative view of Christians and Jews. Especially Jews.

http://pewglobal.org/2005/07/14/islamic-extremism-common-concern-for-muslim-and-western-publics/

And in China they don't seem to much like Christians, Jews or Muslims.

I'm afraid that's the way we are and I don't see any hand wringing changing that any time soon.

You may think it appallingly bad taste on my part to point all these things out. But that would be as useless as shooting the messenger.

I would have preferred to insult you and your like minded kin RPG, unfortunately, with such an intelligent display no one would be offended.

waka .. oh gosh, that's so clever .. not

try harder

If multiculturalism means that within the laws and rules of our society (for example acknowledging that the abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation is against the law in Australia) people are able to speak the language of their country of origin and undertake cultural practices which are NOT against the law (such as celebrating the birth of Buddha, the end of Ramadan etc etc) then there is nothing wrong with multiculturalism.
Assimilation, on the other hand has a sorry history in Australia. In 19th century Australia at most religious-run Aboriginal "missions" Aboriginal people were told that their own language was the "language of the devil" and punished for speaking it or for trying to retain their 40,000 year old cultural practices. By contrast, at Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory in the late 19th century - presumably as the German Lutherans who ran the place spoke German around their own dinner tables - the Arrernte people were able to speak their own language, while also taught to speak English, and respect was shown to their traditional culture. There is plenty of Hermannsburg history on the web if you are interested. Societies stagnate without diversity anyway.

Multiculturalism: at what point does it stop being an inherent good?

The answer to this question is in my opinion multiculturalism is not
inherent good when elements in multiculturalism don't comply with

ARTICLE 1 of THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

To me, this is the confession of faith for everyone who believes in an open, free and secular society.

A 'Culture' that rejects that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, that regards women inferior to men and doesn't give them the same rights.

A 'Culture' that rejects the notion that all human beings “ are endowed with reason and conscience “and in stead of accepting critical thinking, takes 'submission' as the essential element of its faith. Submission to whatever the cleric says.

A 'Culture that worst of all, rejects that “all human beings should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” and in stead stresses a fundamental enmity between believers and non-believers with the aim to eliminate all other believes.

With such a 'Culture' multiculturalism stops being inherently good.