I agree Alice, apart from the terrorism,riots, murders, honour illings and general inability to get past the eleventh century, multiculturalism has been a raging success.

Objections to the phenomena above are nothing more than trendiness. Merkel and Sarkozy know nothing and you're right.

"The secretary acknowledges that Islam has been linked to terrorism and the oppression of women globally". Why?

Why,oh why, do we need 'multicultural policies', liberal democratic states are intrinsically multicultural? There's no need for social engineering.
The article attempts to conflate racism, scepticism in regard to multiculturalism and "Islamophobia" (whatever that is) in an attempt to occupy the moral high ground.

We could, of course, adopt the Islamic version of 'multiculturalism'.

If multiculturalism is not propped up by regulations, subsidies and positive discrimination "assistance", then we might see people doing a little more to adapt to their surroundings .. and develop into citizens who recognize their adopted countries social and cultural benefits.

At the moment, it appears, and only in wealthy countries, that the opposite is encouraged and then an "us and them" attitude develops.

Look at countries with zero assistance to differing cultural groups, and they seem to mostly do OK, there is tolerance, but when you get one group demanding to remain different but insisting the other group change to accommodate them, you get resentment.

It's all very nice saying we should all get along, but there are losers here and they resent it, they tend to be the ones who were of the original culture.

So it is with new arrivals to countries, with very different cultural needs, who then demand laws and practices be changed to their requirements.

They appear to have zero tolerance to the existing laws of a new country, yet moved there regardless and that is an indication that they never intended to fit in and always intended to remain separate and intolerant to their adopted countries culture.

So we are expected to be tolerant to the intolerant?

There's your problem, you have two cultures intolerant to each other. We started out being tolerant to different cultures in the name of multiculturalism, we were ready to give it a go and did.

What we got is not what we expected, whole cultures moving in who quite plainly dislike us, our culture, our world and want nothing to do with us or our laws, but are happy to demand special schools laws and are happy to indulge in our welfare.

To us, the old days of migrants coming here, like my family, and putting in effort to join the culture is way more successful.

Multiculturalism exists only where the state does not interfere or demand tolerance, then people find their own balance.

One point that keeps popping up is the equation of objections to multi-culturalism (or aspects of a small number of cultures) with racism. The author speaks of anti-racists defending multi-culturalism.

It's my impression that most (not all) opponents of multi-culturalism object to cultural practices from other cultures growing in prominance within our society not to the race of those involved. The objections are to real or perceived intrusions on our own way of life much more than the rights of others to go about their own lives as they choose.

Sometimes there is a strong correlation between race and the cultural practices, at other times not so much.

Dismissing the concerns of those objecting to aspects of multiculturalism as racism does not help in any way. There are some real problems being experienced in a lot of places resulting from a number of factors.
- the distain or contempt help by some from other cultures for western cultures and values
- the isolation faced by some migrants as a result of their own cultural values or from the actions of those within our own culture who try to maximise conflict.
- a lack of understanding by many on both sides of the fence of just what multi-culturalism should mean and how it should play out in reality.

R0bert

...One must keep firmly in mind, the repealing of the white Australia policy in 1973 was in response to inability to source sufficient immigrants from traditional countries of Europe to satisfy the need for population increases needed to maintain economic growth.

...Australians dwelt comfortable inside the confines of cultural norms of the white Australia policy. Australians have an historic repulsion to Asians, and scratch the skin of an Australian at a relaxed moment, and you will soon discover the rejection of Asians is alive and well!

...Official banning of Australian racism through multicultural policies will only serve to deepen the pain to the loss of the unique Australian culture, forced onto Australian society, since the act was repealed with great fanfare in the 1970’s. This is a backflip in Australian cultural development deeply resented

KenH,

Couldn't agree more. The multicultural lobby (i.e. the every culture is valid and worth preserving except those derived from Europe mob) conveniently ingore some very inconvenient truths.

I suggest Alice go to Saudi Arabia and preach multiculturalism to them. I hear they love pro gay atheists over there.

RObert,

You're onto something. Not all 'cultures', or sets of cultural practices, are equal. Surely a society which recognises that women have, or should have, equal rights with men, would be a better place to live in, for everybody, than one which regarded women as not only inferior but some sort of social danger. In that sense, the culture of a society which has a backward opinion about women is not equal to one which accords them equality and respect.

Is a society which recognises the right of a person to marry whomever they like, 'equal' or 'better than' one which demands that a person, particularly a woman, must marry only within the group to which she belongs ?

Is a society which recognises the right of a person to change their mind, discard their religious beliefs for others, or for none in particular, as good as or better than one which insists that changing one's faith should be punishable by death ?

In a genuinely democratic-multicultural society such as Australia continually aspires to be, people - women in particular - have the same rights as men to vote, to own property, to (monogamously) marry whoever, to divorce, to abandon their beliefs or choose others, to have equal access in law to the children after a separation, to stand for office, to go where they like, to drive a car, etc., etc., etc.

Sometimes I think that 'culture' is little more than the ossified rationale for the social relations and division of labour of a society: there's nothing inherently good about any particular 'culture': respect for it stands or falls on the active promotion, within the society embracing it, of the rights of all of its citizens.

If a democratic society does not defend the opportunity for women to exercise these rights, then it betrays its foundations. Individuals migrating to a democratic society, at least one like ours is supposed to be, must understand that this is the framework within they must work.

Joe

Oh of course it's trendy Alice! It has nothing at all to do with the negative aspects of foreign 'cultures' that have migrated to European, Australian and other 'Western' shores.

In my humble and personal experience, the INTOLERANCE not only stated but practiced by some of our own immigrants and their descendents is shocking, often illegal and completely at odds with Australian mores.
Apologists make excuses for such behaviour on 'cultural grounds'. I don't! Everywhere I've travelled it's been a case of "When in Rome ..." How much more so when u come to live in a country and adopt it as your home? If you are not prepared to adjust cultural practices to fit it why should you be accepted? And this is largely the problem ...

I'm good for a hundred bucks towards the "Alice Aslan One Way Travel Fund". Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. I'm sure she will find the levels of tolerance refreshing and acceptable. Oh it does lack the excitement of an annual Gay Mardi Gras but I'm sure there will be the odd public hanging, stoning or amputation to add a little spice ...

Some very good posts here.

I'll reiterate a few points that I entirely agree with. For one, Islam is not a race, it's a religion. It has a set of practices that have nothing to do with race. So claiming it's racism is not only incorrect, it doesn't actually deal with the problem of these Islamic practices that conflict with liberal, democratic thought. It merely pushed the issue to the side.
Secondly, multiculturalism is really a racist movement aimed toward the dominant Western culture. If the host culture is irrelevant and the alien culture takes itself as primary, isn't this racist toward the Western culture?
For me, this whole issue raises questions on why do proponents of multiculturalism want to see the destruction of the host culture. For those from an alien culture it is easy to understand, as they prefer their culture and would only too well like it to be the dominant one. But what of these academic and lefty types who willfully try and destroy their own culture? What drives someone to destroy the culture which has given them an abundance of material prosperity?

There are immigrants and there are immigrants. Some come for a better life, to be part of Australia, and some come to live in Australia but have little attachment to its identity and little respect for its people and culture.

Multiculturalism is a one way street. It says we, the Australian people – or the West - will respect and cuddle you, but you don’t have to respect us. In fact, your culture is as good as ours and maybe better. Yes, we know you left your native lands because of poverty, ignorance, hate, intolerance and persecution but we welcome all of these to our lands because these add diversity to our lives and nothing is better than diversity, not even peace and harmony.

Of all the stupid ideas dreamed up in the last 40 years, the idea of permitting mass immigration of Muslims to the West was the worst, by far. In case you haven’t noticed, Islam’s values are not those of the West. Muslims don’t believe in freedom of speech and religion, equality or separation of religion and state. Yes, they will give lip service to these ideals but a glance at Islamic societies says it all. I don’t believe that Muslims in Australia and Europe are any different from their brethren in Muslim nations. Remember, these people say “praise be upon” after the name of Mohammad and consider him a noble example to follow. Note also that Islam’s own traditions (hadith) tell us Islam’s prophet attacked his neighbors dozens of times – unprovoked – murdering, looting, enslaving men women and children, torturing, expelling people from their homes, letting his men rape captives and even beating his child-wife. A noble example indeed! These things are easy to find. What is not easy is finding a Muslim that wants to talk about these things or the hate and violence in their “perfect, eternal” book, the Quran. I have tried many times, even here at OLO.

Note how many Muslims are cited in the article defending multiculturalism – of course. Yes, Multiculturalism is good for Muslims but not anybody else.

Aristocrat, I don't think that it's just Islam (although religion added an additional problem to the mix). Cultural practices throughout Islamic countries vary heaps.

FGM is practiced in some places not others, the obsession with women being covered (and the corresponding contempt for women who don't cover from head to toe) is not uniform. Having a religion to hide behind helps people avoid the realities of some pretty horrid views and practices but it's not always the cause.

R0bert

>>"The new national multicultural policy is a historical progressive step. But it is incomplete unless Australian society requires politicians and media commentators, who have the power to influence public opinion, not to stigmatise whole communities and spread hostility against them by distorting truth in the name of free speech. And the law should hold such people accountable for any inflammatory speech."

I was remiss in not drawing attention the this little gem, in which Alice displays her commitment to western liberal democratic values by pointing out the dangers of free speech, notwithstanding that it is rather one of the cultural markers that distinguish the West from some other cultures which might come to mind. Well, everywhere in Australia except Victoria, anyway.

Frankly, despite Alice's apparent amnesia on the social problems rife in Europe, I'd be inclined to agree with Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron that multiculturalism has been a bit of a disappointment.

kactuz

you speak the truth.

Multiculuralism was never defensible, but was inflicted on us by a Liberal Prime Minister who should have known better.

It has now done sufficient constant and unremitting damage, to us, over all the years since its implementation, to enable a hearing to be given to those who denounce it, and an acceptance of the fact that it is an abysmal failure.

Trendies, like Alice, still attempt to mindlessly defend it, when there is no possible basis upon which to justify such an imposition on our society.

Alice, I feel offended on your behalf that some of the 'people' on this thread are attacking you for your ethnic and/or religious background rather than for what you've said. Yet, if Divine MSN does indeed give you a hundred bucks you might as well keep it. Frankly, you're entitled to a bit of compensation for abuse.

Alice, I have no doubt about your good intentions; but please do not be blinded by slogans like"islamophobia", and carefully consider the objections raised against multiculturalism.These are not the arguments of redneck bigots. Leslie

David,

I have looked at all the comments on this thread fairly carefully but I can't find any comment which has a go at Alice personally on ethnic or religious grounds. If a body of religious dogma supports inequitable or repugnant practices and someone says so, that is hardly attacking someone else, even one of its adherents - it's simply criticising the body of dogma.

Maybe Islam needs precisely that, just as much as any other religious dogma - a sustained critique based on equal rights for women in a modern society. Perhaps you may say, this is not fair to Islam - after all, it is not a body of dogma which is consonant with anything in the modern world, but an outgrowth of desert tribalism, in which women have a grossly inferior place. That may be true, but I don't think Australian social or political life should be dragged backwards just to accommodate such dogmas or ideologies.

Joe

Alice & many of her supporters are forgetting some "inconvenient truths".

People denigrating multiculturalism have NOT been coming only from the "right", many old lefties have also come out of the wood work to admit they were wrong for promoting it. Have also stated publicly that it has been a failure & they regret it all.

Don't forget it was just another part of the PC, Thought Police plan to destroy our culture with among other things bottonless pits of guilt for attempting to do the "right" thing.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236# self hatred training

The INtolerant liberals have been guilt tripping us for about half a century now & some just don't want to stop denigrating western, white, British, Eurpoean, protestant christian, democratic culture.

Joe the closest I could find was Dane's post at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222032

No where near the allegation that David makes. I think David's just made it up in the hope that Alice's supporters won't check. Gives them a reason to dismiss the points that most posters are making. A lot simpler than discussing the issues.

R0bert

G'day Joe,

You don't get a whiff of that from Divine MSN and Dane's comments? Maybe its just my take on those remarks in the context of Alice's piece and those remarks. But, I just doubt that an Anglo-Saxon writer saying the same things would be offered a one-way trip to a Muslim country.

A friend of mine recently returned from Europe and related that anti-multi-cultural sentiment is growing with some cities in Germany displaying signs even on street posts and the like.

One incident relayed was a case about banning begging in public spaces given all citizens are able to access welfare. The complainant argued her civil right to beg was being thwarted and won the case. This has caused much uproar in that country where begging has become a real problem.

Multi-culturalism has been around for some decades now it is not new and has worked well for the most part. It is too easy to dismiss concerns about some cultural practices as Islamophobia. It is also too easy to generalise about Islam. Muslims, like Christians, are not a homogenous group, many Muslims enjoying the same freedoms and protections that were lacking in their country of origin.

The protections that are set up in a Western democracy through law should apply equally to all citizens. It is in applying the law that governments and the judiciary should be blind to cultural practices that oppose those rights of freedoms, in particular to rights relating to one's body.

I tend to agree with much of what ROBert has written. Tolerance does not mean accepting practices which go against the rights and freedoms in Western societies. Cultural relativism does not mean casting a blind eye over practices that impinge other freedoms. Some standards and laws are better than others and have importance and value in a Western democratic society - this should not be forgotten in the push for multi-culturalism.

Tolerance is a two-way street, it has to be otherwise multi-culturalism will be a dismal failure.

Sometimes it is right (in the case of FMG) to stand up when something is wrong no matter who might be offended. But we also have to be prepared to take criticism as well as give it for some of our own standards.

Of course ALL people living in Australia must abide by our laws, no matter what their ethnic or cultural backgrounds.
However, this country was forcefully taken over by immigrants and convicts originally,
and It will always be a multicultural country.
I would hate to see a resurgence of a 'white Australia policy', or a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.....

David I've got little doubt that writer of anglo origin's who'd written what Alice wrote would get a suggestion from some quarters that they try out some of the tolerance in Muslim countries. Could be some racism in particular posts but without more evidence you are just speculating.

A bit more honesty about the issues and less spin from Alice would help. Concerns about muslim integration into Australian culture is not racism, concerns about the behavior of particular sub groups of migrants is not necessarily racism although sometimes racial/national origin tags are used to identify the groups (not always correct but it is really messy trying to avaoid it).

There are real issues in some area's. I suspect that has a lot to do with the associations maintained once people arrive and often it seems to manifest more in the second generation, their parents knew why they escaped their country of origin, kid's who have grown up primarily mixing with others of their own background may not get it in the same way. The attitudes of the leadership of particular religious groups will be part of the mix, I've got the impression that the leadership of one mosque in Sydney has a lot to answer for in the way Muslims are viewed in this country (but then people make a choice to countinue to be part of that mosque).

Cutting the spin, the claims of racism and all the other junk used pretnet that nothing is wrong would be a big help to undo the anti-multiculturalism views of some. Some stuff does not work well, other parts are great. We can do it better.

R0bert

Spot-on, Suse. There are different forms of multiculturalism and I'm quite comfortable with any form which is built on a non-discriminatory foundation of equal rights.

David,

No, with respect, I don't think you are right on either count. Those remarks were not aimed at Ms Aslan's ethnicity. And if, say, John Pilger had written the article, then he may well have been offered similar recommendations that he travel to Muslim countries and demand equal rights for gays. I'd chip in if he needed the readies.

I wonder how that would go down in Saudi Arabia.

Joe

...Real problems emerged for original (European) Australians, at the point of repeal of the white Australia policy. It becomes important to call-in an historical perspective here: While defending an entrenched European culture from early settlement, to expunge the Aboriginal encroachment became a necessity, so the cultural war had begun way back at that point.

...A unique Australian culture emerged from the embryo of first settlement; Australians stood back to back for survival against the natural forces of nature, and an entrenched native population. Sticking together was the imperative to survival. It is that entrenched and learned part of the Australian culture of mateship which Multiculturalism most effectively plunders.

...Multiculturalism is the induced cancer enriched with the nutrients of the market forces of Global economics. (Interesting it is to note, whenever the benefits of multiculturalism are mentioned, it is always in the same breath as economic development). What better and more effective tool to enforce a new economic world culture, free of National boundaries, with the appendage of annoying sovereign interference, than this sinister weapon?

...Pause

Susie,
I disagree, since 1788 we have been a multi-racial country but never multicultural. The foundation stones are all derived from the UK and our basic social standards reflect that. Look at our governance, military, police, education institutions and nearly all community bodies and local government.

Multiculturalism is a failed ideology that splits the community into groups based on ethnicity, each viaing for government funding for their particular group.

We must recognise that some groups have cultures that will not/cannot integrate and this leads to lack of community cohesion.

The answer is in us enforcing our social standards on such matters as equal rights for sexes, forced marriages and FGM, for example. Then stopping further immigration of those groups that have shown they cannot integrate. I am appalled that some groups still show hatred of others even after 2-3 generations of being here.

The sooner MC is abolished the better off we will be, and that does not mean far right extremes.

I was once a firm believer in multi-culturalism. I'm a liberal.

I'm now questioning whether it is appropriate when immigrants to our society are not sufficiently accepting or inclusive of our essential tolerance.

There have always been enclaves of nationalities with the waves of immigration, but underlying all was an acceptance of and a gradual inclusiveness of our ways.

That is not occurring so much with the vast majority of the mid eastern immigration.

No proof! Well how many of us, in our neighbourhoods have mid-eastern people, like we used to have people of other ethnic backgrounds in the past?

the very

So David Jennings - I have carefully reread my post. I made mildly sarcastic suggestions that Alice Aslan should go spend time in Afghanistan or Saudi and that I was good for $100 towards her travel fund - insinuation that she has no concept of 'intolerance'. There was no mention of or reference to her religious and ethnic background.

I responded to her writings and views which I find totally skewed and at odds with the truth of what is happening in Western societies which have supported a non-integration model of immigration.

For your benefit, follows the information provided, presumably by Ms Aslan about herself:

"Alice Aslan is a social anthropologist, writer, filmmaker and photographer based in Sydney. She was born and grew up in Turkey, resided in New Zealand, and now lives in Australia. She happens to be from Turkish-Muslim background, but considers herself atheist, bohemian, cosmopolitan, intellectual and left-liberal. She is the author of Islamophobia in Australia. She formed 'Muslims Against Homophobia', which proudly took part in Sydney Mardi Gras Parade for the first time on 5 March 2011"

The last time I checked - pointing out the inconsistencies and contradictions in published articles, including against the stated beliefs of the writers, does not constitute abuse.

So unless you have some REAL issues - apart from any 'whiff' you may have picked up (check your personal hygiene) that I, an Anglo Saxon (wrong again, I'm mixed race) may have the audacity to refute the authors viewpoint - pull your head in Mate!

If you find this advice 'abusive' - tough! I find your false accusations and inaccurate observations offensive.

Shouldn't she have formed "atheists against Homophobia"?

For an Athiest, or whatever she is, she sure is nice to Islam. SIn fact, she adopts a position that is little different from that of Muslim radicals towards non-Muslims: Everything, every problem, any problem, is the fault of those evil non-Muslims. Her solution? Non-Muslims must change and be more respectful of Islam and Muslims - and not say anything that will hurt their very sensitive ears. This, she believes, will solve all issues and the world will then hold hands and sing kumbahyah.

Here's a thought, Ms Asian - why not end the apostasy and blasphemy laws in Islamic societies? why not stop cursing and preaching hate against infidels in the mosques? why not renounce the violent verses in the Quran? Why not have Muslims say they do not agree with Allah when he/she says that unbelievers are "lower than animals"? Why not condemn the dozens of vile attacks by Mohammad on his peaceful non-Muslim neighbors?

Maybe then, who knows, quien sabe, the problem of what you call "islamophobia" will go away.

Diver Dan wrote:

>>...Australians dwelt comfortable inside the confines of cultural norms of the white Australia policy. Australians have an historic repulsion to Asians, and scratch the skin of an Australian at a relaxed moment, and you will soon discover the rejection of Asians is alive and well!>>

Speak for yourself!

I hereby emphatically dissociate myself from any such sentiments.

Yes, there are people who loudly protest multi-culturalism to disguise their racism just as many anti-Semites bash Israel rather than declare openly their hatred for Jews.

But antipathy to "multi-culturalism" and racism are too quite distinct phenomena.

I am totally opposed to "multi-culturalism" - by which I mean official programs designed to favour / promote / protect specific cultures. Usually they are simply exercises in vote buying.

But I am NOT a racist.

On the other hand I can think of nothing more calculated to promote racism than official "multi-culturalism."

David Jennings wrote:

>>You don't get a whiff of that from Divine MSN and Dane's comments? Maybe its just my take on those remarks in the context of Alice's piece and those remarks. But, I just doubt that an Anglo-Saxon writer saying the same things would be offered a one-way trip to a Muslim country.>>

I hereby offer to contribute $100 towards the purchase of a one way ticket to Saudi Arabia for any "multi-culturalist" of Anglo-Saxon or Irish or Scottish origin. His / her departure from these shores will raise the average "wisdom quotient" of the Australian populace.

Or perhaps it would be better to say it would reduce the average "foolishness quotient.

Well stevenlmeyer,

...here is the problem you appear to have, and I do not, with this issue. The white Australia policy supported the culture of the host country, Australia: White Anglo Saxon European. Almost all posters on this thread complain of the total lack of harmony caused by the reforming of the white Australia policy, and its replacement with “multiculturalism”. This is “entirely” a question of race, get on board! If that all sounds like racism then “yep” that is exactly where multiculturalism is headed (If not already there)!

...There is a long history attached to the “white Australia Policy” which pointed to its workability and success. IMO, Australia has urgent need to return to some semblance of the old order of white Australia policy, and quickly; for the sake of peace and harmony in the racially fractured society Australia has become, through multiculturalism

Enough of this immigration, multi-culturalism bashing.

We the CEOs and political elite of Australia have NEVER had a TOOL so useful for our purposes and so devastating to the rights, freedoms, increasingly expensive services and truth-in-media of the working population. We will NEVER give up this divine TOOL that reflects our genetic superiority with such distinction.

In one brush stroke we have been able to flood the country with soulless firstworld aspirationists who would sell their mothers to get on the right side of OUR fence and put down all this NONSENSE of democratic rights and EQUALITY without EVER casting the blame on we the RICH of this great rapidly BUILDING NATION.

To all the whingers:

You have been outsmarted, polluted, globally warmed, carbonised, overcharged and neglected because you are weak, stupid insignificant and destined for elimination by our induced unnatural competition.

Get used to the concept, iPhone in some nice multicultural take-away, fatten up, crawl back in your Facebook holes and get hooked on one of our excellent assortment of industrialised SCAMS or our pre-programmed tricle-up Stock Market.

B.H.P. Forteskewer,
CEO and Cheif Executive,
'Billion Slave Population For Australia' Corporation.

...Seik fookin-Heil to that one KAEP!...Brilliant.

david,

You forgot to tell us how good multiculturalism is because we now get to eat food from around the world.

Why would anyone want modern western civilisation when we could have multiculturalism and its foods from around the world?

Must be racism.

You should apply for an ARC grant for some research. Sure you will a couple of hundred thousand.

I didn't think much of the article, and agree that its primary concern appears to be with Islamophobia, rather than with the difficulties being experienced with multiculturalism more generally. Nonetheless these are both serious issues, and worthy of serious consideration.

I also largely agree with Stevenlmeyer's comments.

I don't think Oz started becoming multicultural until after the White Australia policy was abolished - prior to which immigration was almost exclusively from EU countries, with which our largely UK derived populace would have had quite a degree of knowledge and association. MC rather began when the door was thrown open to asian immigrants, and the MC spruik was really a mechanism to smoothen their acceptance within our singularly homogeneous society - and I think they have largely settled in well, as have the EU immigrants before them.

We've had spruik of assimilation and of integration - but what in fact is multiculturalism in the current context? Something quite different I fear. Assimilation is a dirty word, and integration little better and just as elusive in practice.

Perhaps the biggest challenge has come from the accelerated rate of immigration, as much as from the kaleidescope of new and very different cultures involved. We have felt threatened, and have not been given time for either of us to become acclimatised to the changes thrust upon us, as the stream continues unabated.

Not least of the spate of most recent arrivals have been the followers of Islam, presenting not only a very different faith, complete with wide variations, but also a multitude of ethnicities. When combined with the war on terror, 9/11, Bali, Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not unreasonable for others to have reservations about these new "Australians". MC really has its work cut out.

We are creatures of habit, wary of change, and have had an abundance of change thrown at us. We need time, and we need to see some "acclimatisation" from our new arrivals. If we see too much of old habits and contrary behaviour persisting, there is destined to be a "crunch". Pollies should please take note.

Divine MSN as you correctly quoted Alice's bio:

"Alice Aslan is a social anthropologist, writer, filmmaker and photographer based in Sydney. She was born and grew up in Turkey, resided in New Zealand, and now lives in Australia. She happens to be from Turkish-Muslim background, ...."

And in your first post you wrote:

"How much more so when u come to live in a country and adopt it as your home? If you are not prepared to adjust cultural practices to fit it why should you be accepted? And this is largely the problem ...

I'm good for a hundred bucks towards the "Alice Aslan One Way Travel Fund". Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. I'm sure she will find the levels of tolerance refreshing and acceptable."

Now in the context of the author's bio do you see how your first post might read? If the author's bio is taken into account then your language is clumsy at best.

I never suggested that you were an Anglo-Saxon. You seem also to be suggesting that being mixed-race means you can't be racist. I'm not buying that idea.

>>Not least of the spate of most recent arrivals have been the followers of Islam,...>>

Incorrect.

Only a small minority of legal immigrants are from Muslim countries.

Asylum seekers are a different story but they are a small proportion of the total.

New Zealand remains the biggest single source of immigrants followed by the UK, India and China. Only a small minority of Indian immigrants are Muslim.

Most immigrants appear to be secular with a Christian, Confucian or Hindu background.

Most Malaysian immigrants are not Muslim. In fact most seem to be quite antipathetic to Islam.

I doubt if Muslims make up even 2% of the Australian population.

See for example:

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/02key.htm#a

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Australia#Population_statistics

David Jennings - read the PARAGRAPH and preceding sentence

"In my personal experience, the INTOLERANCE not only stated but practiced by some of our own immigrants and descendents is shocking, often illegal and completely at odds with Australian mores.
Apologists make excuses for such behaviour on 'cultural grounds'. I don't! Everywhere I've travelled it's been a case of "When in Rome ..." How much more so when u come to live in a country and adopt it as your home? If you are not prepared to adjust cultural practices to fit it why should you be accepted?"

What's racist in stating when visiting or living abroad you must obey and show respect for laws and culture of that country and expect the same consideration be shown by visitors or foreign residents in Australia?

The lines you picked out: "How much more so when u come to live in a country and adopt it as your home? If you are not prepared to adjust cultural practices to fit it why should you be accepted?"

What's THAT to do with Alice? Apart from questionable ideology, Alice has slotted in well. "She happens to be from Turkish-Muslim background, but considers herself atheist, bohemian, cosmopolitan, intellectual and left-liberal. She is the author of Islamophobia in Australia. She formed 'Muslims Against Homophobia', which proudly took part in Sydney Mardi Gras Parade for the first time on 5 March 2011"

Alice has adjusted CULTURAL PRACTICES to such extent that in certain pockets of Australia her person would be at grave risk. In Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia her words and actions would bring imprisonment, flogging, possibly death. Do you dispute this?

Implying mixed race renders me incapable of racism? Don't know how you've formed that 'logic', though some blind idealogues believe belonging to an "oppressed" minority means derogatory remarks or hate crime against a larger 'dominant' racial group (Caucasian) can NEVER be deemed racist. So if a bloodied aggro indigenous person brought into a clinic for treatment calls me "white cvnt" that's not racist because he's an oppressed black?

Are you a little that way inclined David?

I am very curious.

When this article was first posted, it carried a author bio which went along the lines:

"Alice Aslan is a social anthropologist, writer, filmmaker and photographer based in Sydney. She was born and grew up in Turkey, resided in New Zealand, and now lives in Australia. She happens to be from Turkish-Muslim background, ...." as quoted in a couple of the posts.

It now says (and the same words now apply to all her previous articles): "Alice Aslan is a writer."

Would the publisher like to explain why the change was made?

Stevenlmeyer, I think you misconstrue my poor attempt to address the issue of islamophobia within the context of defending, promoting or understanding multiculturalism in our society. I don't see this as a numbers game, but one of quality, harmony, understanding and stability. Any threat or potential threat to that harmony from within or from outside is a legitimate cause for concern and attention. For certainty one needs cooperation and conformity within an agreed acceptable framework. Any group or individual adamantly resisting conformity within that framework can only be viewed with suspicion. The framework is meant to be multiculturalism, but this is a complex and troubled ideology, and one necessitating cooperation and compromise, as well as tolerance.

I may be a gentile, but I don't see you wanting to ring my neck because of it. There may have been Muslims in Australia for a great many years, but we are looking at a new age with new challenges, in a troubled world, and we are not immune from the tide of fervour, discontent and near phobia rife in many sectors. Australia and the world needs multiculturalism, but it can only succeed if there is appropriate compromise and the divestment of a range of prejudices, hatreds and causes of disharmony and intolerance. One cat is all it takes for the pigeons to take flight.

Why pick on Islam? Only because of the disparate views espoused and the association in recent times with a certain degree of infamy. Causation or justification? An exceedingly vexed issue.

One could similarly point to so many troubled arenas where ethnicity, poverty, power or privelege are the vectors of conflict. Perhaps the difference is the portability of a common doctrine, or the lack thereof?

Our concern should be to rise above and overcome, and not to foster and fester. Harmony. And harmony means compromise.

Thanks for pointing that out KenH. I would also be interested in knowing why.

Thanks for your support divine_msn.

Ironic that she advocates restrictions on freedom of speech, then suddenly is telling us a lot less about herself.

One might imagine all sorts of explanations.

...I believe our author has severely underestimated the degree of racial disharmony presented here as opinion by removing, unannounced, elements of her personal introduction at the header. Multiculturalism is a worldwide phenomenon which has outlived its usefulness. When politicians turned to the left in the 70’s, Australians stayed firmly to the right, at the little “white light” and were happy to stay comfortable in their “blue” and conservative heaven.

...The old order policy of the white Australia, was a unifying and evolutionary political mandate designed to dovetail neatly into a rich historical backdrop, naturally acceptable to white Australians with their unique culture. Multiculturalism has, on the other hand, proved to be a wedge designed, more apparently, for the higher purpose of economic growth which, as it is proving to be, of limited benefit, to an evolving majority of Australians left behind in poverty.

...Australians are increasingly enlightened to the facts of multiculturalism. A multiculturalism rightly described above as a “tool”, (is weapon too harsh a term?): A plaited whip of guilt, opportunism and plunder, used to effect in the reduction of the traditions of our National culture, to the irrelevance it has become, by social divisiveness and casting of scorn onto the host.

Diver dan,
I see multiculturalism as a socialist tool to bring disharmony to western societies.

A philosephy that rates original culture ahead of national loyality.

An ideology which fosters seperate ethnic development of a federation of ethnic cultures, not one community.

The biggest untruth is the catchcry of 'Unity in diversity'

This social engineering was trendy in the 70s but, as you say, people are now realising its downside. The people were never consulted.

Ken_H, there is nothing to explain really. She asked for her biography to be changed so I changed it. We normally describe authors how they want to be described.

Graham,

As your online pleas for contributions indicate, OLO has trouble attracting sufficient high quality contributors, so the quality of articles is highly variable.

An author bio note is a guide to whether one should spend time reading the article or whether it's yet another adolescent activist.

In this case, Alice's original bio suggested she might have enough knowledge, experience, a point of view and writing skill to make the effort worthwhile.

Turns out the article ignored recent international experience, was internally contradictory and proposed restrictions on freedom of speech. One might argue that anyone proposing restrictions on freedom of speech should not be published, of course, but there's also an argument for letting us know what they are up to, I guess.

However, to take down the bio while the article was "live" and comments still coming in was, in my view, disrespectful to those whose comments had been informed by that bio note: indeed, some quoted it.

"Alice Aslan is a writer" tells nobody anything and similarly is disrespectful to readers.

To say, as you have done, that "She asked for her biography to be changed so I changed it. We normally describe authors how they want to be described." without explanation of why she wanted it changed midstream or even mentioning that it had been changed, is also disrespectful, in my view.

It's got nothing to do with respect Ken, apart from respecting the wishes of an author. If you're looking for disrespect try this post from divine_msn http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222051.

I didn't ask Alice why she wanted to change the biog, but I wouldn't mind betting that posts like that one which instead of dealing with the article deride the author, were one reason.

We don't have any particular problems attracting suitable articles, but if we did I wouldn't be surprised given the nature of some of the comments that are made about the authors. It's not limited to OLO, but it's something I don't approve of when I find it here.

Graham

Graham - When I clicked the link it failed to direct me to any specific post or comment I have written on this stream. If you wish to point out the exact words/sentences/paragraphs which somehow are any more 'disrespectful' than many other dissenting views, and more importantly lack any sort of truth - please do. I shall make apology if you put forward convincing argument.

I laid no charges against 'changing bio in midstream' except to say I was also curious to know why.

When an Author writes material from an ideological perspective, a very one sided perspective to boot, and at same time provides information about themselves indicating - strongly - they have turned their back on that very ideology, they leave themselves open to questions of integrity. That's a fair call.

Alice Aslan would likely be executed in countries mentioned where the Islamic religion dominates culture, law and governance. Apostasy on two huge levels - she refutes the existance of God and supports homosexuality. Here in Australia Alice would be viewed with absolute HATRED by some Moslems for same reasons. Not to mention any other haram views she holds. Yet she always decries a lack of tolerance by the "West" against immigrants of the Moslem faith.

I do not believe it 'disrespect' to point out the contradiction that the 'tolerence' she believes is due Moslem immigrants in the West would be turned against her in an Islamic State. More ironic, even in many religious enclaves existant in Australia, UK and other Western countries.

But put forward your reasons and I will respectfully consider your POV

Thanks for the reply, Graham,

Not sure how changing the bio note does anything to address the issue you raised. It still has her name on it and she shows up on Google. The bio note was quoted in comments, so was obviously pertinent to the discussion. I suspect there is another explanation.

Alice has been published on OLO on a number of occasions. She could not have been unaware that the discussions are often robust.

The fundamental problem with the article is that it illustrates an important point made in several of the comments: some immigrants coming to Australia are intolerant of Australia as it is and want to change it into something more suited to their own tastes.

Tolerance is not a one way street. In this case, Alice proposes restrictions on freedom of speech in the interests of a particular minority. That would be a very bad precedent.

If propositions like that are put forward, they will no doubt be vigorously disputed.

As for divine-msm, I didn't read the comment as anything more than a rhetorical device: "if you think there's intolerance here, I'll help send you to the Middle East so you can see some real intolerance" - sort of the reverse of "That's not a knife!" Loudmouth read it that way, too. It was not a personal attack on Alice, nor, I suggest, was it meant to be taken literally. It was about the overstated perception of intolerance here.

Hi Divine,

Link works for me, but it was your post on Thursday 10th at 1:00:07 PM and it was of the "if you don't like it here go back where you came from" variety.

Ken, I don't want to get into an argument about the article. You asked why her bio was changed, and that was the reason. The details about the author sit in a database and so over time they get changed as what is important in an author's life changes.

If I get a request to change I do.

50 comments on this thread made me have a look at the article, and I can only commend it for bringing to our attention the rise of intolerance that the conservative governments of various countries are trying to exploit--though not entirely cynically, I'm sure they genuinely sympathise. If any one cares to read Eric Hobsbawms "Age of Extremes" you'll find that precisely this trend was prominent before WW2, and that Alice Asian's comment: <But in the face of increasing economic insecurity and social unrest, it seems conservative political leaders in Europe will keep making multiculturalism and Muslim minorities scapegoats for a long time> should be taken as sobering.
I applaud an excellent article that sports its credentials by attracting so much reactive criticism.
Australian identity is an ongoing crock of you know what that politicians do their best keep alive for the next election.
Australian identity is multicultural, transgendered, omnisexual and ideologically eclectic. There's no purity to preserve.

Ok Graham - here's the post verbatim.

Is it the sentence: "If you are not prepared to adjust cultural practices to fit it why should you be accepted?" written in the context of what is expected of Australian citizens travelling or living in a foreign country?

Or my offer to help fund Ms Aslan's study into cultural tolerance in a country where she will find only the opposite?

I could be accused of mild sarcasm at worst methinks. No "fit in or eff off" statements. How well did you read my post?

.....................................................................
Oh of course it's trendy Alice! It has nothing at all to do with the negative aspects of foreign 'cultures' that have migrated to European, Australian and other 'Western' shores.

In my humble and personal experience, the INTOLERANCE not only stated but practiced by some of our own immigrants and their descendents is shocking, often illegal and completely at odds with Australian mores.
Apologists make excuses for such behaviour on 'cultural grounds'. I don't! Everywhere I've travelled it's been a case of "When in Rome ..." How much more so when u come to live in a country and adopt it as your home? Oh of course it's trendy Alice! It has nothing at all to do with the negative aspects of foreign 'cultures' that have migrated to European, Australian and other 'Western' shores.

I'm good for a hundred bucks towards the "Alice Aslan One Way Travel Fund". Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. I'm sure she will find the levels of tolerance refreshing and acceptable. Oh it does lack the excitement of an annual Gay Mardi Gras but I'm sure there will be the odd public hanging, stoning or amputation to add a little spice ...

Posted by divine_msn, Thursday, 10 November 2011 1:00:07

Pardon my lack of copy and paste skills. My early post Graham refers to follows without errors. So far there is nothing he has specifically pointed to that I believe needs repeal or apology. Rather I feel a little "disrespected" by the statement that my post is saying "if you don't like it here go back where you came from". It clearly doesn't!

........................................................................

Oh of course it's trendy Alice! It has nothing at all to do with the negative aspects of foreign 'cultures' that have migrated to European, Australian and other 'Western' shores.

In my humble and personal experience, the INTOLERANCE not only stated but practiced by some of our own immigrants and their descendents is shocking, often illegal and completely at odds with Australian mores.
Apologists make excuses for such behaviour on 'cultural grounds'. I don't! Everywhere I've travelled it's been a case of "When in Rome ..." How much more so when u come to live in a country and adopt it as your home? If you are not prepared to adjust cultural practices to fit it why should you be accepted? And this is largely the problem ...

I'm good for a hundred bucks towards the "Alice Aslan One Way Travel Fund". Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. I'm sure she will find the levels of tolerance refreshing and acceptable. Oh it does lack the excitement of an annual Gay Mardi Gras but I'm sure there will be the odd public hanging, stoning or amputation to add a little spice ...

Posted by divine_msn, Thursday, 10 November 2011 1:00:07 PM

Quote: Yet she always decries a lack of tolerance by the "West" against immigrants of the Muslim faith.

Of course she does. The fact is that for both liberals and Muslims, morality and tolerance are things that are required from some and not others. One basic characteristic of Multiculturalism is that it is unendingly critical of Western cultures but makes no demands on others.

And there is the fact that Multiculturalism is only promoted in certain places in certain situations. If a white majority is not present, there are no shrill cries promoting multiculturalism.

Squ - the “rise of intolerance” that you speak of is a reaction to the intolerance and rejection of common social values by certain immigrants. Better yet, it is a defense of fundamental rights dear to some of us – but obviously not the author of the article – such as freedom of speech, religion, equality and separation of religion and state. I don’t know about ‘purity’ but there are basic values that must be persevered, not that you or Ms. Asian care about these.

Personally I think any use of words linked to the root ‘tolerance” by a Muslim or Muslim sympathizer is a case for amusement. They obviously have no understanding of the concept.

There is a place for constuctive intolerance, just as there is a place for peaceful protest - where these are utilised as mechanisms for voicing a legitimate view in favour of improving societal harmony, equity and cohesion, and human rights and social justice. Care is needed in interfering with these mechanisms of the right to protest and the right to free speech, for these are foundational in an effective democracy. If the Aust government is planning to revise legislation regarding multiculturalism in our society, it would be wise to exercise great care to avoid doing damage to our culture and our democracy, or it should expect a groundswell of discontent through protest and in the ballot box.

Contrary to some views, we have an Australian culture, and it's a good one, and better than most, and very much worth preserving. Any who would interfere with our culture in favour of any minority group should think twice, and then back off.

We have seen some unacceptable minority views put forward on occasion, in at least one instance being partly responsible for some youths committing a heinous crime. The spokesperson responsible for purveying that unacceptable minority view was deported. There are some things we should not and will not tolerate, and so it should be.

I must firmly agree with some views put forward on this thread to the effect that "when in Rome ....".

Whether we like it or not, there are some Islamic teachings and practices which are alien to our culture, are unacceptable to a majority of Australians, and must be opposed. There is a need for compromise in this respect, and in the absence of which there will continue to be discontent and distrust. The same should be seen to apply to any unacceptable teachings and practices in respect of any minority group within our midst.

Multiculturalism should mean fitting in.

The issue has become Graham's editorial decision-making.

1. Graham saw nothing wrong with publishing an article which proposed abolition of free speech in the interests of an intolerant minority.

2. Graham is surprised that people feel strongly opposed to ideas like that and feels hurt on behalf of the person who proposed it, without actually confirming that any hurt was felt.

3. Graham alters mid-stream a biographical note which has been published and which has been quoted in posts - the original bio was clearly pertinent to the issues raised in the article or the author would not have written it. His explanation is that he was just following orders.

4. Graham misinterprets one post in particular:

>>...it was your post on Thursday 10th at 1:00:07 PM and it was of the "if you don't like it here go back where you came from" variety.

That post said nothing of the sort.

Alice Aslan's article proposes the silencing of free speech in the interests of an intolerant minority. No change on the part of that minority, however.

The proposition is the essence of intolerance itself.

Graham, if you are going to publish articles which propose attacks on our civic freedoms, you can expect strong reactions from people who value those freedoms.

But if you do publish, look on it as an educational opportunity for Alice and others.

By exposing their ideas to vigorous debate, you can help them come to grips with democracy and the freedoms and responsibilities it entails.

Why should immigrants have to give up their cultural practices when they migrate to Australia--be assimilated? Why didn't the original invaders take to the bushes and adopt the indigenous lifestyle? When in Rome.. ?
But since when have any expats living in Australia given up their home culture? Shouldn't we then be purging the place of Catholics and Anglicans and socialists, fascists and anarchists, and all the other exotic elements Australia is comprised of? The only desirable requirement for me is that we all get along according to the democratic values that put no group on top. I work at a university and mix with virtually every ethnic group imaginable; I don't expect them to give up their cultural observances, just to be polite and civil--and the ones I've met are and could teach the archetypal Aussie a thing or two about manners!
Australia is and has always been multicultural (well, for a paltry 200 years anyway), and its diverse European elements have always retained the traditions of the home country. What divisiveness we do have in Australia is more often than not instigated by anti-social Aussies, and not interlopers. Ethnic enclaves are generally the product of that kind of hostile reception and not wilful separatism.
Integration is the only ethically defensible multiculturalism, and not assimilation. If the purists don't like they can f off so far as I'm concerned. Australia would be better off without them.

Ken and Divine, you both seem keen to have a fight. You asked me why the author's biography had been changed, then you said it was disrespectful to change it. I pointed out that we frequently change biographies and there is nothing disrespectful about it, but I did suggest that if you were looking for disrespect then the "If you don't like it here go home" comment of Divine was in fact disrespectful. Not that disrespectful that I saw any need to delete it, but certainly distasteful.

I haven't taken sides for or against the author.

However I will say that the piece does not suggest taking away your right of free speech, any more than legislation against religious and racial vilification already does. To suggest that I somehow erred in publishing a piece that supports no more than the current law is ridiculous.

If you have read what I have written in essays and articles over the years you would know I am no fan of vilification laws, but that doesn't mean I want to censor others.

Quote: "Ethnic enclaves are generally the product of that kind of hostile reception and not wilful separatism."

Oh yes, blame "the other", or in this case, the majority, for any problem.

There have always been ethnic enclaves but only until recently, under the sacred doctrine of Multiculturalism, have we seen a minority demanding that they be exempt from scrutiny and criticism. Worst yet, these demands are being supported by government, the media and academia in open contempt of the will of most citizens, and of long held democratic ideals.

Let me say that Islam, it's dogmas and practice, is a very different kind of 'culturalism' from that experienced with prior immigrants. Islam brings a diverse set of values that are totally incompatible with Australia or Western values. If you have doubts about this, read the Quran or just take a look at Islamic societies.

Let me also say a word in defense of this site and its editors / moderators. Whatever its sins, whatever their personal beliefs, I have never been censored or deleted here. I have been deleted dozens of times in other sites because of my views (particularly in relation to one religion), yet never at On Line Opinion. That means a great deal to me and I respect them for that. Thank you, OLO.

And from the home country:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

Quotes: "Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. They were right. "This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage."

So what happens then?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019547/Anjem-Choudary-Islamic-extremists-set-Sharia-law-zones-UK-cities.html

Quote: ‘This will mean this is an area where the Muslim community will not tolerate drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling, usury, free mixing between the sexes – the fruits if you like of Western civilisation. We want to run the area as a Sharia-controlled zone and really to put the seeds down for an Islamic Emirate in the long term.’

Do anyone think that Australia is exempt from this kind of phenomenon in the future, particularly with people like Ms Asian giving government sponsored lectures about the benefits of immigration?

PS: These zones are being setup not just in the UK, but across Europe.

You're not reporting accurately, Graham.

1. I said changing the bio mid-stream without explanation was disrespectful to the readers of the posts, which had been written against the background of the original bio note.

2. Alice did not restrict her proposition to the realms of anti-discrimination and anti-vilification laws (which many people, like you and I, have a problem with). This is what she wrote:

>> The new national multicultural policy is a historical progressive step. But it is incomplete unless Australian society requires politicians and media commentators, who have the power to influence public opinion, not to stigmatise whole communities and spread hostility against them by distorting truth in the name of free speech. And the law should hold such people accountable for any inflammatory speech.

That's a proposition for a blanket ban on freedom of speech.

The "truth" she asserts has not been tested and "inflammatory speech" is highly subjective, as we have seen in your (incorrect, I think) assessment of divine_msn's post.

As Thomas Jefferson said, "Freedom of the press cannot be limited without being lost."

Graham - I'm not asking for a 'fight'. Merely clarification of your accusation that my post was disrespectful.

I made no comment about changes to the Authors bio other than: "I would also be interested in knowing why." when KenH drew attention to it. I have made no response whatsoever since, contrary to your most recent post.

My offer to apologise and repeal any untruthful or offensive comment stands.

You wrote, ".. it was your post on Thursday 10th at 1:00:07 PM and it was of the "if you don't like it here go back where you came from" variety" which I refute.

You have been asked to identify the specific wording/sentences but have failed to do so. I am thinking there could be 3 reasons: 1) My posts have not been read 2)You have chosen to ignore the request 3)You have erred in censure but do not wish to back down.

I have enough self-respect and integrity to admit mistakes and make amends. Please do me the justice of either verifying your claims or retracting same. Thank-you in anticipation of an honest response.

Hey, Squeers, we're not getting a bit carried away with this one are we?

"What divisiveness we do have in Australia is more often than not instigated by anti-social Aussies, and not interlopers. Ethnic enclaves are generally the product of that kind of hostile reception and not wilful separatism."

I think both of those propositions would be pretty hard to prove or to justify - depending of course on your interpretation of divisiveness and your definition of "hostile reception" or "wilful separatism". In fact I think you're dead wrong. I would contend that Aussies are amongst the most hospitable and tolerant of peoples, generally, and that "ethnic enclaves" are most commonly very much the result of free and active choice by new immigrants, even their preferred choice - for the very reasons of common language, culture and employment opportunity, and quite probably limited english usage. I grant there are and will continue to be exceptions, but you made the generalisation, painting us as hostile agressors. Who brought the various triads to Oz, and where are they cented? In Vaucluse, or St Kilda? Or Cabramatta and the like perhaps? And why so? Who is the predator here? Who suggested Aussie girls are "ripe meat"? What poor innocent creatures allegedly planned to whack a few Aussie soldiers at Holesworthy? Now where would they have got the notion that that would be a good idea? Aussies' fault I suppose, brought it upon ourselves because we're "hostile"? Give over.

Maybe your associating the generality of new arrivals too closely with an academic non-Aussie minority with whom you have close association? Not all immigrants are PhD students, not by a long shot - and of course students and academics wouldn't be expected to exhibit exemplary behaviour, would they? And, when your back is turned?

Cont'd:

Of all the races, cultures and ethnicities "welcomed" to Australia, with how many would the generality of Aussies have any problem? Coptic Christians, or Indians, Indonesians, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Vietnamese, Chinese, African - or simply rather with radical, hard-core Muslims? Am I (or maybe we) perhaps guilty in this "observation" of the error of extending the specific to inadvertantly encompass the generality?

I would pose a proposition that if given free choice, a majority of Australians would prefer if Muslim immigration to Australia was restrained, if not totally curtailed. Unjustified - both in proposition and purported response? Where might I be wrong, and why?

You would be aware of my basis for that proposition. Can I be totally wrong in this? One example - Afghan National Army.

"Integration is the only ethically defensible multiculturalism"

Do we have a right to any choice of the participants involved?

In so many theatres it has been virtually impossible to distinguish friend from foe - Vietnam at one time, and now Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, perhaps Syria, Zimbabwe, Iran, even Pakistan? etc.?

The nature of the beast. How many bites before developing aversion? I prefer to be Devil's Advocate than mute mouse.

Squeers,
You ask 'Why should immirants have to give up their cultutal practices when they migrate to Australia'

Answer, because some cultural practices are completely alien to our laws and social standards.

If you cannot see that some cultural practices are alien, I wonder if you even live on the same planet as the rest of us.

Australia is far too tolerant in relation to some cultural activities as it is. We ignore certain things and it will not be long before it is claimed that we accept them.

Each time we bend to accomodate some alien cultural practice, we compromise our own culture.

Saltpetre,
you're right I would have a hard time proving my contentions, though the weight of anecdotal evidence is damning of Australia's vaunted tolerance. Here's a link to ethnic enclaves in the US that I think would be broadly true of Australia too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_enclave

I think you would have a much tougher time proving <that Aussies are amongst the most hospitable and tolerant of peoples>
To begin with there are no such people as "Aussies", in the sense of an exclusive national culture; modern Australia is a highly complex ethnic mix and the archetypal Aussie doesn't and has never existed outside a tiny and over-represented legendary figure. And yet it is precisely that figure--which some Aussies "affect"--who sports the F off we're full signs on their SUV's and have their precious colonial flag flying in their front yards and think they have the right to say which aliens are welcome and which are not, conveniently forgetting they're aliens themselves.
Nevertheless you're probably correct that <given free choice, a majority of Australians would prefer if Muslim immigration to Australia was restrained, if not totally curtailed>. But this is unfortunate as it's based on ignorance and fear of the Muslim faith, whose extremists are the product of US led foreign policies.

Immigration is a massive topic that we're not dealing with here, but Western conservative discrimination and intolerance. It's about about paranoia and hoarding and 'twas ever thus.

Banjo,
200 years BC, Terence said: <Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto>, which translates as: "I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me".

Squeers has written the most sensible posts on this topic so far.
"Immigration is a massive topic that we're not dealing with here, but Western conservative discrimination and intolerance. It's about about paranoia and hoarding and 'twas ever thus."

Exactly!

With the current paranoia about Muslim immigrants, one only has to insert the name of other groups of immigrants over the years, to see that this intolerance has been going on for as long as the 'whitefellas' have taken over this country.

Think of all the carry-on about the Germans, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian immigrants in years gone by.
All the usual rednecks in our society came out ranting and raving about how all these groups of people were a 'threat' to our way of life too.

Look at how the vast majority of people from these countries managed to integrate successfully into our society?

All this talk about some groups bringing in 'dangerous cultural practices' from other countries is rubbish.
We all have to abide by the current laws, regardless of where we come from.

I am sure there will always be people in our society who need another ethnic group or two to complain about, in order to try to bignote themselves.

It is an unfortunate trait in some humans...

Divine MSN, I think my criticisms of your posts have largely been validated in the discussion above.

Your remarks against Alice Aslan seem unnecessarily personal. Take the extract below from one of your posts:

"Alice Aslan would likely be executed in countries mentioned where the Islamic religion dominates culture, law and governance."

Why is it necessary to refer to Alice directly here rather than to a person holding similar views? Is it actually the case that a person who holds those views would be executed? If so, where is your proof?

"Here in Australia Alice would be viewed with absolute HATRED by some Moslems for same reasons."

And my some non-Muslims as well, but so what? How does any of that impugn the correctness of her arguments?

"Yet she always decries a lack of tolerance by the "West" against immigrants of the Moslem faith."

So are you suggesting because (i) there is the possibility of violence overseas and (ii) some people in Australia might hold hateful views, that Alice should not be able to make an argument about tolerance in the West? That just isn't logical. It really does smack of a "if you are not happy here go away" attitude. It is distasteful.

The things that you have said that are offensive have been pointed out to you. Yet, you have not qualified your statements.

Also, you wrote:

"Implying mixed race renders me incapable of racism?"

If you read my post carefully you will see that I actually suggested that your comments seemed to make that implication.

If you read your own posts carefully you will see that they are open to the interpretations that you protest against.

Suseonline

Paranoia you say? Why is it paranoia to dislike an ideology that teaches hate and violence? Have you read the Quran and ahadith? Have you noticed that almost alone among immigrants; Muslims reject the core values that have made Australia great. And before you say otherwise, consider what Muslims do where they dominate. I don’t think Muslims in Australia are any different from their brethren in Islamic societies.

So we take an ideology that is seriously flawed and we add the sacred doctrine of multiculturalism, which insists that we cannot judge or even criticize that vile ideology. What do we get? Conflict, social disruption and violence.

I doubt that German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian immigrants worship a god that tells them ‘the other’ (ie, non-Muslims) is ‘lower than animals’. I doubt if you can find any other religion that says “praise be upon him” after the name of a man that attacked, murdered, looted, tortured, enslaved and raped his neighbors. I doubt if you can find any other group today that has, by words and actions, associated themselves with hate and violence like Muslims.

Oh, who knows, maybe it was Chinese that bombed Bali; maybe it is Germans that kill Copts in Egypt; maybe it is was Cambodians that attacks hotels in Mumbai; maybe it was the Vietnamese that bombed trains in Spain and, who knows, maybe it was the Italians that killed 200+ schoolchildren in Russia.

Do these things matter? I believe they do. Insisting that the same moral standards should apply to all, or asking hard questions about Islamic beliefs and practices, or even not wanting to exclude people that follow an ideology based upon hate and violence is not, as you put it, unfortunate. It is a principled position that defends basic human rights.

Squeers, So Muslim violence is caused by the US policy (or crusaders, colonialism, Israel, poverty, the media, Jews, ignorance, a misguided few, culture, lack of education, the suffering of the Palestinians, etc and etc…). Obviously you have never read the Quran and hadith. Try 9:111 to start.

No-one has mentioned the impact of foreign policy on perceptions of Islam. If Australia was invaded by a Muslim nation we would be fighting as much as any other to defend our shores. War creates terrorists, an illegal war exacerbates the problem. Did we learn nothing from Vietnam. Peace should always be the objective unfortunately there are too many profiteering from the war machine with warped notions of democracy and patriotism being flung about to blur the reality. I digress a bit but it is all relevant.

The worst extremes of any religion are often politically motivated, religious doctrine serving usually as a vehicle for absolution. No religion or doctrine is free of a violent or self-serving history.

Fear of foreigners is not new, and adjustment to a new culture and legal framework is not new. The same fear was raised with the Vietnamese, Chinese and Europeans of non-English speaking backgrounds. Some bought bad habits including old cultural hatreds but eventually after generational change integration was successful.

It is not about foreigners but about how the government applies the law, that is where much of the resentment about MC starts, the idea that some cultural practices deemed an infringement of rights should be overlooked in favour of cultural 'tolerance'.

Multi-culturalism does not automatically imply multi-legal systems, that is a path Australia should not go down IMO. Make the law stick and the problems will reduce. Immigrants are able to make choices if they wish to stay and adhere to the rule of law or choose another country where their views are shared. It is really that simple and in reality the numbers of migrants who do not embrace democracy, greater personal liberty and human rights are the minority.

Suseonline: >> "All this talk about some groups bringing in 'dangerous cultural practices' from other countries is rubbish."

So, Suse, FMG is just "rubbish"? Or are you one of those bien pensants who just don't believe it happens here?

http://intactnews.org/node/126/1315837969/australia-sees-rising-demand-female-genital-mutilation

http://www.search-results.com/web?l=dis&o=15914&q=female%20genital%20mutilation%20clips&atb=sysid%3D2%3Auid%3Dc33316803bfbd8fa%3Auc%3D1321250715%3Asrc%3Dhmp%3Ao%3D15914%3Aq%3Dfemale%2520genital%2520mutilation%2520clips

Help us out, Suse, is that a "dangerous cultural practice" or not?

David Jennings – Once again, CONTEXT!

Alice preaches tolerance for imported Muslim related cultures with strong suggestion that born Australians must respect and accept all aspects even those which clash with Australian culture.

Simultaneously she reveals herself an “ex-Muslim” atheist and active supporter of Muslim homosexuals. Under Islamic law that’s double whammy apostasy. And she’s female. Consequently in an Islamic State and certain enclaves here and abroad, Alice would be deemed lowest of the low, unfit to breath the same air by the “cultures” she slavishly defends.

I’ve never visited an Islamic State but have friends and ex-colleagues who have worked in Saudi – mainly in medical fields. Most witnessed nasty stuff perpetrated under sharia. Also abused women at mercy of male ‘masters’ and the odd foreigner – ‘lawbreakers’ or employer abuse. Despite their abhorrence, they avoided conflict. How? By keeping mouths firmly shut bar amongst fellow expats within compounds. By adhering to law and culture of their temporary home and living largely in imposed separation to the population they were ‘tolerated’ – just! Alice on the other hand would be toast if she wished to live and express herself as here. No tolerance whatsoever for its advocate.

Evidence? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Arabia Google 'Amnesty International' Go http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/20327 Consider also the many women executed by husbands, fathers, brothers for dissent or ‘bringing dishonour’. Those figures never reach light of day. This is ACCEPTED CULTURE.
While unaware of any Saudi groups, there is a ‘brand’ of Islam established here and elsewhere "Western" that embraces the same rigid interpretations of Sharia. Some communities are demanding adoption of Sharia over law. The risk of fatwa against Alice issued by a religious leader here or even abroad is real. Do you understand irony, David ?

As for ‘correctness’ of her argument: Does anyone here believe it’s their right to relocate to any part of the planet and expect to live according to the laws and customs of your homeland even if some practices are complete abomination to the host society? Alice seems to - if it’s destination Australia anyhow. I strongly disagree!

kactuz,
I've read bits of the Koran and it doesn't strike me as any worse than bits of the Christian Bible; since you know it so well, can you point to some of the more evil bits please? I don't know everything and am ready to be edified. But if we're going to ban followers of the Koran, shouldn't we also ban Christians and people like myself who wilfully read Marx? Or feminists who want to overthrow patriarchy? The fact is that ethnic violence in this country is historically perpetrated by the dominant group against minorities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_violence_in_Australia . And even when attacks by minorities on the majority do occur, it wouldn't be hard to argue they are provoked by social exclusion. The Aboriginal and Lebanese community for instance are often in the news as agressors, yet they are also traditionally among the most reviled ethnic groups in Australia. It's all about being comfortable in your skin, and different skin types attract varying degrees of abuse from the mainstream racists who have never been anything but sublimely comfortable in theirs. Humans are profoundly social animals and popular ostracism has far-reaching effects.
I certainly abhor the practice of female circumcision and think it should be a criminal offence in Australia, but I don't think there's any chance it'll catch on.
All you've put up so far is vile ethnic vilification that I find hard to stomach--though it redounds more to yourself than those you abuse. Where's your evidence mate, either from the Koran or on the ground in Oz that Moslems or any ethnic minority is a threat, or that you and you're fascist mates aren't to blame?

Well you are right about one thing, Divine MSN :
On Friday, 11 November 2011 10:19:06 PM you made this comment:

<< Don't know how you've formed that 'logic', though some blind idealogues believe belonging to an "oppressed" minority means derogatory remarks or hate crime against a larger 'dominant' racial group (Caucasian) can NEVER be deemed racist. So if a bloodied aggro indigenous person brought into a clinic for treatment calls me "white cvnt" that's not racist because he's an oppressed black?>>

And on Monday, 14 November 2011 5:56:26 PM, Squeers came out of the closet with this admission:
<< The fact is that ethnic violence in this country is historically perpetrated by the dominant group against minorities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_violence_in_Australia . And even when attacks by minorities on the majority do occur, it wouldn't be hard to argue they are provoked by social exclusion>>

The same people who suffer from a myopia which makes it impossible for them to see racism except where it wears a white skin (probably eye strain from long hours of willfully reading Marx!). Also suffer from a digestive disorder which makes it hard for then to stomach "ethnic vilification" , but easy for them to spew up charges of "racism" or "fascism" without the slightest discomfort.

Squeers,

One can oppose reactionary ideological beliefs, such as:

* female mutilation, to remove any trace of sexual desire;

* female inferiority, in law, in issues of child custody, in property, in concurrence with one's husband choosing second, third and fourth wives;

* either conversion, slavery or death for all non-believers;

* that a believer cannot marry an outsider, a 'non-human';

* that a believer cannot convert to another religion, or abandon his/her religion, as Ms Aslan has done, on pain of death;

without any reference to ethnicity, race, colour, nationality or sexual preference. Most posters here have managed to do that. I don't think you should try to drag all that back in.

Yes, there are many aspects of the Bible which are repugnant - I'm happy, as an atheist, to agree with you wholeheartedly there. But that doesn't make any other crap ideology/religion somehow as pure as the driven snow by comparison. I'm an equal-non-believer in all manner of religious and ideological crap.

Culture reflects unequal social relations in most societies - well, all of them really. Religion - all religions - sanctifies and justifies the most primitive and rigid of these 'cultural' beliefs, which - being based on social relations - have as their foundation unequal economic relations. That seems to be the case for slave-owning societies, capitalist societies and pseudo-socialist societies alike. Just as history is written by the victors, culture is ordained by the powerful, and nowadays protected by the muddle-headed wombats of the Left.

One problem with a totalising religion, as Islam may sometimes become in the minds of some adherents, is an enthusiastic belief in the proper inseparability of religion and state, that the religion IS the state: the Book should rule. In such cases, people have yet to go through even the early stages of their bourgeois-democratic revolutions, as we will have ample opportunity to observe as the next few decades of the Arab Spring unfold.

Squeers,

(Re Extremism & Muslim immigration): "..this is unfortunate as it's based on ignorance and fear of the Muslim faith, whose extremists are the product of US led foreign policies."

Many have noted the broadness of Islamic law, from benign paternalism to extreme sharia and religious jihad (any cartoons ring a bell?). Extremes in the treatment of women etc are also not restricted to parts of Muslim practice, as is seen in honour killings etc within parts of Indian culture, and I'm sure other telling examples can easily be found. However, U.S. foreign policy did not invent sharia or the Taliban, or make Sudaam Husein a B, or the Hutu hate the Tutsi, or Milosovic's Serbia, etc. Religion, culture ... a broad church, much history, no set stereotype. So let's not go laying it all on the U.S. doorstep please. (Not that they are without blemish.)

I am satisfied that we have very many great Muslim families in Oz, and probably much in the majority, and I am impressed with what I have seen of Islamic schools in Oz. I also agree that there have been relatively few blemishes, some of which not necessarily without provocation. Great. If Oz law and general multicultural context can sing along, all's well. But let's not make the mistake of divorcing the matter of future immigration from the equation, and its possible impact on current harmony. We have managed to remove some unacceptable elements, and can reasonably be assured going ahead, but this is not reason to be unvigilant.

"Immigration is a massive topic that we're not dealing with here, but Western conservative discrimination and intolerance."

Squeers and Suze,

On the contrary, consideration of multiculturalism should not be restricted to our current situation. As Suze has rightly identified, all Oz's immigrant cultures have had their ups and downs, and without significant continuing paranoia or problems. Oz has adapted. But, Big Oz? Overload Oz? We still need to be selective (although boat arrivals take some of it out of our hands), and continuing vigilance is the price of freedom. Oils ain't oils.

Joe/Saltpetre,
I don't like the way the world is arranged, but I've put that aside and am seeing matters through realist lenses. It's the conservative class that's looking at the situation as if it was other than it is. Though the conservative class is split fundamentally, just as it was before WW2, between the neoliberals and the neonationalists. The ideal world for the former is one without national borders, wherein both trade and migration flow freely. The neonationalists, on the other hand, and their bogan minions, are living in a world of fantasy, wherein they naively think they can have their four-wheel drives and other luxuries to which they've become accustomed while maintaining an old-world stability and integrity at the level of culture.
Put your realist glasses on! It's a highly politicised and economically globalised world on which we all depend and isolationist or discriminatory policies will have dire consequences politically and economically. Eurocentric Australia is situated plumb in the middle of teaming Southeast Asia, on which it depends for its prosperity, and here's Gillard maintaining the East-West polarity with closer ties to an economically and morally bankrupt US. Australia is choosing a dangerously partisan stance in world affairs and the prospect of an Asian invasion of this virtually empty landmass/treasure-trove we stole ourselves is really on the cards, should the political and economic situation continue to degrade, as it looks like doing. In the current dispensation Australia's only hope of maintaining prosperity and sovereignty ii in remaining a melting pot, indeed increasing its piebald population rapidly. And that means an integration in which all will be assimilated in wanting to protect their lucky situation. Australia is growing rapidly and evolving socially and will continue to do so, the inevitable product of global capitalism. Trying to maintain some fantasy that never was, of national identity and integrity means contraction, invasion and death.
Yes there's sectarian violence, though very minimal in Australia, but it's the product of intolerance, inequality and resentment.
I don't like the way the world is, but I don't close my eyes and pretend it was otherwise.

Squeers,

I more or less agree with you that

" .... in the current dispensation Australia's only hope of maintaining prosperity and sovereignty is in remaining a melting pot, indeed increasing its piebald population rapidly. And that means an integration in which all will be assimilated in wanting to protect their lucky situation. Australia is growing rapidly and evolving socially and will continue to do so, the inevitable product of global capitalism. Trying to maintain some fantasy that never was, of national identity and integrity means contraction, invasion and death."

As long as newcomers recognise that men and women have equal rights, that's fine with me. If individuals and groups seek to impose inequitable conditions on women and girls, or to treat women as some sort of property, then they should be put right, and told unambiguously that no 'book' takes precedence over women's rights.

Post-Enlightenment human rights law (imperfect as it may be) trumps reactionary religion and cultural practices, whatever and wherever their origins, or how passionately some [beneficiaries] may believe in those practices.

I haven't mentioned any religion or cultural set of practices specifically (or ethnic group, or race, or skin colour for that matter), but you have probably mentally done that :)

Cheers,

Joe

...Squeers the “rationalist thug” verses “empiricist rationale” ! Here lies the heart of the problem of Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is an idea of little merit socially, impinging on the rights of the dominant culture, white Australia!

Strange?...you learn something new everyday.

I was never under the impression that "white" was a culture. Tell me something about modern "Aussie Culture" that isn't harnessed to the culture of consumerism...I mean something really "cultural" as opposed to mere rhetoric about "mateship" and the never-ending whinging and cringing that echoes in the wake of the fortunate among humanity.

Diver Dan,

I completely disagree - multiculturalism CAN be a beautiful and exciting thing, putting all of us in touch with people from all over the world, hearing different languages, experiencing new ways, exchanging life-stories - provided it is based on the principles of equality, fairness, and justice for all.

Within that context, what is so special or under-threat about "the rights of the dominant culture, white Australia" ? Us Anglo-Celts are in the vast majority (check out the members of all parliaments) so there is no danger that we'll somehow be swamped. So sit back and enjoy it.

Whether our children will inter-marry and give us beautiful grandkids, is up to them ;)

Joe

Squeers.
You said "200 years BC, Terence said: <Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto>, which translates as: "I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me".

Looks like even in 200BC some were talking rubbish. If you believe that then you have no morals and no feelings toward fellow humans or animals.

There are heaps of things that humans do that are alien to me and heaps of cultural practices that are also alien to me and, I believe, to the vast majority of Australians.

We have developed social standards over centuries and have laws to protect those basic standards. These standards must be maintained, otherweise there is simply murder and mayhem going back to the stone age. Even some muslims have progressed a little from that.

“Chew” on this one too:

…Multiculturalism is the interface between economic rationale and empiricism of culture. One be oil and one be water! The war of philosophies; let it begin! Round one: A paradigm shift, America raises “Old Glory” in Australia 2011. Result? Benign threat to Asia, a cultural blessing, reinforcing Western (White) dominance! Racism identifies as one apocalyptic white horse. Another, economic rationalism: Both of which now stamp around on Australian soil

A nation of people from diverse racial, cultural and religious backgrounds living in peaceful co-existance under one law determined by legally democratically elected Government is strong, cohesive and a great place to live.

A nation of multiple cultures where some seek recognition of cultural identity and rights over and above that of Law, where members are discouraged or restrained from participating in life outside their cultural group is not.

I don't claim Australia is overly troubled right now but the seeds are sown. We can choose, in the name of PC, to ignore the phenomonem (history shows 'heads in sand' strategies to be very effective, no?) or be reactive/proactive and choose not to tolerate the unacceptable.

Contrary to claims of two posters, (including "Editor" Graham, who seemingly can't back his accusation so chooses to ignore) I've not made "Fit in of Eff off" statements.

I wrote: "How much more so when you come to live in a country and adopt it as your home? If you are not prepared to adjust cultural practices to fit it why should you be accepted?" - in the context of having to FIT IN during my few years of travel and living overseas. "When in Rome ...."

Anyway it occured to me: What ARE the obligations of new citizens according to law and the OATH taken when being awarded the citizenship they have so eagerly sought?

Copy of the Pledge follows:

Pledge of Commitment
Form of Pledge No. 1
From this time forward, under God, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.

Form of Pledge No. 2
From this time forward, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.

The Pledge came into effect in January 1994. There have been no changes since.

Sort of says it all doesn't it? "I, new Australian Citizen, promise to FIT IN .."

That is all ....

This Canadian incident would make Ms Asian's heart flutter:

http://www.cireport.ca/2011/11/rcmp-inspector-shahin-mehdizadeh-on-shafia-shame-killing-case-%E2%80%9Cyou-can%E2%80%99t-just-go-by-customs-it%E2%80%99s-the-murder-of-four-people-we%E2%80%99re-investigating-%E2%80%9D.html#comment-4136

Quote: Three Afghan-born defendants – mother, father and son – are on trial, charged with killing four family members, a trio of teenage sisters and their father’s first wife in a polygamous marriage. The Crown is arguing this was a crime driven by shame and fury over the victims’ un-Afghan, un-Islamic behaviour… The drowning deaths have been called an honour killing… What’s been startling thus far, however, is how the most stringent interpretation of Afghan Muslim culture has seemingly been accepted and exploited as a defence leitmotif, as if a given, and shame on those who failed to observe proper etiquette.

This same thing can happen, is happening in Australia. The multicultural industry cares little for the ideals that have given us so much. Some immigrants are fine, others not so much. Any country that takes in the followers of Mohammad is asking, begging for trouble. Islamic values are not those of the West. Worse yet, because Muslims believe Islam is perfect, they refuse to reflect on Islam’s teachings or even the many problems in Muslim societies. They will not change. Muslims will give lip service to certain ideals but they will never question Islamic dogma or much less reflect on Mohammad's vile actions, as narrated in their own traditions. Remember, this man is, according to the Quran, a great moral example. Figure out, if you can, what that means.

Note that in the case of Islam, the worst extremes are not politically motivated, they are taken directly from the pages of the Quran, which by the way is as much political and social as religious. I have been talking to Muslims for years and the news is not good: they are never honest about their religion or their vile prophet. Read the hadith, the stories of Mohammad’s war on his neighbors. Read Quran 9:111 – it explains purpose of Muslims on earth. (Hint: it is not about love, peace or justice…).

Or we can just keep pretending all is well and there are no problems except insensitivity and rudeness.

I am surprised that there is even discussion about whether
multiculturalism has failed. It obviously has failed otherwise this
discussion would not exist.
Lakemba and district is now a moslem enclave.
Chatswood is fast becoming a real Chinatown.

That is the definition of multiculturalism.
It leaves no point to be argued.

I am immigrant - and have adopted the wonderful way of the Australian people - and would never presume to ask my neighbours to make exceptions because I wasn't born here. I still have some practices that were from my home country, have lost those that weren't worth keeping and got some new ones from Australia.

What gives these other immigrants the right to make their adopted country change to suit them? Why did they come here if they didn't like the culture here? Why didn't they *&%^%%& stay where their culture suited them so well? And why does everyone kowtow to their demands. I've got an idea - go back where you came from if you don't like it here - but if you do like it here, then welcome.

A friend told me yesterday of his sister's (short) imprisonment when she flew her English flag in her front garden (in Essex UK).
While watching an international football match, she flew her flag - when a policeman knocked on the door and told her to take it down, because her neighbours (who happened to be islamic) were insulted - she refused and they took her to jail.

Now there's multiculturalism for you ... but don't worry it's coming your way - as long as you continue to be tolerant of cultures - (including ours) - tolerance means you lose the ability to choose and be discerning.

Guess what, in some cultures it's still ok to mutilate children - vaginal and penile circumcision - do you tolerate that? I hope the answer is no.
In some cultures it's still ok to beat your wife - stone her if she is raped or commits adultery - so you tolerate that? I hope the answer is no.

"Human beings are born equal but cultures are not - They are human-made and for the most part man-made. There is nothing sacred about cultures and nothing blasphemous about reforming them."

quote: Irshad Manji, the Canadian Muslim feminist

No, No Bazz:

...You are guilty of describing an ethnic ghetto. Get on board with “multicultural-speak”. These ghettos are now “Ethnic enclaves” of love, harmony and good old fashioned economic activity where, as an alternative to a day at the zoo, we may now stroll through the safety zone of ethnicity, surrounded by the humdrum of commercial ethnic joy and the cosmopolitan chattering in languages unfamiliar.

...No more the drug running streets of Cabramatta Bazz, but the squeaky clean enclave of commercial dealing in natural herbs and spices (heroin). Not criminal activity Bazz, but good business in overseas trade of import and export, a trade fashioned by years of extensive experience in the calming properties of herbs and spices.

...Gone now the “grass castles” of Griffith Bazz, with its old fashioned “Mafia Dons”; trumped by ethnic superiority of architectural splendour fashioned into new “grass mansions” , riddled with bullet holes from ritual drive by shootings, a Saturday night sport now Bazz for Sydneysiders in the western suburbs, the ethnic version of rugby league.

...Gone also the old Australian way of sorting out the rare but occasional misunderstanding , a brawl behind the “local”, with drinks all-round to follow. And gone to a better place, White Australians, customarily recruited for the Armed services of this “Once” great Country of “used-to-be” ours; fighting for democracy in foreign lands, facilitating the movement of immigrants to a “better “ land of milk and honey, Australia. So Bazz,It is almost as if you and I "sigh" alone for the days "bygone".

Thank you, Fiandra, beautifully put. All the best,

Joe

Poirot,

You want to know something about Aussie culture, apart from the "..mere rhetoric about "mateship" and the never-ending whinging and cringing.."

Try volunteering, charity, compassion, care for the world environment, care for civil rights at home and abroad, puting their lives on the line defending the rights of civilians in virtually every theatre of war in the last 150 years, fighting for the rights of the underdog, the best and perhaps only effective working model of multiculturalism in the world today, believing in fair play and the rights of minorities, tolerance (Squeers note I repeat, Tolerance), democracy, secularism, freedom of speech, religion and association, trade unionism, universal healthcare, welfare and prosperity for all, freedom and security for all... (Fair enough? See any contrasts with other regimes?)

Squeers,

"The neonationalists, on the other hand, and their bogan minions, are living in a world of fantasy, wherein they naively think they can have their four-wheel drives and other luxuries.. while maintaining an old-world stability and integrity .."

So, our "culture" isn't worth fighting for, and we should just "wake up" and invite ourselves to be taken over from within, or just invite our strongest neighbour (Indonesia? - think East Timor or West Papua!) (Japan maybe?) to take us over and show us how to do it better? Fair go, Squeers, we all know we are way better than that.

Looking around the world today, with "realism", show me another effective multicultural example - Tibet?, UK, Germany, France? But we're intolerant, eh?

So, we're all living in the lap of luxury, tearing around in gay abandon in our 8 cylinder FWD's? That's a new "reality" for me! But because some of us think we do have the best multicultural society in the world and have effective certainty of personal care and security, and are so brash as to think this is worth preserving, then we are Facists or Neonationalistic Bogans? Thanks for the vote of confidence.

We ain't perfect, and have many doing it tough, but we're trying, and we're not about to roll over and play dead, not for anyone.

fiandra,

I agree with the idea of immigrants trying to fit in, though Australia also has to be tolerant of diverse cultural practices. Who are these immigrants who "make their adopted country change to suit them"? And what changes have been enforced?

I agree completely on the flag issue. They're too divisive and ought to be banned here too. What gives the rednecks in my neck of the woods not only the right to fly their colonial flag, but to rise up in high dudgeon if the Aboriginal flag is flown, or any other flag? The UK just like Australia is multicultural and gave up its right to white supremacy when it imported negro slaves and colonised and exploited half the planet. The Australian flag is part, indeed emblematic, of that disgraceful history; the imperial power in the corner and the rest indicating its dominance in the region of the Southern Cross. Australia's not even represented. The flag issue in the UK illustrates the real problem perfectly; those who resent the Union Jack over there are not preferring and cherishing their own expatriot flags, they are resenting the exclusivity of the Jack; the fact that they are patently not included as part of patriotic revelries, but pointedly excluded, indeed hated by the archetypal poms. They live in the country but are not proper Britons, just as aboriginals or third generation Chinese are not proper Aussies (can you believe it!)
The immigrants are not the problem, the jingoistic nationalists are! I love the concept of Multiculturalism, of unity within diversity, but we're never going to have that and white supremacism simultaneously.

Anyway whatever anybody thinks, multiculturalism is here to stay. How about we deport all primary trouble makers, regardless of nationality? There'd a be a lot of true blues among em!

Did everyone hear Noam Chomsky on OZ recently: http://www.abc.net.au/sundayprofile/stories/3355416.htm

divine, great work. The pledges are trump cards.

kactuz, bazz, fiandra, diver dan the evidence you've laid out is beyond dispute.

Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron were not speaking lightly when they said multiculturalism had failed - it has actually been a global catastrophe.

Ms Aslan has a blinkered understanding of how multiculturalism in Europe and other places has worked in practice - think the murder of Theo van Gogh, death threats against Ayaan Hirsi Ali, riots in Paris and other French cities in 2005, the London underground bombings in the same year, the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, the fortunately thwarted planned attack on Holdsworthy army base and, of course the WTC outrages and numerous other incidents of riots, affray and violence.

Interesting that the defenders of multiculturalism and Ms Aslan's proposed restrictions on freedom of speech now seem to have faded away

Squeers,

Do you seriously imagine that a very large, "piebald population" is going to protect us from invasion if elites in our region want our resources? Look at World War II. Densely populated countries still got invaded (Belgium, the Netherlands), even large, densely populated countries such as China and Indonesia (a good example of multiculturalism). Our agricultural productivity is heavily dependent on added phosphate, which is becoming scarcer and more expensive, and will drop like a stone without it, even if climate change doesn't act as a double whammy. Once living standards plummet and the various groups in our society start to compete and fight each other over resources, this will provide a perfect excuse for outsiders to intervene, especially if the people in some of these groups are their co-ethnics or co-religionists.

A better course of action might be to follow the lead of Israel on defence matters, as it has survived for more than 60 years, despite being outnumbered many times over by hostile neighbours. Boosting the population beyond what we can sustain in the worst case without trashing our environment is profoundly stupid, whether it is done by mass immigration or by pronatalist bribes.

Sorry Squeers, but you have lost it with that last piece, out the window. You've not only thrown out the baby with the bathwater, but thrown out the whole bath as well. It appears that in your neoliberalistic fervour you have now left this planet. Best of luck to you.

An example of an adoptive country's "accommodation"? I suppose being carted off for flying the country's national flag is not just such an example? But then, you want to ban all flags, dirty nationalistic fervour-driven emblems of colonialism, plundering and stivance for world domination. No pride in country and heritage there, eh, just reminiscences of evil in the name of progress? Do have a lend of the other one, please. No Flags at the Olympics, Please! Fairies at the bottom of the garden unite! In the name of world peace!

Fiandra, please excuse Squeers, he's obviously on his own trip. Very nice contribution of yours, Fiandra, thanks.

You asked:

".. in some cultures it's still ok to mutilate children - vaginal and penile circumcision - do you tolerate that? I hope the answer is no."

You bet it's NO, as far as female genital mutilation is concerned, but penile circumcision is still practiced to an extent, as a minor medical procedure shortly after birth - sometimes in accordance with cultural practice, and more usually in the interest of male hygiene. (But docking the tails of dogs is now a rarity.)

"In some cultures it's still ok to beat your wife - stone her if she is raped or commits adultery - so you tolerate that? I hope the answer is no."

Again you bet it's NO. Though unfortunately some idiot males still try it on, but violence against women is a crime, and a national campaign has been launched to get the message firmly home to any remaining transgressors. (However, sometimes She might beat Us about the head if we don't behave ourselves properly, and that's OK.)

Welcome to Oz, Fiandra, and I hope it can live up to all your hopes and dreams.

Saltpetre,

Wow!...with all those things you mentioned it makes you wonder why we appear so nervous about the proposition that other cultures may colour our own. I mean to say, all the values you pointed out speak of a mature, self-assured egalitarian society. Why then all the "them and us" rhetoric?

What do you reckon about the way humans migrate - amazing eh?
They've always moved about. They migrate and things change. Empires fall and new ones rise.

It is interesting reading the words of those on this forum assuming that our cosy first world arrangement should somehow be exempt from the propensity for humans to migrate to a more advantageous setting. All the insular cultural cringing in the world won't result in our culture being impervious to change.

Wow! Poirot, following your logic one would think that only first worlders are concerned about protecting their borders.

<< It is interesting reading the words of those on this forum assuming that our cosy first world arrangement should somehow be exempt from the propensity for humans to migrate to a more advantageous setting>>

Perhaps you need to do a bit of tripping across Africa, Asia or South America and observe how seriously they view outsiders *propensity to migrate* across their domains.

<< all the insular cultural cringing in the world won't result in our culture being impervious to change.>>

There are few things more likely to guarantee stagnation than a policy of open borders. The most culturally diverse slum -- while perhaps colourful and entertaining to some --will produce few scientific/technological breakthroughs.

Fascinating story about the woman jailed for flying the Union Jack Fiandra. Do you have a reference for that? Google doesn't seem to know about it.

I was thinking the same thing, Graham. I couldn't find it either....perhaps the beginnings of an urban myth?

Divergence,

<Do you seriously imagine that a very large, "piebald population" is going to protect us from invasion if elites in our region want our resources?>
That depends entirely upon the power-dynamics at the time, all I'm saying is it's Australia's strategy at present, and siding with the US--it's clearly a geopolitical plan designed to compete with the perceived threats, China and it's dormant allies. It's a game of chess.

But I'm not advocating any of this; I stated clearly above that I was sporting realist glasses--and I sympathise with the powers that be to an extent. Most of the silly talk on both sides here is ideological, governments have to play a hard-nosed realist game--while seeming to pander to the romantic dimwits that vote for them.

Which brings me to Saltpetre, who tells me I've lost the plot with his usual eclat--empty hyperbole. Although he got this right: <ban all flags, dirty nationalistic fervour-driven emblems of colonialism, plundering> etc. Flags are offensive, they impose an ideology, exclude foreigners and marginal groups, and obviate criticism where it is most sorely needed; that is a flag's primary function. But sorry, I forget, this mostly isn't a forum for critical thinking, just small-minded, dreamy consensus--God save the Queen!

Putting aside my irritation, despite all the daft jabbering above, multiculturalism in Australia is a great success that is only spoiled, in the main, by our home-grown racists--whom the conservative parties are bound to support--poor Malcolm!

Squeers:



# multiculturalism in Australia is a great success that is only spoiled, in the main, by our home-grown racists--whom the conservative parties are bound to support...#

...Sorry old bean, my apologies for appearing racist while exercising my democratic right to an opinion. And yes, Political parties will need to pander to ideas projected by such as myself; just goes to prove, views such as mine are not in the minority that apologists would wish for.

Good heavens, I've made a terrible mistake! I didn't realise that we've been bringing migrants to this country under false pretences. We've said come on in, we've got job vacancies and a massive skills shortage, you're sure to have a great time and make a motza. Surf, sun, sand, and lots of pretty girls. But, wait a sec, we've still got a few new doctors and engineers driving cabs, and so what if we've got a burgeoning street gang and organised crime problem with a few of our disillusioned arrivals - it's only because we haven't quite got it all together yet, and maybe the land of milk and honey has failed to live up to all expectations, but give us a chance mate, we'll get it all together soon. So what if it's going to take you forever to pay off what you owe to the smugglers, or will have to wait an eternity to be able to go back home for a visit and build that taj mahal for the less fortunate rels, it'll all work out alright in the end, you'll see, just give it time. Anyway, don't be too quick to judge us if the public housing and the welfare isn't going immediately to give you the lavish lifestyle you would like to rapidly become acustomed to, you'll get a job one of these days, you'll see. What sort of job, you say? Mmm, well...

The street gangs? Well, they're only popping up because we've been a bit biased in doling out the goodies, so some of the lads more or less decided to do like back home, where if you see it and want it, why you just take it, eh. Sorry if we're a bit of a bigoted lot when it comes to rolling out the real red carpet, but give it time, there's movement at the station.

We'd better get the word out before too many more mugs get aboard the next ferry.

Saltpetre,

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that my former assumptions concerning your good self were way off target.

Multiculturalism failure is largely produced by those lists of exemptions from multicultural and anti-multicultural policies.

Particularly exemptions government provides itself.

Australian government's support, promotion and practicing of racism does NOT support multiculturalism.

Australian government's support, promotion and practicing of racism does support racism, racists, totalitarians, opportunistic orators, and politicians.

Commonwealth's actions to qualify our rights and our responsibilities using racial identification as their tool continue.

Commonwealth ignores clear, repeatedly stated, intent of Australians with their Constitution to eliminate, to exclude, to prevent any and ALL legislation from qualifying our rights and or responsibilities using racial identification of Australians.

Yet the Commonwealth still segregates Australians using racial identification, still qualifies rights using racial identification.

Restrictions upon Australians within so many rural NT, SA, and WA, communities obvious examples.

So Australia's government and it's supporters right now preparing their promotions for another Constitutional amendment proposal to support their fraudulent claims of a Constitutional authority to practice racism in Australia upon Australians.

Soon to be screened using their current favorite flavor term "Indigenous".

The comment by Squeers & others about the lady in the UK being arrested
for flying the "English" flag. You all missed the point.
The English flag is not the Union Jack.
It is the red cross on a white field.

It was the cross that offended the neighbours.

The moslems seem to be very sensitive about anything that displays a cross.
Well tough + + +

I think the point about the red cross flag is that (i) either the story is completely made up or (ii) there was a lot more to the story.

David Jennings - I concur.

Saltpetre,

Please ignore my last post. Rather hypocritical of me to take a personal swipe after berating TAR for related issues in another thread.

Cheers

@Saltpetre:
thanks for the support - but there's no problem with dissent - that's healthy. It's also called freedom of speech - which is (not so) slowly being eroded by those on the multicultural/PC bandwagon.

@Squeers:
"Who are these immigrants who "make their adopted country change to suit them"? And what changes have been enforced?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019547/Anjem-Choudary-Islamic-extremists-set-Sharia-law-zones-UK-cities.html

is one instance - but not the only one.

"What gives the rednecks in my neck of the woods not only the right to fly their colonial flag, but to rise up in high dudgeon if the Aboriginal flag is flown, or any other flag?"
I have to disagree - it's called freedom - Wether you like the flag or not - you should be entitled to say what you like as long as it doesn't harm anyone - "precious" feelings aside.

as long as multiculturalism is forced on people it will not evolve - cultures will keep their bad aspects and not change.

"The UK just like Australia is multicultural and gave up its right to white supremacy when it imported negro slaves and colonised and exploited half the planet."

Hold on just one moment there - Slavery did not start with the white supremicist - that was actually the beginning of the end of slavery - so hate the white supremicist if you will, but at least hate the rest of the slave traders from the beginning of time as well and please don't forget where/who these white supremacists bought their slaves from - other African nations were selling their black brothers to all civilizations for many hundreds of years
http://www.english-online.at/history/slavery/slavery-history.ht

"The Australian flag is part, indeed emblematic, of that disgraceful history;"

I am not religious, but I do like this bible quote (one of the very few): smote first the plank from thine own eye - or let he who has no sin cast the first stone (something like that anyway).
Why would you imagine that the white/english supremicists are the only ones who have created evil and meted it out on the heads of others?
Where would you get that misinformation from? and if knowing that we are not unique - our evil has come after others, why do you still hate us so much and not the rest:

"According to observers of the late 1500s and early 1600s, there were around 35,000 European Christian slaves held throughout this time on the Barbary Coast - many in Tripoli, Tunis, and various Moroccan towns, but most of all in Algiers. The greatest number were sailors, taken with their ships, but a good many were fishermen and coastal villagers."
Phonecians, Egyptions, Romans, Arabs, West Africans etc etc were all trading human flesh long before us white supremicists.

Slavery of any sort is an abomination, there is no excuse for it, however that was in the past, the only reason we should remember it is to ensure that it doesn't happen again. To use it as an excuse for some warped ideology is just plain ignorance in my opinion.

"The immigrants are not the problem, the jingoistic nationalists are! I love the concept of Multiculturalism, of unity within diversity,
but we're never going to have that and white supremacism simultaneously."

well see, this is where I disagree once more - there is no such thing white supremacy - only in the minds of bigots - you see there is supremacy in all cultures - only we don't call it that.
In Africa it's called Affirmative Action - If you lived in Africa today as a white person, do you think you might get a well paid job even if you are best qualified for it? Well I can tell you that you wouldn't.
If you lived in Saudi Arabia as a Christian, do you think you would have an easy time of it?
In the UAE right now they import Phillipinos who work for dreadful wages, under awful conditions.
In many homes in the Arab world women are slaves - they have no rights, AT ALL, that is not given to them by their male supremacists.
All I'm saying here is that being white doesn't make us the evil one.

"Anyway whatever anybody thinks, multiculturalism is here to stay."
There's nothing wrong with multiculturalism, just legislated multiculturalism - because it's enforced - left to it's own devices, multiculturalism would flourish - the bad bits bred out and the good bits carried on.

"How about we deport all primary trouble makers, regardless of nationality? There'd a be a lot of true blues among em!"
That's a childish retort, and counter productive - if I may say so.

@GrahamY,

I don't have a reference for the story - it was told to me yesterday by a friend - it's anecdotal, but I have no reason to doubt him - he's not in the habit of telling porky pies.
however I did find this on the net and few others beside.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4b8_121199724

fiandra,
I don't put any stock in your Daily Mirror article--mostly the media pandering to popular anxiety. Nor does it address my contention that extremists are driven by their pariah status, rather than conviction or vexatiousness. You also disregard the issue at the centre; online pornography, a problem that transcends national indifference or fiat? You also fail to acknowledge that any extremist can boast, indeed that every extremist from every quarter gets airtime in the UK, but that to date "nothing" unreasonable or tantamount to ethnic favouritism or treason has been legislated, or even won popular support, even among minorities. You merely illustrate that the communication revolution is squandered.

The freedom you claim for your flag-bearers to impose and discriminate willy nilly should be extended to all citizens and not by those who fancy themselves the prime rump.

Multiculturalism is not forced, it's a fact of life, as is the fact that our globalised world demands fair and equal treatment for all; nationalism is akin to anachronism--but it was always despicable.
Next you attribute "hate" to me, a concept I studiously avoid. Nor did I say imperial britain invented slavery--indeed I acknowledge they abolished it. Nevertheless they introduced the "taint" into the blue blood (already tainted from time immemorial.
Further, I haven't said that <the white/english supremicists are the only ones who have created evil and meted it out on the heads of others?> Where did you get that misinformation from?

Your stuff on South Africa is flagrant prejudice that conveniently neglects the context of Apartheid that bred the problems of inequality and white supremacy that have created a post-colonial basket-case.

<All I'm saying here is that being white doesn't make us the evil one>

I never said it did!

I am white and English btw, Anglo-Saxon! and have a degree in history, which means I'm trained to study history in as objective and bipartisan a manner as possible.

How is my suggestion that miscreants be deported a "childish retort"?
Presumably you have no objections to naughty Muslims being deported? So why not loyalists who stir up ethnic tensions too?

Over the last couple of thousand years the Arabs were the major
slave traders.
Remember it was the white nations that forced the end of the slave trade.
Where it still exists it is in the horn of Africa and Arabia.

Squeers

You write:

"I am white and English btw, Anglo-Saxon! and have a degree in history, which means I'm trained to study history in as objective and bipartisan a manner as possible."

So what went wrong since then?

You are not reading "objective" or "bipartisan"

@ Squeers,

<<Nor does it address my contention that extremists are driven by their pariah status>>

Here are a few examples that not only address your contention, but positively shoot it down.

And the first is from a source you do put *a lot of stock in* (The Guardian!)

"Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's [ the Nigerian would be plane bomber] ... was born in extreme privilege, of the sort few Nigerians could ever dream of, and his education reflected this. His father, Umaru Mutallab, 70, is one of the country's most respected businessmen, who retired earlier this month as chairman of Nigeria's FirstBank, the oldest bank in the country, with offices in London, Paris and Beijing...He's got wonderful parents, he comes from a lovely family, he's got lots of friends, he had everything going for him. He's a fine-looking lad, very bright. I expected great things from him and he's thrown all this away. His parents will be absolutely devastated. He should have thought about this."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/27/gilded-life-of-plane-bomber

"Osama bin Laden, who was born into Saudi riches"
http://www.theledger.com/article/20110502/NEWS/110509918

Ayman al-Zawahiri emerged from a privileged upbringing in Egypt
http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/zawahiri/profile.html

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or KSM also came from a rich background and went to college in the US, earning a degree in mechanical engineering.
http://shil1978.hubpages.com/hub/The-Myth-of-the-Poor-Terrorist

Nuff said!

Fiandra, that link is broken. I think your friend is making it up. It is completely improbable. If there was any arrest I am 99% sure it would have been due to a breach of a law. If you can't point to a law or anything that bans flying the Union Jack, then it is extremely likely that they weren't arrested for that.

You do your argument no good by trotting out canards.

Graham, the poster said it was the English flag which is not the Union Jack.
It may well have been the flag of England which is a white field with
a red cross. You often see it flying here on Church of England churches.

If the story is true then it was probably the cross that was objected
to and as the flag is used by the England Defense League and was
carried by the crusaders and that maybe why the police may have asked
for it to be removed.
Maintain the peace I think it is called.

GrahamY,

Please forgive me if I venture to suggest that your "canard" comment to Fiandra did not seem particularly appropriate. I have found her comments to be forthright and really rather refreshing, and I don't see her purposely purveying misinformation. I may not fully agree with all her comments, but concur for the most part, and consider hers to be honest contributions. I put the matter down to innocent forwarding of information which may or may not be accurate. An honest mistake at worst, nothing more, and we have all probably found ourselves in the same shoes at one time or other.

Anyway Graham, the above is only my opinion in the matter, and I've been soundly taken to task over quite a few of my opinions on this forum, so I'm only human. Nonetheless, benefit of the doubt and all that.

Multiculturalism: It's great viewed in isolation, and I think particularly so in the case of Australia. Taken in a global sense, which is my preferred stance, there is such a long way to go for any real semblance of multiculturalism to become a reality - and it even remains uncertain whether this would provide the best outcome for the future of humanity. I suspect there will always be some nations which will staunchly resist it, and that will still be ok if we can rise above cross-border conflict and infighting. Universal respect, equity and equality - a meritorious objective, but a tall order nonetheless.

In view of the global context I am reluctant to see Australia bite of more than she can chew, and I'm not suggesting an overtly nationalistic stance in this, just a note of caution. We cannot solve all the problems of the world, and maybe even the UN or another "enlightened and determined" coalition of forthright nations couldn't either, but the goal is worthy, as long as the means is peaceful. Hence I am reluctant for Oz to do possibly irreversible damage to itself by importing more or greater problems that she can handle at any one time, irrespective of source or nature.

I can't help wondering in all this fuss over multiculturalism if we aren't forgetting about our own indigenous people, worrying about every other Tom, Dick and Harry, and yet leaving our own out to dry. Something of an indictment really, though I quite understand that there are no easy answers to fulfilling the needs and just aspirations of our first peoples. This is of course the subject of another thread, on a reconcilation referendum. Still, we need somehow to keep things in perspective.

Not all is fully rosy in the land of Oz, and there needs to be due regard to appropriate prioritising of attention and resources. Accordingly, we need to be careful not to jeopardise the future prospects of our indigenous people in the rush to capitalise on resource and industrial development, and imported labour, or in allocating perhaps excessive resources to the accommodation of ever increasing numbers from all the various conflict centres of the globe.

I'm trying to be realistic here, not paternalistic, and we have some homegrown responsibilities sorely in need of considerable serious attention. So let's give serious thought to an effective means to involve our own in mapping out a multicultural model fully embracing the whole of our population.

A compact is needed, and our indigenous people should have a decent say in how we approach the future. An area of consultation not very well explored as far as I can see, and thus a rather glaring omission in the current political spectrum. Reconciliation really needs to be taken far more seriously than it has been to date, particularly as an integral part of our multicultural framework and objectives.

...Multiculturalism is the utopian academic dream of the middle classes, and a dystopian nightmare of social immiseration to white Australian working class.

... Multiculturalism stands in stark contrast to the abandonment of the National white Australian, a traditionalist to the work ethic and proud working class, now floundering in a sea of Asian faces, jobless, impoverished and homless.

The middle class makes up the bulk of Australia. We are happy with moderate multiculturalism and most Australians don't have any major dramas with race. Multiculturalism is not the extremist totalitarian beast that its opponents make it out to be, but it isn't a utopia. Its just a reality, because the whole world, including this country, is made up of people from different backgrounds.

As for this pearler:

"the National white Australian, a traditionalist to the work ethic and proud working class, now floundering in a sea of Asian faces, jobless, impoverished and homless."

Get over it. (i) the White Australia policy ended almost 40 years ago. The rest of the country has moved on. (ii) The Asian immigrants are very hardworking and are definitely not jobless. (iii) Anybody who works hard in this country will live well regardless of race or "culture" (I note that you keep conflating race and culture).

<the middle class makes up the bulk of Australia. We are happy with moderate multiculturalism>>

Nice of David Jennings to elect himself spokesperson for middle class Australia!
Mind you, I have often suspected that most of those who talk-up our state sponsored MC have autocratic leanings.

<<Multiculturalism is not the extremist totalitarian beast that its opponents make it out to be>>

Perhaps, but outside of the sugar and spice fetes & festivals MC has acquired some beastly qualities:

As can be seen two cases I've witnessed:

Two employees of a large corp, who while discussing middle eastern politics in the canteen are overheard by a third who claims "offense" ---both were sacked.

Or, the employee who threatened that unless she was the next one promoted she'd scream "racism" --she was quickly promoted

Or this, which Tanveer Ahmed witnessed:

"I have seen such differences, however, when police are asked to intervene in domestic violence cases where ethnic groups such as South Asian or Middle Eastern couples are involved. Police often keep greater distance in such cases, some believing that cultural factors are at play and the families and communities should be left to their own devices. We do not officially have parallel laws for other groups, but variable enforcement can have the same effect."

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/dare-to-accept-we-are-different-20110923-1kp91.html

David Jennings

...The only apology I make David Jennings, is for the ambiguity of the sentence structure:

...I will remove the need for a “transformational trace” in the sentence, by shifting the phrase # now jobless, impoverished and homless # back, to enable the dangling phrase to become more obviously representative of the subject “White Australians”! Now it becomes less racist, all sense of the derogatory is against “White Australians”; and allowable comment under rules of MC, and reads as follows:-

... Multiculturalism stands in stark contrast to the abandonment of the National white Australian, a traditionalist to the work ethic and proud working class, now jobless, impoverished and homeless, floundering in a sea of Asian faces.

SPQR:

...Read your link with interest. The following author has worked it out! RE:

...“After the cosmopolitan?: multicultural cities and the future of racism”. Author; Michael Keith. Available through Amazon.

Basically, those people who are unsuccessful in life and who have failed to prosper hate multiculturalism and blame others for their misfortune. The rest of us, who are happy with our lives, are not as fussed about multiculturalism.

Depends on what is included in multiculturalism, David Jennings. It is hard to argue against it if it just about encouraging people to appreciate other cultures, without denigrating the dominant culture, tolerating human rights abuses, or trying to suppress non-libellous free speech, as with truth-is-no-defence religious vilification laws.

What I find more interesting is why it has been pushed so hard over the past few decades, where it just happened to coincide with really high levels of mass migration. Here is how I make sense of it. The contraceptive pill was introduced in the 1960s, and fertility rates fell sharply. By 1976 the Australian fertility rate was slightly below the long-term replacement level, where it has stayed ever since, with minor fluctuations. (People mostly do like children, in moderation.) Of course, the population continued to grow by natural increase due to demographic momentum and will continue to do so until some time in the 2030s (150,000 more births than deaths last year). However, this growth was insufficient for the tastes of our business elite. High population growth gives them bigger domestic markets, easy profits from real estate speculation and control of other vital resources, and a cheap, compliant work force. Even better if the growth comes from immigration, because they can then get skilled workers who have already been raised, educated, and trained at someone else's expense.

Their problem was that Australia is past the point where high growth is good for everyone or even for the majority of the population. No one disputes that it has been good news for the top 1%. The media and politicians have come up with a number of specious arguments to be sold to the punters, on economic benefits, defence, and dealing with an aging population. The 2010-2011 Productivity Commission Annual Report says (p. 6):

"Two benefits that are sometimes attributed to immigration, despite
mixed or poor evidence to support them, are that:
immigration is an important driver of per capita economic growth
immigration could alleviate the problem of population ageing."

(cont'd)

cont'd

People mostly do like immigration, in moderation, because there are obvious cultural and educational benefits. With the very high population growth we have been having, however, sometimes above 2% per annum, the extra people put pressure on the environment, on infrastructure (because new arrivals have to be accommodated long before they have contributed enough to pay for it), and on urban amenity. Very few people love permanent water restrictions, paying a fortune to live in a cramped unit, or long waiting lists in the hospitals. The government is now taking a larger share of GNP than it did in the 1970s, when tertiary education was free and the aged pension wasn't means tested.

Banging on about the benefits of multiculturalism helps with the spin effort and helps enable people like yourself to silence those who object to the growth with bleats of Ra-a-cist! This is much like right-wing responses to the Occupying Wall Street protestors, where it is pretended that that the protests are all about envy of people who have more money and not because the money can be and is used to buy the government.

David Jennings:

...You are rounding yourself up on this subject Dave. You may present an opinion from the middle class, if that is your standing, but not speak for them. And, by the same token, unless you profess to the mystical abilities of a clairvoyant, you could not possible know the level of happiness of those opposed to MC.

...My assessment of you on this subject is, it is you who is unhappy with “criticism” of MC. Your position is one of danger IMO. You have a right and a responsibility to question any ideology that is foisted upon you without consent. You also have a right and a responsibility as an individual, to identify manifestations of political propaganda, the lie of which has been culturally devastating to many in Australia.

...My opinion stands, that as a White Australian, I object to MC in all its forms. Mainly on the grounds I was offered no choice on the matter. - If I was given the choice through referendum to accept our Aboriginals inclusively, (and willingly accepted that). Why was I given “no choice” on a matter concerning an issue of greater cultural impact and importance? -

You are contradicting yourself Diver Dan. If I can't speak for the middle class then why can you speak for White Australians?

"It is hard to argue against it if it just about encouraging people to appreciate other cultures, without denigrating the dominant culture, tolerating human rights abuses, or trying to suppress non-libellous free speech, as with truth-is-no-defence religious vilification laws."

That is pretty much what I mean by multiculturalism and you are right, that is hard to argue against

David Jennings said

"You are contradicting yourself Diver Dan. If I can't speak for the middle class then why can you speak for White Australians?"

However Diver Dan never claimed to speak for white Australians. What Diver Dan did say was

"My opinion stands, that as a White Australian, I object to MC in all its forms"

But David Jennings did in fact claim to speak on behalf of the middle class. He said

"The middle class makes up the bulk of Australia. WE are happy with moderate multiculturalism and most Australians don't have any major dramas with race."

Clearly it is David that is putting in the spin here.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222111

Suseonline, shame, shame, shame. you of all loony lefties should be against multiculturalism.

Have you looked at the racial/religious profiling of violent crimes against women in Britain & Europe? where they have had larger minority populations of muslim migrants for longer than we have.

why do you want to get more Australian women & girls raped, beaten, assaulted, harrassed inside the home or outside?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oVoLqjaKiw&feature=related have you no conscience or morals at all?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwA3jErg9Bc&feature=related there is NO moderate islam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIHeBJNFS1g never has been, never will be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5t9U9r9Kfs&feature=related why do you support & promote this?

Australia was not a multicultural society before 1975, regardless of where they came from they were expected to assimilate. the land of OZ has been going backwards ever since.

Multiculturalism is the primary reason Aboriginal education has been failing since the 1970's. Between 1945 & 1965 Aboriginal children finishing school were literate, were capable of going on to TAFE college or university.

What is wrong with you people? Why do you hate your own?

Formersnag,

You are half-right: "Between 1945 & 1965 Aboriginal children finishing school were literate, were capable of going on to TAFE college or university."

The problem was that, in a discriminatory society as Australia was back then (and some may say, still is), Aboriginal people had had to endure dumbed-down education for fifty years by then - it was called 'culturally-adapted education' in colonial Africa, 'industrial education' for Blacks in the southern states of the USA. Down here in SA, almost nobody was able to even finish primary school and go on to secondary school until the 1950s - after all, secondary schools were usually in towns and Blackfellas weren't allowed to live in towns. So very, very few people were able to go on to university (or even TAFE) until the late seventies. The first university graduates in SA finished their studies in 1954 (1), 1964 (2), 1965 (1), 1966 (1) - all from teachers' colleges. The first SA Indigenous uni graduates finished at Flinders Uni in 1972, the first one at Adelaide Uni in about 1985 - barely twenty five years ago. By this year, around five thousand Indigenous people had at some time or other been enrolled in a university course in SA - sixteen hundred had graduated, another seven hundred were enrolled, thanks mainly to Indigenous student publicity, preparation and support programs.

And those graduates - ask them - remain Indigenous, no matter what course they have studied. In fact, I have been struck often by how much stronger their sense of Aboriginality/Indigeneity has become AFTER they have graduated, how much more active and dynamic it is.

Yes, in a racist society, Indigenous people had the ability to go to university - but policy dictated for decades that they shouldn't. Their rights to do so have expanded step-by-step with the opening-up of Australia to people from regions besides northern Europe, from Asia, Africa and elsewhere. That's fine with me.

{TBC}

[contd.]

Multiculturalism can be constructive and innovative, as long as it does not in any way hinder the ability of any person from any 'culture' from accessing all of the opportunities that a democratic society like ours is supposed to provide. After all, that's what most migrants and refugees value about Australia - that's the ideal that they have mostly been ardent about supporting, an ideal called 'the fair go'. You may wish to debate this point :)

As long as everybody comes under the rule of law equally, no matter what their religious beliefs, historic origins, food preferences, strength of family ties, choice of music, dance, art or shoe size, then Australia's doors should be open to them. In this sense, Australia is a model for many other countries - multiculturalism based on the principles of equal rights, the rule of law and the separation of religion and the state.

Following Popper, I guess you could call this 'negative multiculturalism': what it demands as a minimum requirement, and therefore whatever else it permits.

Cheers,

Joe

Formersnag,

you disgust me more than words can say with your lurid vilifications.
<What is wrong with you people? Why do you hate your own?>

If you are representative of "our own" then it's healthy and you deserve to be despised, and pitied. But thankfully, miserable mindsets like yours are rare.

You need to get out more--I mean outside that bare cell inside your skull, and meet people.
At the childcare centre where we send our twins two days a week there's a delightful Indian girl (I say girl because she's very young) with the most beautiful nature I think I've ever encountered, and she's the only one my little boy will go to when he really doesn't want to be there. I have many "oriental" acquaintances and know none who are not pleasant or even delightful company--and they're all grateful to be here. Why should they have to deal with unprovoked Australian xenophobia?
People like you are a miserable but influential minority and "You" largely create the problem!

Squeers:

…What we read being debated in all its forms, is high rates of immigration translating itself into MC. Above are, what I would consider to be excellent and informed and objective comment. (e.g. consider Divergence above). You, by your own confession, have been force fed your history lessons in academia and “flag” a subjective immaturity by referencing your most favoured foreigners, as proof for the success of MC.

…I challenge you to point to any moment in history where national boarders were not defended against invasion, and the sovereignty of any nation, was not jealously guarded by its nationals. Australian history strongly aligns itself with such conflicts, in two major world wars. Your argument ignores this reality apparently.

…Many people in this country consider high levels of immigration to be a national threat to sovereignty, and thus multiculturalism to be a serious threat to the host culture. It is overly simplistic to consider that particular shared opinion as xenophobic and racist on all counts.

diver dan,
if history's your defence you're among friends with formersnag and co! But I despise history as I despise your position. History should be your scourge and not your defence!

This discussion appears to have gone a bit downhill lately. Perhaps it is worthwhile to identify the main areas of interest (as I see them).

1.) I don't think there is much dispute really about our current multicultural society (no turning back anyway) and any problems are relatively few and nothing we can't handle quite easily with existing processes,
2.) There is an interest from some ethnic groups, or a council of such groups, to have a greater say in MC, or public affairs, but that should not be seen as a threat to anyone. This is a democracy, and all deserve to be heard. So we shouldn't jump to conclusions about possible outcomes - and everyone actually appears to hold a strong interest in "fitting in",
3.) Immigration policy Is at issue, and warrants a clear and transparent consideration of viewpoints, and a consensus outcome in the national interest, but we should not preempt that outcome,
4.) No-one ought believe it would either be possible or in our interest to contemplate an open-border policy, so we should just forget about that,
5.) Costs involved in processing migrants and getting them settled may be at issue to an extent, but we should accept that the majority will become valuable contributing members in due course - given half a chance,
6.) Compassion for refugees is something of a stumbling block - on the one hand we would like to be of greater help, but on the other hand we cannot solve the world's problems,
7.) We should Not assume that MC is the best objective for all nations, or that we should push such a view. I think some nations will be better off staying relatively non-MC, but this need not be a source of increased international stress or jealousy - as inequity/impoverishment is the real elephant in the corner, and this is what really needs to be addressed at an international level,
8.) We are well off, but absolute equality is an impossible dream, but do have to improve employment opportunity for all Australians.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222793
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222794

Loudmouth, you are also half right. Aboriginal people have not always been given a "fair go" but 2 wrongs don't make a right. Earlier conservative christians were patronising in some ways but well intentioned, whereas the closet communazis were deliberately "white anting" our culture/society with multiculturalism, feMANazism, etc. All according to the evil seditious, treasonous PC, Thought Police plan.

http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/

i repeat aboriginals like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Perkins would never have been able to achieve what he did without basic literacy skills which the overwhelming majority of aboriginal children since the 1970's have been denied, by the loony left social engineers working to a deliberate, premeditated, "plan for failure".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_referendum predates 1975, but multiculturalism came afterwards with comrades Hawke & Keating in 1983 or was that "1984". Bear in mind that Vietnam was a French colony, many who came to Australia were catholic & all were capitalists escaping another communazi nightmare. In other words their "culture" was similar to all the Italians & Greeks who came before them, as soon as they could learn English, they assimilated.

Food recipes different, culture the same.

Multiculturalism has never been positive in way shape or form. It was designed by closet communazis at the height of the cold war to fracture western capitalist democratic society into racial "ghettos" of NON Australians who would never assimilate or in many cases even learn English.

Aussies of British & European decent have no problem with people of other "races" coming here IF they learn English & assimilate. Maintaining a seperate culture with "diplomatic immunity" is something altogether different. White Australians have never had a "fair go" since the 1980's, because of "positive discrimination programs" keeping us out of work & education opportunities, most especially if you are also male, as well as white.

Aboriginals however despite all the billions wasted on them continue to also be excluded from this multicultural mess because all of the programs "helping" them were designed by closet communazis to fail.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222795

Squeers, you need to get out more, speak to main stream, middle class Australians instead of university intelligentsia.

all they want is a "fair go", instead of "positive discrimination" against them. 60% to 80% of them want the "white australia" policy back, why do you think the polls are running against the loony left. i don't BTW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Skaf have you forgotten about this guy? 2nd & even 3rd generation Lebanese are still a problem, when they are Muslim instead of christian.

How many of our females need to be gang banged before you admit multiculturalism is a failure?

So what if some of them are good people if many of them are not. My little brother married a girl of Indian Hindu decent, i have also had "black" girl friends. Race is not the problem, culture is.

The "problem" was created by closet communazis, not me, we the 99% will be cleaning up the "problem", namely the loony left.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222801

Diver Dan, excellent comment.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222803

Squeers, stop "moving forwards", look backwards with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight at the mess you have created & start UNdoing it instead trying to make it worse.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222807

Saltpetre,

1, rubbish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Skaf MC is a huge & growing problem.
2, in a democracy do paedophiles & criminals deserve to be heard?
3, before 1975 our immigration policies worked, ever since then they have been failing, how is it preempting anything to accept this well documented scientifically proven fact?
4, why not consider a sealed borders policy? 60% to 80% of the population want that.
5, 80% to 90% are NOT contributing, even 2nd generation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Skaf he is one of many.
6, refugee migration was designed by closet communazis to create more poverty in BOTH the 3rd & 1st world.
7, MC has never worked anywhere, it always was a "plan for failure" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5871651411393887069# help people in country.
8, we were wealthier before 1972.

Formersnag,

It's mentalities like yours, I'm sure, that prompted Mahatma Gandhi to comment: "What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea."

Geoffrey Blainey was right when he wrote that multiculturalism is basically a new form of colonialism, in which we are the colony of every nation on earth. Under multiculturalism, Australia is not seen as a real nation with a distinct identity or cultural of its own. Rather, multiculturalism preaches that Australia is just a global boarding house for all the world's peoples.

Perhaps the most egregious aspect of multiculturalism is the way in which it accords different rights and privileges to different groups living in Australia today.

Immigrant communities, for instance, are encouraged to promote their own ethnic identities and their own group interests. Ethnic minority organisations – cultural centres, business networks and political lobbies – are accepted and treated with respect by politicians. The justifying story told to the majority is that we all benefit from "cultural diversity". Yet, at the same time, majority ethnocentricism is held to be dangerous and regularly criticised in the media, education system and by the multicultural lobby. Any attempt by members of the Anglo-Celtic Australian majority to advance their own group interests is immediately condemned. Australians of Anglo-Celtic descent are expected to forgo group loyalties and are even punished for showing them in politics and business. How can something be so precious and notable for one section of society but worthless and disreputable for another?

This flagrant double standard is most noticable in immigration matters. Apparently, it is acceptable, even noble, for immigrant communities to lobby for the importation of more of their own kind. Yet, it is "racist" for the Anglo-Celtic majority to prefer British or European immigrants over those from other backgrounds. Immigrant communities openly brag about their growing demographic strength, while Australians of Anglo-Celtic descent are called racists merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration policies are reducing their percentage of the population.

Mac: "We could, of course, adopt the Islamic version of 'multiculturalism'."

I can only imagine what would happen if a large population of Western Christians moved en masse into a Muslim country and then demanded that the host society change to suit the newcomers and redefine itself as a multicultural country (an oxymoron if ever there was one). If the Muslim host population reacted in outrage to the changes this alien cultural group was imposing on their country, the Westerners could respond: "What's your problem? In challenging your past exclusionary practices, we're not threatening your religion, culture and way of life, we're enriching them! You should be grateful for all the amazing diversity we are introducing into your once monocultural country!"

Of course, if Western immigrants flooded into Muslim countries and began changing those societies to better suit themselves, they would be accused of colonialism and more than likely forcibly evicted by the host populations.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222851
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222852
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222856

drab, could not have said it better myself.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222846

Poirot, ah, the "lateral thinking" side step into some oblique sarcasm, while blithely ignoring the well documented scientifically proven facts & evidence presented to her, how typical of the feMANised, loony left.

Did you look at even one of the documentary videos i put into my earlier comments for you?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222792
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222843
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12865#222845

Do yourself a favour Poirot follow all the links i put in my comments for you, have a good long hard look at them & see if you can continue pretending that "denial is not a river in Egypt".

Poirot:

...Take care Poirot, alas!

“abyssus abyssum vocat in voce cataractarum tuarum omnes gurgites tui et fluctus tui super me transierunt”

“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts…!

Mahatma Gandhi:
# A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. #

Dan…

Interesting article touching on the origins of state-sanctioned multiculturalism in Australia:

"Multiculturalism is the demand that Australians should adapt to rancorous demands by newly arrived or resident ethnic minority groups. Multiculturalism emerged from the New Left matrix of the 1960s and 1970s and is the crazed orphan of cultural relativism. In the Australian case it was designed to destabilise the affiliations to British-Australian traditions, institutions and values. The operational assumption that Australia was a W.A.S.P. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) paradise built on racism, genocide and oppression is still assiduously promoted by leftist historians and by ethnic and pro-ethnic media. Hating Australia became a profession.

In asserting the regressive fantasy that all cultures are "equal", cultural relativism ensures that the host country, Australia - a term that multiculturalists are trying to depreciate - was denigrated as the source of authoritative allocation of values and legitimacy. Australian multi-culturalism was never put to the people and was almost covertly promoted by progressive activist networks.

Multiculturalism became a contentious topic decades after the realisation that it was politically and culturally destabilising and the origin of many taxpayer-funded social problems including ethnic crime, narcotics, social and religious separatism and political vote-catching.

As two researchers recently summarised, "Multiculturalism was not well known or popular among ordinary Australians." Subsequent research into popular acceptance of multiculturalism reveals respondents were particularly concerned that "they were never asked to vote on it".

*snip*

Multiculturalism became a profession based on the mobilisation of ethnic resentment. Grievance mechanisms required the expertise of the chattering class in the form of lawyers, social workers and, of course, the establishment of commissions and statutory bodies to rewrite "racist" laws and advance the interests of ethnic minorities repressed by the "dominant culture"."

Full article:

http://www.nationalobserver.net/2004_autumn_christopher.htm

Formersnag,

You wrote: "Australia was not a multicultural society before 1975, regardless of where they came from they were expected to assimilate."

Indeed.

You shall find that multiculturalists generally loathe pre-1970s Australia because it was, to quote Geoffrey Blainey again, "populated largely by people from the British Isles and because it seemed to have a cultural unity, a homogeneity which is the very antithesis of multiculturalism."

You asked: "What is wrong with you people? Why do you hate your own?"

This is a good question. Such ethnomasochism - the taking of pleasure in the dispossession of one's own ethnic group - is surely a bizarre phenomenon.

George Orwell:

...So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot

In summary, the insecure and unsuccessful despise multiculturalism and the "elites". They mutter darkly about social chaos and they resent most keenly those from their own ethnic group who are neither bothered nor bewildered by ethnic and cultural diversity.

There are many things that might bring a society down - but moderate multiculturalism isn't one of them. On the other hand, the negative emotions created by jealousy, resentment and ethnocentricism just might cause a lot of harm.

I'm glad you mentioned 'moderate multiculturalism', David :)

Most of us here would agree with you, that ethnocentrism has its drawbacks, but many would also be mindful of 'immoderate multiculturalism', and aspects of various cultural practices, often justified by religious principles, which would seem to some of us to fall into that category.

As long as a 'culture' (to anthropomorphise cultural practices) observes equal rights of men and women, in spirit and in the letter, and as long as people of all cultural backgrounds recognise the rule of law, then I'm sure you would agree that they would be working within the framework of 'moderate multiculturalism'. I certainly have no problem with that.

But if they attempt to impose a different, and differential, notion of equal rights, or of the rule of law, on sections of Australian society, and implicitly on all of Australian society, then you may be right to consider that they are acting improperly, attempting to operate outside those bounds, and perhaps even to breech those limits against fellow-Australians who happen to 'belong' to their cultural group.

No Australian should tolerate limits put on his or her rights, opportunities or behaviour, or on those of anybody else, just because of some attachment or 'belonging' to a particular cultural group. Equal rights mean that we all, men and women, Anglo, Indigenous or whatever, should be equally free of any limitations or restrictions to live and operate in Australia's open, civil, society, and equally responsible to observe its laws.

Joe

Honestly Joe, whenever I get a bit narky you pop up with a sensible and reasoned comment and I have to respond accordingly! Its always a pleasure to talk to you and I think we are fundamentally in agreement. I think that multiculturalism in a moderate form is a good thing. That basically means that people are free to live as they please provided that they do not impinge on the rights of others. I think that the spectre of immoderate multiculturalism is a bit overstated. Some migrants will have behavioural problems and may experience extreme cultural shocks. Some cultural backgrounds might be deeply at odds with some aspects of Western life, but these problems can be worked through with an open and honest discussion. Putting up the shutters is not the best response to those issues. Apart from a few hotheads and self-publicists I don't honestly think that there is any major movement amongst any migrant community to impose any particular way of life or viewpoint on other Australians.

Well, David, my point was that "any major movement amongst any migrant community to impose any particular way of life or viewpoint on other Australians" may include other Australians from 'their own' particular ethnic group. Those are the Australians whose rights I am concerned about.

And that raises the issue: on religious or 'cultural' grounds, should a 'group' have the power to dictate to less powerful 'members' of the 'group' how they should live ? Should the rights of those Australians be abridged on 'cultural' or religious grounds ? Should those Australians live more restricted lives by virtue of being a 'member' of a 'group' ?

And that in turn raises the very thorny issue of group rights which, in my view, are ALWAYS antithetical to the individual rights which a liberal democracy, such as Australia is supposed to be, guarantees and fosters.

Many of us would not want multiculturalism to accommodate such anti-democratic notions in the slightest. But as long as the individual rights of all Australians are safeguarded, equally, under a definition of multiculturalism, then I'm comfortable with it.

So no 'intelligent design' in schools, no outlawing of the use of cows or pigs for food, and no sharia in the courts: separation of 'church' and state and no privileging of any holy book.

Joe

Loudmouth:

...You articulate the hopelessness of the insurmountable difficulties of multiculturalism to a tee. Muslims rightfully have a culture centred on Islam, with all its faults: Similarly, do all ethnicities congregating in this country, have a right to all foibles associated with their respective cultures.

...As an example, tribal impediments to justice conflicting between Aboriginals tribal laws and “White Mans” laws, to this day are huge. Circle sentencing is an Aboriginal justice innovation, which may be applicable, to some degree, towards the clash between cultural expectations of individual ethnic cultures and Australian Law.

...After-all Joe, It is unreasonable to expect immigrants migrating from Countries with cultural extremes, to be considered educated enough to live under the expectation of a law which offers as the fundamental maxim of the Western criminal justice system that says, “A citizen cannot be excused because he was ignorant of the Law”.

...The whole “thing” of Multiculturalism fails miserable on this plank alone!

Dan...

Dan,

People from many countries co-exist fairly comfortably in Australia, on the basis of equality of rights for men and women, and observance of the rule of law.

Provided that no group seeks to bend the rules to suit some outmoded notion of culture or differential rights, and that no government or jurisdiction makes any concessions to such demands, I'm fine with that.

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth:

…But you appear to dodge the issue Joe; a precedence is set in the circumstances of variation of the application of the law applicable to Indigenous Australians: The precedence is “Circle Sentencing”. Incidentally, it’s a reform I totally agree with, (in its special application applicable to the indigenous population at the least), in its design to minimise jail terms, and is culturally specific!

…So the problem now arises, where to be consistent, I must likewise agree to its broader application, by varying sentencing procedures applicable to all cultures in Australia, and based on the same principals of cultural difference. Please discuss this issue of precedence in application of “culturally tailor-made” sentencing procedures: I believe it is a key issue in the debate on multiculturalism and ominously points to another critical failure in Governmental immigration prerogatives.

David,
Ethnocentrism causes no such emotions and is not the province of the insecure and unsuccessful,the exact opposite is true.
Ethnocentrism is empowering, it gives one a direction in life, a support system and access to economic advantages.
Are Jewish people known as insecure underachievers?

Joe,
Explain to me why the term Extreme Xenophobia is used to denote some sort of pathology while Extreme Xenophilia is promoted as completely normal and "sane" behaviour? Pedophobia is just as nasty and disturbing as Pedophilia.

Also, the basic unit of society is the heterosexual family , not the individual,society is a group activity, it's not possible to have a society of individuals.
It's also amusing to me that unconditional support for multiculturalism and Anti Racism is an implicitly White tendency, it's actually now an Ethnocentric strategy in itself which confers access to business and social opportunities within the White middle classes and if you think it's not a closed, racially exclusive network you're fooling yourself.
I use that strategy to get work all the time since I probably know more about "Doctor's Wives Issues" than any Doctor's Wife does.

Thanks Dan,

No, for what it's worth, I don't support differential application of the law or its remedies for any group alone: if something works (without fudging), then apply it universally. Otherwise one range of remedies should be used for the same range of offences, regardless of 'culture'.

Jay,

No, I don't have to explain anything of the sort. Clearly, I don't support either. And in a democratic society, in law, the basic unit is the individual: check it out with a first-year law student. In society, it depends on the context: sometimes the individual, sometimes, the family, sometimes the group in all its many manifestations, sometimes the society as a whole. But in law, it's the rights of each and every individual, you and me, which are protected.

Joe

Jay, please stick to the forbidden zone.

David,
You want me to butt out for your sake?
Of course you only disparage what you perceive, or misinterpret as ethnocentrism among White people of a certain class, that very attitude is an example of ethnocentrism and elitism in itself.
The fact that marginalsied, low status Whites may at times let give vent to a "Racist" outburst in exasperation at the state of their lives and their communities is not an indication of ethnocentric disposition.
On the contrary, the unhappy losers in life, the White inhabitants of housing estates and low status suburbs are the ones who are at the coal face of racial assimilation, get ready for the waves of dumb, poor and violent mixed race kids who are headed your way.

Support for Multiculturalism has become an ethnocentric strategy for the White middle classes, it excludes all the riff raff, that is to say both the low status non Whites and low status Whites via the mind bending series of social constructs and strawmen invented by the "anti Racist" side.
I was thinking today while at work that the fact that Multiculturalism in Australia is a White middle class movement may account for it's success so far.
Multiculturalism under an elitist, "upper class" tends to break down into a fairly odious caste system and under a dictatorship of the proletariat it doesn't exist at all.

Remember the mixed Indigenous/White children of yesteryear were the "Half Caste", one rung up from the bottom, between those on the missions and the Whites in the slums.

Jay,

On your reflections, that " ... the fact that Multiculturalism in Australia is a White middle class movement may account for it's success so far.
"Multiculturalism under an elitist, "upper class" tends to break down into a fairly odious caste system ...."

- that may have been the intention of some Australians forty or fifty years ago, to bring in migrants to do the sh!ttier jobs so that Australians could move higher up the totem pole. But migrants twigged early to it, and usually made sure that their kids didn't follow them into the factories - and that they didn't have to stay there forever themselves: others would follow them.

Certainly, thanks to a migrant class who could do those lower jobs, Anglo-Australians had the first-mover opportunity, for a generation at least, to get up and out of the slums, to have others to climb over, to go to university for free, to gain professional skills and secure public employment, and join the Greens. You may have missed out on most of that, Jay :(

By definition, ethnic succession always favours the groups which are dominant first, especially if they are in the vast majority. That's you and me, Jay: we had those opportunities, at the expense of others'. Those others have built Australia since the War, and provided the foundation for our opportunities, yours and mine. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, Jay: just say 'thank you' :)

Joe

Joe,
The hand that feeds me is the White, middle class, green voting, politically correct inner city trendies of Fitzroy and Carlton, God bless 'em!
May their Blonde haired blue eyed offspring grow to prosper as well so that I can go and make a pile of cash fixing their squeaky floorboards, cracked plaster and leaky Tuscan style water features.
Ethnocentrism, theirs and mine certainly pays off for me.

Joe,
Yeah I actually did get my free tertiary education, BA of Fine Art-Sculpture, which fed me into the career of handyman, via a stint in hospitality and a few years as a tour guide.

Another point:
Tradesmen vie to get a good reputation among some ethnic groups, particularly those with a high proportion of nouveau riche, Jewish people, Italians, Christian Lebanese etc.
One guy I know is "In with the Jews', making a tidy living installing $50,000 kitchen cabinets in Elsternwick and Caulfield.
Again, contrary to David's assertion, ethnocentrism is financially rewarding and gives it's practitioners and third party beneficiaries both material security and peace of mind.
What does multiculturalism give people?
Maybe a government job or tenure at a university, which I'm sure can be a satisfying way to pass the hours but there's not much in the way of prestige or massive amounts of loot involved.

...Well Jay of Melbourne, What you see unfolded before you, is the conceptualised attitudes of multiculturalism by its adherants. Objectivism fails to convince those who are least adversely affected by the failing phenomena of multiculturalism.

...Unfortunately though, tough it is to convince the influential power base most responsible for the idiotic inception of the policy, and the increasingly dangerous continuation of the policy of multiculturalism, that, the social contamination of the failed experiment will turn to bite “all” in time.

Dan.
I'd be surprised if it did, ethnocentrism is the solution to racial problems in multiracial countries and it's very much on the rise here.
The people who deride ethnocentrism portray ethnic consolidation as a "circling of the wagons" against White hostility and "racism" when in reality it's nothing more than a sensible and moreover, practical economic measure.
The solution to "inequality" isn't assimilation it's ethnic economic consolidation,economically self sustaining ethnic enclaves and informal financial networks are the way of the future and will ensure a harmonious society.

Hi Jay,

Multiculturalism, in one form of another, has been around for a very long time. It is the norm not just of modern societies, but of empires, after all, any system in which borders are relatively open. How different empires - Athens, Rome, China, Ottoman, English, French - have handled the inevitable interaction of people from different legal and cultural origins, has varied: some have encouraged inter-mixing, some rigid segregation.

But your 'solution' seems to invite precisely the hostility and exclusiveness that you, with respect, purport to oppose.

Your suggestion of segregated enclaves seems to be similar to the Ottoman Milayet system, in which a feudal empire managed different ethnic groups by keeping them physically separate most of the time, and allowing them to run their internal affairs according to their own laws. Jews, for example, had to be all back inside the locked gates of the ghetto by evening. This system kept any group development - let alone inter-group development and social development generally - stagnant for hundreds of years, which, I guess, was its purpose.

But you would have a hard time to apply it here, in the twenty-first century, in a liberal-democratic society, in which the horses of residential segregation and formal ethnic inequality have well and truly bolted, and in which the common observance of one rule of law and equal rights of men and women prevail. Amen to that.

Joe

Joe,
No mate I'm not proposing any authoritarian or top down solutions, I'm just speculating that based on the way things are going "multiculturalism" will find it's own level, so to speak.
I'm just saying that from a pro White perspective this is a good and desirable trend, it'll lead to an easy life for all if we're not forced to compete on the same, uneven playing field.
I agree with you on your point about those sort of systems being difficult to implement in this day and age, Australia is probably the last place in which one group could dominate in the way you've described.
I'd say it'd be impossible, since White Australians would never support it, it'd be economic suicide for one thing and like the Ottomans we'd be back to imposing poll taxes and demanding tributes just to get any damn money out of the other groups.
All these ethnocentric economies, including the one from which I derive an income can best be described as "informal", from which you may deduce that excessive scrutiny from above would be most unwelcome.

On the other hand, top down economic, cultural and racial assimilation has been rejected by Australians too, so, as I said, my prediction is that we'll see an increase in informal ethnocentric networks, including among White people.