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.