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The Forum > Article Comments > Multiculturalism works > Comments

Multiculturalism works : Comments

By Brett Bowden, published 20/9/2016

A former child soldier in Sudan, Deng fled his homeland, arriving in Australia as refugee in 1998. Here, in Western Sydney, he taught himself English and put himself through law school.

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Yeap heard about this chap before, what about the others?
Posted by Cobber the hound, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 9:12:08 AM
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And yet in this mornings news a report on the increasing number of child brides, some as young as 9, being sent overseas to be married. At least 70 cases so far.
Singing the national anthem means nothing if a person's value system isn't the same as the host country.
Multiculturalism means many cultures. It can only work if all hose cultures have the same basic values.
Posted by Big Nana, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 9:35:37 AM
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Yeah Brett however 1400 years of history is not wiped out by good muslims. Islam is a political system and you being educated should not be in denial. Instead of Pauline visiting your uni to be patronised I suggest you go to no go zones on France and parts of Britian. Sure we should celebrate those who have been unshackled from the barbaric example of Mohammed but to continue to shut our eyes is treachery to our grandchildren. A much tighter immigration policy is a very sane conclusion. Just ask families of knifed, raped and bombed vicitms in New York, France, Germany, Sweden and Australia.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 9:37:14 AM
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Yes Cobber.
There are now over 65 million displaced persons in this world; and even with the best will in the world we can't resettle them all in the west! We need a different template!

How about clean, safe energy, so cheap that a dollar a year could potentially power a family home and its transport options? Then using that upscaled not for profit power, pump desalinated seawater far inland?

Desalination that relies on new deionization that pushes the salt to one side of flowing water for around quarter of the cost of traditional desalination, to recover 95% as potable water!

Now apply that to the currently uninhabited deserts of the world like northern Chile, the Sahara and all points of the compass, with accessible coastlines; and we have gardens where once there were deserts and an ability to relocate millions whose cultures are compatible with participating host nations?

Yes it will cost billions! But we are spending those same billions now just to accommodate folks in forever hopeless situations!

Better they contribute to an outcome that starts the only war worth fighting or investing in, the war on poverty and discrimination!

Yes we can take a few more as controlled orderly migration, but only if we can covertly test their bona fides! Which if failed; OUGHT TO SEE THEM REPATRIATED POST HASTE!

That said we need a viable affordable solution for 65 million, rather than the one or two million the rest of the world can accommodate here and now! The good news doesn't end there, given the same cheap, clean, safe technology allows us/them to make endless fuel using Co2 and Hydrogen harvested directly from that same seawater!

And improved economic outcomes, eventually sees a drop in birth rates, which eventually drop below replacement numbers! We need solutions that include those assisted; not hate filled violence fueled by culture clashes!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Tuesday, 20 September 2016 10:27:58 AM
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Hi Alan,

Yes, you're right, these are very complex issues, and their solutions are no doubt even more so. Sixty five million displaced people would be impossible to re-settle in Western countries, so clearly far more has to be done in international forums etc. to resolve the issues which cause their displacement in the first place. Corruption and incompetence are probably the major causes, so there is not a hell of a lot outside countries or bodies can do about that.

Nick Cater has a good article in today's Australian on the subject of immigration, employment and education, and the need to integrate newcomers, particularly into the ethos of equality of men and women, equality of all before the law, freedom of expression and worship (provided it doesn't seek to impose 'different' values on any Australians, including 'new' Australians) - basically, to encourage a desire to become Australians rather than staying apart.

To those who would complain that 'integration' slides too easily into assimilation, one could respond by suggesting that 'diversity' slides too easily, especially in hard economic times, into de facto segregation. That has already happened with remote area Indigenous people for fifty years now, and look how that is turning out.

We need to differentiate the concepts of people, 'race', ethnicity, nationality and 'culture'. We need to realise that culture is not sacred, that it is almost invariably a screen for male domination in a particular group. I'm amazed that feminists haven't picked up on that, or on the problems which might arise with immigrant groups with very strong beliefs in female subordination. Well, culture, really. But I suppose that, while it may be impossible to be half-pregnant, it may be quite possible to be half-feminist.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 11:07:10 AM
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Joe, feminists are too busy emasculating middle and working class white men to worry about real oppression of women.
Had one telling me yesterday that feminist philosophies was the best way to treat suicidal young men by helping them change their understanding of gender roles!
Posted by Big Nana, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 12:01:17 PM
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BBC News Oct. 17 2010.

Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says. She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

BBC News. Feb 5.

David Cameron strode firmly into a debate where many politicians tread timidly. In his view, such caution is part of the problem. In frank language he made abundantly clear he believes multiculturalism has failed.

Yahoo News Feb 11 2011

– French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Thursday that multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or ex-leaders who have condemned it. "My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure," he said in a interview when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups.

Speaking at Georgetown University, Spanish prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said, “Multiculturalism divides our societies, debilitates our societies, multiculturalism does not produce tolerance, nor integration”. The best way to integrate societies and promote integration, he said, is for laws to be administered equally to everyone, irrespective of ethic origin or religion.

We now have seen civil wars, rebellions, coups, or at least national separations in Lebanon, Fiji, Cyprus, Georgia, Afghanistan, Biafra, Rhodesia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Liberia, Kashmir, Punjab, Sudan, Nigeria, Bougainville, East Timor, Yugoslavia, Kurdistan, New Zealand, Bhutan, Angola, Burma, Chechnya, Guadalcanal, Aden, Malaya, Oman, Congo, Northern Ireland, Palestine/Israel, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, East Timor, Thailand and recently, Ukraine. Add to this sundry race riots and acts of terrorism in Britain, the US, Europe and just about every other country on Earth.

Multiculturalism is exactly like Socialism, Brett Bowden. How many times does it need to fail before the people with your three monkey, kumbaya worldview figure that out?
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 12:26:40 PM
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Hi Cobber

You rightly wonder about"...the others?"

Brett was careful not to detail what much larger numbers (than the one) are up to - mainly in Melbourne - so far

News.com 21 July 2016: Home invasions and carjackings prompt police summit in Victoria
http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/crime/home-invasions-and-carjackings-prompt-police-summit-in-victoria/news-story/bbd91f1c9393932e8f5895411dfae705

"A WAVE of terrifying home invasions and carjackings by teenagers has sparked a policing and community summit in a bid to deal with the attacks.

...Among the arrests were 13 youths, arrested on Tuesday, over a St Albans robbery and car theft.

Public concerns have also been raised about gangs of migrant teens, with reports some parents are sending their teenage children back to countries like Sudan to break the spiral of offending."

"countries like Sudan"
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 12:32:21 PM
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The fact this one has succeeded academically does nothing to prove he is not a gang member. It also has nothing to do with Multiculturalism. Are you suggesting this is not actually a story of integration, & this young man taking advantage of the opportunities we have made available at our expense.

Talk about cherry picking. It is multiculturalism that has given us the worst of not only the African gangs, but the Islander, Aboriginal & Muslim gangs many in lower socioeconomic areas are now suffering. Penrith, San Souci, Hurstville & Auburn in NSW & Logan among others in Brisbane spring to mind.

The mere fact that this is post worthy proves how rare such an outcome really is. Still good fodder for the duping the dumb with such exceptions.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 3:39:25 PM
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Brett Bowden,
Not far from where you work is a place called Fairfield, where there is a government funded Immigrant Womens Health Service. The head is Dr Eman Sharobeem and the good doctor says she can find a hundred underage marriages at any time. She personally knows of 60 that occurred in the last 3 years. Would you say that the parents of these girls have integrated well and respect our laws.

Also not too far away is both Auburn and Canterbury Hospitals, both have specialist units for treating post FGM problems. Antecdotal evidence indicates that FGM incidence is rising. I suggest this is another example of multiculture in action with no respect for our laws. A recent court sentenced a bloke to 12 months suspended jail for taking his 9month old daughter to Indonesia and inflicting her with type 3 FGM, so yeah our system supports multiculturalism.

I suggest you get out of your ivory tower and look at the real world and you don't have to go far
Posted by Banjo, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 3:57:07 PM
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Yes, there is a clash of cultures and folks who seriously believe they can leave their physical bodies here and still enjoy conjugal relations with 70 vestal virgins, who have their virginity restored immediately after satisfying the prodigious appetite of the lord and Master? None question the mechanics of achieving this of the flesh outcome minus a physical body!?

And this stone age inculcated culture has a psychopathic need to impose its (cannot err cult) belief system on all disbelievers!

We need to deploy space age covert unbeatable lie detection technology to test the bona fides of those who want to join us and our cultural norms! Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me! We're asked to take these individuals on trust?

Only to find some among their number have murderous plans for us? That will, they believe, open wide the gates of paradise!?

Not true, given there's no place in paradise, (real or imagined) for those who spill as much of a single drop of innocent blood!

And applies to those who use human shields in an attempt to prevent righteous reprisals!

I believe we need to create a different template that turns desert wasteland the world over, into virtual gardens of eden that supports many millions! On land that once was uninhabitable for man or beast!

And a can do, but only if we ensure it remains a not for profit enterprise until the transformation of the land is complete and permenant!

This approach guarantees minimum living standards and agricultural plentitude for countless millions, who will contribute to that outcome with their labor and better more productive use of their time than planning to destroy or dominate the west!

What shall it benefit mankind if in reaching for another's wealth, prosperity, living standards, and land, all that is actually accomplished is universal destruction of everything!

Harmonious multiculturalism may have a chance, when all of the potential participants are able to apply critical thinking to their (stone age) belief systems!?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Tuesday, 20 September 2016 7:34:23 PM
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I don't see anything in this piece that justifies the claim that multiculturalism works. One isolated incident that took the writer's fancy is far outweighed by many other incidents that not only prove the opposite is true, but that multiculturalism is actually a great danger to the West.
Posted by ttbn, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 7:48:56 PM
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Hi ttbn,

Of course multiculti CAN work, it has worked with pretty much all of the ethnic groups who came to live and work in Australia for the forty years or more after the War.

But of course, different times: those were the decades of relatively high employment, and for people with relatively low skills - those times are gone. As well, the great majority of 'New Australians' were accustomed to physical work already, and were either raised on, or readily absorbed, the hard-won values of the Enlightenment, of equality, fairness, reciprocity and reward for effort.

But we now face a situation requiring far more skills, while immigrants and refugees tend either not to have worked for many years, or to come from economic backgrounds which are at odds with Australia's needs, or from religious and ideological bases which disparage both work and Enlightenment values.

So the integration which occurred for those fifty years or so after the War is much more difficult to replicate now, and it won't get any easier. Ethnic groups are now more likely to foster ethnic enclaves, which are in great danger of becoming long-term welfare enclaves: that's not going to do anybody any good, especially those ethnic groups.

Porter's moves on welfare reform have to be coupled with improved educational and training opportunities, and economic and technological innovation which foster employment across the economy.

'More of the same' will work against multiculti in its inclusive, integrative sense, and merely foster economic exclusion and enclave-building, a ridiculous reminder of old imperialist segregationist policies like those of the Turkish Empire, in which groups were confined at night each to its own ghetto behind locked doors and group members were obliged to wear distinctive dress, but encouraged to foster their colourful cultural practices. But of course, that couldn't happen here. Could it ?

Oops.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 21 September 2016 10:07:35 AM
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They bring a child soldier here from Sudan and put him in the class with all the other Aussie kids?
Someone should be fired for placing Australian school children at risk by radicalised foreigners, I don't care that he's a success story.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 22 September 2016 9:56:22 PM
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