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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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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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