Most of Australians support multiculturalism? Dream on.

I must be living in another Australia.The mayor of my city is a Chinese, the mayor of my suburb was a Chinese and the new one has a Greek name, the suburb I shop in is full of Chinese merchants and customers, my dry cleaner is Vietnamese, my favourite cafe owner is Persian and there are lots of very tall,very dark skinned Sudanese young people on the suburban train. And I have even been to the open day at the local mosque and it did not scare me one bit.And my favourite food is Lebanese. What a wonderful country the Australia is that I live in.Hope some of you can join me one day Pluto

If you don’t know any of the people I describe, Rhian, you probably don’t want to know. If you do wish to find out about other people outside your own circle of beliefs, it is up to you to go looking if you want balance. The silent majority will express their opinions if you take the trouble to ask for them. But, as Mrs. Beaton said, first catch your hare.

You are drawing a very long bow in saying that people who invoke the silent majority assume that the SM share their opinions. Many of the people I have spoken to don’t agree with everything I think. Some don’t agree with anything I think! The point is, until this huge store of feeling and opinion is tapped, we can’t make definite statements about who supports what. An added problem is that many people cannot or will not differentiate between a non-consultative introduction of multiculturalism as an official policy, and immigration. It’s not up to me to lecture you on the difference, but you might like to think about why anti-multiculturalism doesn’t = anti-immigration or racism. We have people here of all races and have had since the First Fleet. Until the introduction of this divisive policy, nobody was concerned, apart from small number of racially motivated agitators. Now, we even have people confusing religion with race!

As for your comments on my elected dictatorship, Rhian, I can only suggest that you widen your reading. Political scientists often describe our system of democracy as such. I just happen to agree with them. I’m no expert. And, I don’t think you need worry about your right to free speech

Hello all, long time lurker here.

I would like to go back to Mr Yusuf's article and take issue with just one aspect: that his friend Abdul Rizvi is happy to administer the Mandatory Detention regime.

How can anyone who believes in treating his neighbour as he would wish to be treated (i.e. Muslims OR Christians, supposedly) have anything to do with this regime which has caused so much harm?

Independent medical practitioners all over the country have assiduously documented the extreme psychological damage wrought by Mandatory Detention and the department's various other draconian policies, yet the religious men and women in the government/public service blithely carry on (with the exception of a few backbenchers).

How do they justify their participation in this regime to themselves and their religious friends?

I am not a religious person, but I spent a lot of my childhood in sunday school/chapel/religious ed. classes and from what I learned there such people are all committing terrible sins.

Can anyone explain it to me?

TIA

//Adam F

Science has yet to be able to explain the pandemic that sweeps the world constantly, in the forms of a mental aberration called religion and ism's.

It rises and falls, spreads out, then once it has depleted itself through chaos, death and destruction, it recedes and relative sanity prevails for awhile.

Luckily a lot of the human race has recognised this problem and is developing immunity to it's variant strains.

We are in the midst of another pandemic now, who knows how much destruction it will do when it reaches here, by previous examples, we could be in real trouble.

A very shallow article indeed which only papers over the very real problems the Muslim community faces within itself. Let's forget about the massive issue of terrorism for a moment.

The average Australian wouldn't know who the CEO of the NAB is, nor would they have any idea who John Ilhan is. They do see riots at almost every second Canterbury Bulldogs game-reported by police to be instigated by young muslims. Average Australians also watch 60Minutes and are revolted by Lebanese gangs ridiculing the ANZACS. Most Australians watch the 6o'clock news and just can't understand how a devout Islamic family can justify the gang rape of young caucasian women by their sons.

Of course these attitudes aren't reflective of the Muslim community in general, but how often are these attitudes vigorously, and unanimously condemned by the wider Islamic community? There always seems to be some excuse or rationalisation. One week it is blamed on a lack of funding for education. The next week it is because 'white girls lead on young men'. The week after that it is because police pick on Australians of lebanese extraction. In fact just last week it was because young muslims feel ostracised after September 11.

This problem existed long before September 11. It is up to Islamic community leaders to fix it. Otherwise the average Australian may just run out of sympathy. I know I have.