Redneck, bit of a problem with your claim ( I assume it was hyperbole, or oversight in all the excitement) that Europeans are the most tolerant people on earth. I seem to recall a little local difficulty in Germany 60 or 70 years ago. And yes, I've checked to be sure I wasn't misrepresrenting what you wrote. You'd defend your agrument far better if you didn't resport to wild, demonstrably false allegations.

I reckon if I were an evolutionist like reddy, I may very well believe in there being inherent differences between the "races". After all, if men have evolved over aeons of time while inhabiting different environments, then they've obviously been developing by responding to differing environmental stimuli, thereby resulting in the differences between "races" that we have today. Someone as consistent in his evolutionistic presuppositions as reddy would quite naturally infer from this that the so-called "races" of man cannot be equal, cannot have developed equally and at the same pace. For how can it be any other way? How can development according to differing environmental stimili produce the same results?

But one problem I have with evolution is this:

WHAT PURPOSE OR FUNCTION DID PARTIALLY DEVELOPED SEXUAL ORGANS SERVE?

Clearly this concept cannot be true. Clearly men are not the result of some thing called evolution. Clearly reddy is wrong. Clearly there are no such thing as "races". Men are created in the image of God and are commanded to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." They are not commanded to become Alabamans and make artificial destinctions, for there is "neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond [nor] free: but Christ [is] all, and in all."

Go to Alabama. Alabama for the Alabamans. I'm fine with that.

Hi Brazuka, thank you for your patience.

I have not responded to you since my opening posts, because of the accursed 2 posts in 24 hours rule. I am here to thump some logic into some very closed minds and I carefully select from the contributors, those posts that I can get the most mileage out of. Your position so far, is that New Zealand is a shining example of multiculturalism. I submitted information that this was not so, and would have submitted more except for the accursed 350 words per post rule.

But you apparently did not accept my submission and consider that this proves your own theory right. Well, once again, I do not accept that Kiwiland is racially blind. Apartheid exists, in that there is exclusively “Maori” tribal land which the “Moari” people are seeking to extend. One workmate of mine who immigrated to Oz from Kiwiland, and who became an Australian citizen, told me that she did so because she was the “wrong colour” to be New Zealander anymore. And then, of course, there is the little matter of the total genocide of the Mori Ori people by the Maori people in the 19th century. Where these unfortunate, defenceless and inoffensive people were all hunted down, men, women and children, then killed and eaten.

Finally, I would submit that you do not even believe in Evolution. Look mate, I know that talking to religious people is like talking to a brick wall. You have your “beliefs” and no amount of reasoned argument will ever make a dent in your peculiar mindset. Now, if you want to rave on about racial equality being divinely ordained by some god, or by a son of a god, or by a brother of a god, or by a mother-in-law of a god, then please go right ahead. It will help me immensely, even though I can not be bothered responding to such nonsense.

New Zealand a shining example of racial harmony? I can only go by heresy on this, but a maori guy I was working with briefly had a mouthful of racial abuse. It went something along the lines of "Tongans and Samoans are troublemakers: I can't stand it when they come to Australia and say they are from New Zealand". Don't get me started on the comments he made about Aboriginals, Rainier will go into denial.

Rainier talks about a professional career (in other threads), then goes onto say he left school at 13. Something does'nt add up. I reckon he is a university dux with his hair neatly parted on the side.

Anyway, Rainier should be criticising Cornelia Rau for her calls for someone to be appointed from a multicultural background, not John Howard. She made the assumption that a white woman from an english speaking background is not an 'ethnicity'. And as for Trinity, if on your travels you come across a monocultural setting in Tonga, New Orleans or even Tokyo, according to your logic, these people are racist. Too 'cosily' black or oriental. But hang on, only white people in a monocultural setting are racist, is that right?

Trinity, you said something before about how hostile some of the people on this thread were. I would prefer to think it is 'combative', in that it is clear some people have divulged information and perspectives with good will, only to be ripped down by others.

There has been of course some great posts, and I greatly appreciate the sensitivity, humour and intelligence of many of the respondents here, especially Rainer's most recent posts which made me laugh. However I feel like we may become trapped in a merry go-round of personal attacks, and this is ultimately neither productive nor meaningful.

As an example, I originally started with the statement: "[Chek] would tell you his home is here in Australia, as would his passport. Many of the respondents in talking about Malaysia clearly don't understand this, and I think this does represent a very clear form of racism, a racism that maintains the citizenship and thus the civic and political participation of ethnic Australians as partial."

In the last few days my ethnicity, even as a second generation Japanese Australian, has been attacked to discredit my perspective, much like Rainer's Aboriginality/Indigeneity, and Trinity's gender. This itself is a discursive strategy enabled by racism. I have as much to do with the Massaacre of Nanking (which I agree was terrible and genocidal) as Davo has to bad teeth and poor sporting ability (if we generalise 'Aussie' as 'white', 'white' as British and Davo as in fact of British heritage). To borrow a colloquial, it is a 'num nut' of an argument.

I'm not playing the same sort of 'game'. Redneck, I have never attacked you according to your cultural background, only your perspectives and the way you have articulated them. I have no idea what your background is and I refuse to look down my nose at you whatever and whomever you may be, because I refuse to trivialise you as a person or even as part of a group. This is perhaps our most fundamental difference, not anything as arbitrary as 'race' or 'ethnicity'. If you state that this prejudice is a marker of ‘western’ or ‘Australian’ civilisation then we are in trouble, because it means there is no way through to a compromise.

The thing is that this openness is something I have learned as an Australian (being born here) and from the contact between different cultures and people in this place. It is something for all of us to share, if we are open to its possibilities.

Rather than the term 'multiculturalism' which refers to a particular policy, I will use 'multicultural' which describes the self-evident diversity in the locations that we live. Australia has always been a 'multicultural' society, even before the flag was planted in 1770. It is also clear that this has always been Indigenous country, and it would remain Indigenous country even if Cook or Phillip had followed British colonial law and made the goddamn treaties.

It is a marker of privilege that certain perspectives can continue to deny this. It allows for the integrity of positions such as mine to be constantly under question. I think, however, many will see that a meaningful future here belongs to those who are willing to open themselves to want to learn from one another – and not to those who simply want to discipline others into sharing their own prejudices.

That’s it from me folks, thanks for all the fish.