Sir 'Mosque-teer' Boaz,

Your comments remind me always with American priest on late night TV (the I belieeeeeveeee guy).:-)

Seriously now, I was on Brighton last weekend for lunch and I believe I saw an arrest. A ‘white super-something’: they are all kids.

Youth problem is a social issue and gang problem is a law enforcement issue.

To pin the blame solely on ethnicity or religion is rather naïve because the underlying assumption that these youth have normal relations with their parents and are practising their religion. Fact is, most of these gangs neither get along with their parents, communities or Mosques.

We just need to enforce the law and give youth problems coverage, media and ears. We were all teens one day and all we needed is to be heard. Why don’t we have a ‘teen station’?

Irfan,

Agree with your comment there is no racism in Australia. Sadly international media painted an ugly picture of Australia,

HarryC
"On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least racist, where would you place Australia in terms of the nations prevailing tolerance and acceptance of foreign cultures relative to other world nations?

On the world Scale about 1"

Agree 100% Harry

And I would rate most of Western Europe around 2 (on average, pushed up by France)
Most of Eastern Asia around 4
Most of Africa around 6
Northern Americas around 2
Southern Americas around 4
Middle East and Western Asia - particularly those states who have a system of "guest workers" 8
Russia around 6
Japan around 5
North Korea around 8
China around 6
India around 6

So, when someone says is Australia a "Racist" country - well it might be - but on relative measures, which are the ones which actually count, no where near as "racist" as the rest of the world.

Sneekster,
Sensible, educated and most of all, balanced. But then you are most of the time aren’t you?

I seem to recall you are or were a journalist or similar? I mentioned an idea I had to Waleed on another thread and I was wondering if you would be interested in a dialogue, hopefully leading to some action to educate and unify the greater Australia? If so, contact me at:

unitedaustralia@hotmail.com

If not, I’m sure it’s because you are too busy. But keep up the tolerant, educated discourse…

Meredith and Mr.P.Pig.

Thanks for your support. My bone marrow my be f*#*ed but my mind still works.

Rainier was man enough to apologise in another thread and for this I thank him.

I have lived in 19 countries and Australia with all its problems is by far the best. At least we can have these discussions which I think is healthy.

Cheers
Steve

Demonised? get a grip on reality Joe!the day some, yes some of these youths stop useing the term Australian as an insult we an start to build a common comunity.
Multi culturism has NOTHING to do with the riots, most almost every group has blended into Australia.
Some refuse to, and I refuse to let truth be bared in this debate.

I am an Oz expat who has lived in Japan for some time and while I enjoy my life here I have to say something about its negative side.

I saw Japan ranked as 5 on the scale of racism proposed by somebody. I can`t agree. Japan is more an 8 out of 10 because the racism here (although sometimes excused as extreme ethnocentricity)is institutionalised - it`s all-pervasive. It`s not in your face but in some ways that makes it worse and very difficult to confront.

There is widespread yet usually subtly expressed hostility to non Japanese - to the point where Japanese people who were born in Japan and whose parents are Japanese but whose grandparent/s were born in Korea and forcibly brought to Japan during World War 2 as slave labour, have to register as non Japanese at their city hall. Just like I had to do as an `Alien`. Japanese law and society are governed by racialist notions of `Japanese blood` and anybody else is `Gaijin` - outside person.

There are no anti-racial discrimination laws in Japan - indeed the Government here has repeatedly refused to countenance them yet wants to hold a powerful position in an important UN body. I can give many instances of why Japan ranks 8 but I would take up too much space.