Greg Barns sees the recent riots as due to (exclusively Anglo) racists who act out of pure unmotivated evil and hatred of a joyous multiracial republic. He is unwilling to recognize that when more and more people are crammed together to compete for an inadequate supply of jobs, housing, public services and amenities, there is going to be conflict. If there are no racial/ethnic differences the ostensible cause will be based on some such factor as religion, social class, politics or even sporting allegiance. In districts where there were no Tutsis, Hutus massacred Hutus.

The business elite who "donate" to both major parties don't give a damn about whether we have a vibrant multiracial society or whether our head of state is called president or queen or Lord High Poohbah. They want (and get) mass migration to give them bigger captive domestic markets, massive increases in real estate prices, and a big pool of unemployed to keep their work force cheap and cowed, unable to object to casualisation, unpaid overtime or unsafe working conditions. 16% of the working age population is primarily dependent on welfare as opposed to 3% in the 1960s, and 30% of Australians are over-qualified for their jobs according to a new paper by Ingrid Linsley to be published in the Journal of Labour Economics. The punters are systematicallly lied to. In international comparisons (as in the CIA World Fact Book) there is no evidence of any per capita economic benefit from population growth. Nor is there a military benefit, as we can see from looking at the Israelis and their vastly more numerous Arab neighbours.

Shut off the oversupply of labour and you shut off the conflict.

Where does the quest for tolerance and understanding of different cultures come from?

Multiculturalism is in vogue in every single western country, so how exactly does it define Australia? Sourcing immigrants from all over the world is an idea borrowed (COPIED?) from the US. Every western nation is trying to mimic the US and outdo each other in the tolerance for diversity stakes.

Historically, Europeans have always delighted in relocating people around the planet. You know, Indians to Fiji, Africans to the US, Indians to South Africa, Malaysians to South Africa, Africans to South America. Hell, in 18th century Britain they even had human zoos for the upper classes to admire. Aboriginals were an object of fascination, Rainier!

But we have progressed now. We live in multicultural societies, among the living exotic specimens. FYI, I refuse to take my frustration out on ethnic minorites. They are simply pawns in a bizarre, (cruel?) mindgame by Barns and Co. Might I suggest to the protesters in Cronulla to hunt down the journalists, politicians and academics who despise them so much.

What a sad view of Australia. Racist backwater, pigsty etc. At first read this article seems about as balanced as the extremist posts I seem to spend to much time arguing against lately.

Yes we have racism in this country but there seems to be little evidence that most people are actively racist. As Kay pointed out on another thread some may hold private views that they keep at home. Others are more out there with it but I think that they are a small minority. Most of the overt racism I have seen seems to be in response to provocation of some sort or another, that does not make it correct but hardly a overriding Australian characteristic. Even in the threads filling the forum only a few posters are admitting to racist beliefs, most do seem to be opposed to the muslim faith not so much the race of the people involved. A simple issue of beliefs about the ability of muslims to integrate into our society. I think I have made my views on that fairly clear.

The world has changed since the times of Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating. Yes Howard does things differently and "may" have played on some of the concerns people hold about what is going on in the world but he and his government have also moved us forward in our relationships with many of our neighbours (some rough spots along the way). We are trying to find a place in an area which is suspicious of our anglo majority and our preference for some principles which are more strongly grounded in our culture than they are in our neighbours cultures. No easy task for any involved.

When parts of Asia were ravaged last boxing day this country was in a position to provide massive financial aid to those neighbours, both government and private giving.

Yes we have some issues to deal with, racist backwater no way.

R0bert

RObert wrote:"Yes we have some issues to deal with, racist backwater no way".

Good one RObert ! Now I'd be interested to know where you think racism does exist and how we should deal with these as issues?

++ Anyone else, please feel free to discuss this one with me too

what are you going to do rainier? force every single australian to think the way you do? you keep talking about this phantom 'racism' that we have to fight, but if we really look at it, we see that any 'racism' held by an aussie is a deeply personal thing that for the most part they keep to themselves..

if you have a way of making people who have thought a certain way all their lives change their minds, we'd all love to hear it.. but firing back rhetorical questions to reasonable posts or asking for discussion about a non-topic is useless..

using the word 'balanced' might make you think you sound fair, but for the most part, it makes you sound like an apologist.

Well Rainier, I’d rather we stopped even using the words “race”, “racist”, and “racism”. They seem to me to denote highly ambiguous concepts which are probably unfounded. But I’m prepared to go down that track in a rational discussion, provided we can first come to some agreement on what those key-words mean and provide persuasive evidence of their validity.

Start with “race”. My impression is that in past centuries it had a more or less biological meaning – the human race, the African race, the British race, the Aryan race… Are we talking about some sort of inherited typology based on anatomical and physiological traits? Or is the defining criterion something far more simple, like skin colour?

Some posters seem to be using “race” to refer to a group sharing a set of common beliefs, traditions, language and so on. This implies that “race”= “culture”.

Or perhaps they believe that the biology determines the culture.

Let’s settle that one before we go on to “racism” and “racist”.