Rainer,

Engaging in personal abuse is fine by me. I live in South Sydney, am used to it. I don't do it myself, not a good look but I understand your reasons. Well I don't really. But never mind.

You don't seem to be very tolerant judging by your last post. You also don't seem to understand a POV common among many Australians like myself. I am concerned that you are teaching children to be honest. I have no problem whatever your personal view is but when people are exposing such intolerance to children it concerns me.

You almost justify the POV of the original thread author. Well not almost. You do.

Yes I tolerate other cultures but I do not patronise them. They are equal in the fact they are important to those within that culture but also are not normally important to those oustide it. Otherwise we would all be the same culture wouldn't we?. Everyone thinks their own culture is superior, it is normal. That is why they fight to save it.

As a child I was never even taught the term racist. Never taught the term multiculture. Never taught about differences. Very little history about anything. Not a major subject in primary, an elective in high school. So I left school not even realising that my little pappadum darling of the time was from some sort of strange and foreign world because no one lectured my about how he was different. He was just a boy with parents who cooked weird food to me.

I prefer the way I was taught. So much simpler when we were all Australians. Just back then we had very odd parents. Dutch friends parents walked around the house nude, Italian friends parents would make smelly food and kids laughed at my mum's attempt at baking but no one ever said Australians were so hideous as you make out. So we all got on without denigrating anyone, just everyone's weird parents.

Verdant, sorry to offend but for me it wasn't abuse - funny how defence of a point by lefties like me is turned into an attack on the precious sensibilities of those who espouse very intolerant views. A political correct conservative right position is ok it seems.

As I have said in another post, I have never really been comfortable with multiculturalism. Perhaps it is my age and upbringing or perhaps I see very real fractures in society when it becomes policy to multifacet something when we had problems enough prior to it.
The White Australia Policy has gone and good riddance. I was educated at a time when it was in its death throes and remember Italians, Aboriginals, Greeks etc in the school or playground and thought nothing of interacting. I rarely saw any ethnic based problems, just the normal problems kids had with kids.
It has taken the heavy hand of beaurocracy with Multiculturalism, perhaps to balance the devastating PR of The White Australia Policy, to elevate racism, tokenism and every other ism you care to mention. One of the things that bothers me is the racism debate and the term 'reverse racism' as if racism is, in effect, a monopoly held by Anglo-Australia.
No doubt the debate will rage on and achieve what all attempts at social engineering achieve. Polarise the camps to the point where the opposite is achieved. I hope I am wrong.

French society is good example of monoculturalism in a Western democracy and the Paris riots made Cronulla and its aftermath look like a child's tantrum. And while I am not familiar with the French education system, I would guess that the glorification of French history forms a part of it. And yet France is not immune to racial and social conflict. Nor are other monocultural societies. And if we look at monocultural societies which are reasonably stable, all I can say is that I'd rather live in multicultural Australia, warts and all, than somewhere like Singapore.

Kevin Donnelly says:

"The 1993 Australian Education Union's curriculum policy argued that children must be taught that they "are living in a multicultural and class-based society that is diverse and characterised by inequality and social conflict"."

What is wrong with that? It's a reflection of reality. Whatever the faults of the AEU, that statement is hard to refute.

Btw, I was in primary school in the Whitlam period and finished high school in Fraser's last year in office. Never was I taught that all cultural mores were morally equal. Anyhow, how much longer are Whitlam-haters like Donnelly going to blame the 1970s for social ills?

"I rarely saw any ethnic based problems, just the normal problems kids had with kids."

The thing is those greeks did. It all depends on your POV when your not at the end of it, it's easy to past it off as kids being kids.

When is the public going to see that it is not what you are taught at school that shapes the individual - Its how you are treated that makes the difference!.

Children are not being taught about inequity and unfairness – they are experiencing it.

Children learn by example.