Thanks Eva.
I want to focus on a single assertion in your contribution whose significance I suspect you haven't yet pondered.
You wrote: "The yobbos on both sides do not represent their self-identified group origins, ...".
This is the tip of a very large iceberg - a very significant deficiency in our alleged democratic system.
Minority groups are excluded from representation in our representative institutions. Even the 4.5% quota in the NSW Legislative Council is far too high to allow almost all minority groups any chance of representation. In other words, minority groups have no voice in our political system.
Does this matter? In a democratic society it would matter very much. "The people" is comprised of individuals who identify themselves which a wide range of minority groups. If minority groups are excluded from representation, so are "the people".
If we want minority groups to exercise mutual respect - and most people would want that - shouldn't our nation show the way by demonstrating respect for all minority groups? By excluding minority groups from representation in our representative institutions, our nation demonstrates contempt for all minority groups [except for the powerful and wealthy].
This fundamental issue isn't even on our national radar screen. Why?

My question to you is: "Did you and your colleagues (Prof Jerzy Zubrzycki et al) have any ideas or plans when you embarked on this lunacy? How can we sue you for loss of quality of life?"

Posted by Sage, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 10:38:39 PM
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Sage,

Agreed re Eva Cox-her thoughts processes have not changed since the Women & Health Conference (ACT) over 30+ years.

Add me re legal action -lowering of quality of life and never-ending problems that have/are costing a small fortune - people did predict this 30+ years.

Muslim with 1 wife/children and the wife's sisters (up to 4 wives allowed a Muslim man) and their children living on welfare in Oz - this can be verified. The Muslim man in Vic., Court whose "wife" & 10 (Oz born) children-welfare for 10 years-children possibly perpetuate the welfare pattern. Dad would have Legal Aid,many Australians can't despite paying Taxes etc.,

It is not only the Muslims, a Korean man (in OZ for 20years) said to me recently "The Chinese are everywhere in Sydney and take over whole suburbs inc. shops.." employed in large numbers in the Post Offices

Chinese know the best schools and move into the appropriate suburb (HK $), a prominent North Shore High School has Chinese students who charge $30 a week for protection, and also bring drugs into the school, a problem that has been perpetuated throughout the North Shore area.

"Charity begins at Home" a saying the Aboriginal people would be puzzling over given the welfare paid to escapees from foreign countries and the ensuing Social Workers, Police, Hospital, Remedial Education Facitilies oh, it just goes on and on!!

Sage, include the Politicians in your post - they approve the legislation - and never has the Australian population "Approved" this "Multiculturalism".

A rich & diverse society arising from "Multiculturalism" quite the opposite, maybe this has something to do with the "quality" of some of the immigrants? I have and still see no particular benefits.

Daggett has got it right. Overcrowding is one of the main contributing factors to civil unrest in Sydney.

While most of the debate, under many threads on this forum, concentrates on racial, ethnic and religious issues, there are two other huge factors seldom mentioned: overcrowding along with continuous ridiculously high immigration, mostly straight into the already overcrowded areas…. and resource stress.

The former is a huge issue. The latter is about to become a much bigger issue, not least with the peak oil crisis looming, something that I mention repeatedly on this forum.

All those who are worried about racial/ethnic/religious or any other tensions and civil strife had better get tuned into the world reality that the end of cheap fossil fuels will lead to, in the very near future, having already well and truly started.

If peak oil hits us really hard, we might just escape massive civil unrest and actually be drawn together. But if it hits reasonably gently, in haphazard steps which is most likely, it will lead to a massive escalation in civil strife, as inequalities become exacerbated, people lose their jobs, people can’t find food let alone afford it, etc.

Am I stating the bleeding obvious? I think so, but it seems that many people such as Eva Cox don’t see it that way.

Nice use of big, incomprehensible words, Sage. Inimicitious? Charientism? Did you swallow a dictionary for Christmas or something? Just a pity that despite the elitist words, your take on the matter at hand never rises above the simplistic. It has been said many times before, but here goes again: Australia has a necessary and valuable immigration policy that brings in mainly skilled migrants from all over the world, and they make a great contibution to the betterment of our society. The fact that a minority of the immigrants are criminals or behave anti-socially is not a reason to make a general condemnation of immigration from multi-national sources as Sage and others appear to do. The fact is, they are here, some of them are troublemakers, so what are we going to do about that?

Having said that, I agree with posts that viewed Eva's article as all rhetoric and no answers.

Identifying the right problem is crucial - otherwise we may invent "solutions" that have no bearing on the real problem.

When times are easy, people are more generous, when they are tough, then scapegoats must be found, differences between groups enlarged and magnified, and "the other' made into an homogenous whole. As Kipling said: "Even saints turn into sinners when they miss their customary dinners".

When the complexity of problems mounts, there will be a tendency in most to leap to the most simplest explanation - "its the Muslim's fault". What is devastating is when a few from the demonised group DO indeed behave in ways that confirms the stereotype - then it creates the justification for holding the predjudice and for some, erupting into (violent) retaliation. Evil is always seen in the other and not in ourselves, thus justifying any exaggerated response.