Ian
Excellent post -you make some good points.

All,
There is another dimension, and I wonder how people feel about it?
The idea that children can only be adapted out to parents who share the same cultural background.Hence you have children of Aboriginal descent (in many cases mixed) being placed with Aboriginal parents-so they ‘keep their culture'.

It seems akin to the idea prevalent in places like Malaysia that all children are innately "Islamic".

But I’d be interested to hear what people think.

Adopted (not adapted) apologies.
and it might be an idea to add "foster" in front of parents (damn!)

Horus,

It seems to me that the kind of thinking you refer to is based on the idea that children are better off if they grow up in a culture held by people who look more or less like them. I'm not sure to what extent that is true. A child does not have a culture when it is born.

On a lighter note, I find it amusing that anyone could think that children are innately "Islamic". Given that "Islam" means "submission", that would suggest that all children are innately submissive, and my experience tells me otherwise!

Hi there Ian...
Thank you for your comments apropos Enoch Powell MP. An interesting distinction, culture v race? Your words and thoughts are most enlightening, as I always relish discussion of an issue, that is argued purely from an academic position. However, to my simple reasoning, there is absolutely no delineation between culture and race, when argued from a social behaviour (public order) point of view. Grab yourself a blue suit, and undertake a 2300-0700 shift at the Bankstown patrol,on any night of the week, and see how well these individuals assimilate, into our good 'ol 'Aussie' culture. It should be noted herein, that most of these gentle misunderstood folk, were born here. But most unequivocally pursue, a hardline Lebanonese culture. With respect Ian, this issue will never be solved or a solution advanced, if we continue to attempt to accommodate the difficulties, purely from an academic perspective.

Hi, o sung wu,
I think we are looking at the same issue from different directions. From my more 'academic' perspective, I was attempting to answer the question "How can we manage immigration in the future so as to avoid creating further ghetto problems?" From your very pragmatic '2300-0700 shift' perspective, I think your question is closer to "How can we deal with the ghetto problems that poorly managed immigration has already created?"

I think we need to look at the two things at the same time. If a certain anti-social behaviour is related to elements from a specific ethnic community, then we should not be afraid to say so. On the other hand, we should also be wary of linking such behaviour to that ethnic group as a whole: that would surely make assimilation more difficult.

Assimilation certainly seems to have failed in certain cases, but that does not mean that it is impossible. The fact that some people from a given ethnic group have failed to assimilated in the past does not mean that others from that same ethnic group could not assimilate in the future.

I confess that I have no practical experience of how to deal with the problems that we already have, so I will have to leave that to those, such as yourself, who know what they are talking about.

Good evening to you Ian...
Thank you for your excellent response to my little piece. You're probably right in your general summation with respect to proper assimilation - thus avoiding another 'ghetto' situation, as evidenced in Bankstown and environs. Though, I'm not so sure Ian. I now think it's a little late. This 'tribalism' label, often used to illustrate these ethnic enclaves, is so entrenched in our society, that perhaps it's here to stay, indefinitely. There are so many areas now existing in Sydney, that are considered to be 'no-go' situations. Further,I'm of the view that the prospect of broad assimilation, as you have quite rightly suggested, is no longer a reality. I acknowledge, our political leaders would no doubt, vehemently deny that these enclaves even exist. Sadly Ian, they do, and I reckon they're burgeoning and proliferating exponentially. To me, multiculturalism has essentially failed. I really don't know why. Maybe too much too soon? Introducing reasonably tough legislation, 'forcing' folk to accommodate the vagaries of this alien behaviour and culture, might go some way to explaining the resistance from certain sections of the Aussie rank an' file?