Good on ya mate.
You have pointed the finger at what is wrong with debate in Australia.
It has no basis in fact.
Australian tourists to Bali always return in amasment with comments such as."The people are nice and they love Australians."
The meaning is two fold.Firstly, the people that obviously do not share the "Australian value of ,Mateship,somehow manage to survive;and that means 200million on land much smaller than AUSTRALIA.How they do it without the Australian Value of Mateship is amazing.
The second thing is that they actually like Australian's.
I didn't think anyone outside Australia liked them?
Keep writing English Dr Hage,and you may qualify to be a Real Aussie one day,maybe in four years and one day.

Good question Narcissist, what are Australian values?
Are they reflected in our foreign policy?
Are they reflected in the actions of our allies?
Are they reflected in our environmental record?
Are they reflected inour treatment of refugees?
Are they reflected in the behaviour of our leaders?

The bigger question from this article is how can a senior academic at an Australian University make the following statement:

Assimilationists are the real exclusionists of Australian history. They actually stop people from assimilating.

Can someone explain what this means. I would be most appreciative. Perhaps Dr Hage should learn what an oxymoron is.

Good questions peace

Good question Narcissist, what are Australian values?
Are they reflected in our foreign policy? Great generosity shown by Aussie Government to East Timor, at the time of Tsunami and also by ridding Iraq of its murderous dictator. Many of the other nations did not share the same concerns as the Aussies. I think we stack up pretty well.
Are they reflected in the actions of our allies? Generally yes. I would much rather live in the US than Iran or Saudi Arabia. MAtched against the toothless European countries I think our main ally looks pretty good.
Are they reflected in our environmental record? Leave that to the propaganda experts.
Are they reflected in our treatment of refugees? We treat genuine refugees pretty well I thought. We probably are not quite as kind to illegal queue jumpers
Are they reflected in the behaviour of our leaders? Mark Latham no. Joh Howard yes.

The anecdote of Dr Hage's successful integration into Australia, does not prove the 'Assimilationists' wrong any more than the unsuccessful integration of Bilal Skaf is proof they are right.

As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between. Some cultural groups have integrated very successfully and are now important contributors to the fabric of modern Australia. Some have integrated less successfully. Unfortunately, some ethnic groups are very much over represented in our crime statistics. These are matters deserving and warranting legitimate discussion in a democracy.

Dr Hage makes some valid points, but dismissing all Australians who dare to have reservations as 'nasty, malicious, assimilationists' intellectually dishonest, and stifles reasoned debate.

Beautiful article Dr Hage. So true.

The assimilationists can only be assimilationists for as long as they can point at someone and accuse them of not being sufficiently assimilated.

I wonder what makes them all so insecure that they need to do this?

Ghassan, Ghassan, Ghassan. Oi, oi, oi.