Tony,

Are my comments and opinions really any more typical of me than your opposing comments and opinions are typical of you? Pretty odd thing to say, old son. It says nothing about either of us. And you will have to explain to me how my disagreement with Hage proves him right! I don't agree with you on anything, but I've never thought you were silly. Now, I'm begining to wonder.

Kang,

I've never heard of you, so why would I be including you in my statements? How do you know I don't like gays, women or migrants? You know at lot about bikies and rednecks, too, I see. I don't suppose you run crystal ball correspondence classes, do you? I would be interested in signing up so that I, too, could have your great knowledge and insight into everything and everyone.

Of course, you could have been lurking and waiting to see how many people are of your opinion, and how many are not, before you took the plunge, and perhaps you made an arbitary judgement of me.

You should be happy, here. Many of the posters are losers who hate John Howard, blaming him for everything from haemmorrhoids to the actions of Islamic terrorists and AIDS in Africa. I, and a very few others, serve to put conservative opinions so that people like you can sneer at us and, apparently, make themselves feel good without actually having to give an opinion of their own or, come up with a counter argument. The PM has many faults, but here he is used as a punching bag by impotent and frustrated people who need someone to hate.

Sixth generation, white Australian, eh? You outdo me. I'm only a third generation Australian who couldn't possibly aspire to calling myself "Kang".

It sounds as though you are so 'tolerant and easygoing' that you won't mind when people without 'Australian values' finally take over and cut out tolerance. In the meantime,I will guarantee not to include you in 'the rest of us'. Believe me, I have no desire to be indentified with you.

What is missing in this debate is a clear distinction between the particularity of “customs” and the universality of “ethics”.

Australian assimilationists do NOT want people to adopt their “customs”, but just the “ethics” of humanity, principles that underpin the possibility of a critical democracy.

A core principle is that you care primarily for the whole, not just a part, for otherwise no part would exist in the first place if it were not for the power of the whole protecting and nurturing it. That is, we have not only rights upheld by the whole, but also duties and responsibilities to that whole.

To “conform” in this sense is not to become like others in the superficial sense of customs, but rather the substantive sense of ethical relations.

Why is there a profound lack of non-Anglo/European members in the army, police, fire brigade, ambulance – i.e. where you risk life and limb for the whole?

Not assimilating threatens the stability to the ethicality upholding the whole in principle, and so others have a legitimate basis for concern when communities grow insular. This concern is not itself a form of “racism”, but the very reaction to it (hence One Nation), for those whose interests concern not the whole but only their part identify primarily with a herd, a collective, a territory, rather than the universal "selfhood" that makes any community possible at all.

The new xenophobes all resort to their parents homelands for their “roots”, for the nature of Anglo identity has so much substance that it appears ghostly, threatening in its core as criticism itself, fairness itself, and thus change, transitoriness, the possibility of alienation.

“Multiculturalism” is way of appeasing the xenophobic tendencies of non-Anglos, shrouding them in an air of “underdog” or “victim”, and erecting barriers to fair criticism.

But nothing “is” unless it has been put to criticism, for it gains itself in the very process of being criticised!

Geez Ghassan

Great piece of writing as are your sentiments about Australian but I wonder exactly how close you are to your Aussie mates when the majority of them think John Howard is a great bloke and continue to vote for him. I think you've missed something.
For they don't think him 'mean spirited, cruel and uncaring towards those who don’t fit (his) cultural norms'. They don't think he wishes migrants ill will. They don't think he wants to hurt them. They agree with his calls to integrate, and they don't think he secretly works to do anything to them. And they agree with him that anyone who promptes assimilation isn't ugly

Dear Ghassan

I agree with your analysis of the Howard government's racist agenda, although, regrettably this gets them elected by a lot of Australians:

I feel very relaxed and comfortable reading this article because it makes a lot of sense, it is drawn from your own experience and the experience I have had of living in Australia for 35 years. The difference is that I came here with a Muslim Arab/Indian wife and our baby daughter from Britain.

But I also have several other 'identities', including a Germanic background and a Jewish grandmother. I have always been deeply suspicious of 'high identifier' patriots and nationalists, because they are simplistic in ‘constructing’ their ‘identities’ and usually unwilling to admit that their country's people ever did anything wrong in their historic past.

Australia belongs to the indigenous people, who also have a problem with the airbrushed version of history, which is promoted by the Howard government, who are busily gutting history departments at all our universities. Indigenous Australians have a lot of trouble 'assimilating' with people who refuse to accept them as they are.

I recently heard Philip Mendes explain that he had family members in Israel and had invested much energy into his support of his spiritual home. No doubt many Lebanese people feel like that. Lots of British people feel like that when they live in Australia.

I also know lots of people, who have lived in Australia for many years, yet speak a version of survival English or barely make themselves understood. The ‘discourse’ on ‘values’ is nothing short of insulting.

The Howard government cares little who they hurt. They are leading this country into a "Kristallnacht in slow motion", against Muslims and other minority groups – resulted in the Cronulla riots. Lets not forget the NSW and federal governments’ failure to prosecute Alan Jones for actual incitement to commit violent acts.

Nor can Kim Beazley be let off for his preposterous suggestion. I feel disgusted as he goes on digging a hole struggling to make this respectable – and identical to the Howard team.

Willy Bach
http://willybachpoeticthoughts.blogspot.com/

Nice article. Too humane for to-days world though!

We have to have confrontation and naming of an ‘other’,anyone different from our supposed unique values, values which within a nation seem to work.

Minor blips are corrected by the law, now twisted to seek terrorists whose presence if any, we have encouraged (how many of the many arrested headlined named terrorists of recent time have actually been convicted of terrorism. In Britain of 609 arrested June 2003 99 charged 15 convicted and most for criminalities uncovered in the process of arresting but not necessarily terrorist related.But yes they do exist.)

These values are put aside, when international strife arrives. International law, formed round similar values to those that are national are put aside. ( who other than are own moral concerns will police the world scene?)

What we have is a hyped up war with Governments wanting us to believe in a threat and to dislike the ‘other’ .

So you have GW Bush coining Islam-Fascists and copied by our treasurer.

You have a Prime minister always tip toeing never actually saying it is the Muslims, but rather a section of, but drawing attention to them . (Pape in Dying to Win notes that the main motive of suicide terrorists is recovery of their land from foreign influences. rather like G W Bush the torture in Iraq and Cuba about which Senator Hill Assured us the Government was not told, as being just a few bad apples!

What we have is equivalent to the juvenile game of seeing who can pee the furthest but with the sting that attention is concentrated on difference. Fear and hatred engendered.

Had the world gone after the terrorists (criminals however sincerely held their beliefs) by intelligence and policing instead of the emotionalised picture of evil and big stick, we might have made some friends. Had we addressed some of their problems instead of simple denial we might not have had an increased tendency for Islam to be used as excuse and reason. Nor the stupid waste of effort we see in proclaiming our righteousness.

Hey Ghassan - big fan of your work here! Great article.

Leigh - Your comments are troubling. Did it not occur to you that people choose to leave for employment reasons? Never mind the political turbulence caused by Israel.

I was born here but I want to visit Lebanon and possibly live there. Does that make me disloyal to my country? It's this attitude that sets us back to the middle ages - not Islamic ideology.

All this talk of values really irritates me. Values are essentially universal in nature. The ones you speak of are hardly unique to Australia. What is unique to Australia is something that can only be attained naturally - not enforced. Europeans don't understand us sometimes too - but that's what makes it beautiful. Diversity. I don't expect my foreign friends to get me entirely but I can spend hours talking with them about our differences. I don't expect them to buck up and change the minute they step foot into this country - wanting to be a citizen or not. Even the brits are seemingly different to us. If we enforce some kind of test on them what does that achieve? It's superficial and it's stupid. As Ghassan stated there is really only one motive behind all this talk.

Countries like Iran only have fundamental and conservative governments today because the British and the US put them in power. Regime change is the most successful political manoeuvre of the Imperialist powers and anyone who thinks these "values" are just inherent in countries in the middle east are severely mistaken and show signs of being uneducated.

Don't listen to the hype that they're so different from us. In the end the ones who are so different from easy going Australians are those fundamentalist Christians who plague the United States and who are heading our way. They are the ones preventing stem cell research and other progressive technologies from occuring.

And what exactly are we afraid of again?? Make believe stories about Jihad and terrorism and somehow the two being linked together. God help us all.