Dear Ghassan

1/ You described yourself as an integrated, assimilated Aussie of Lebanese background.
2/ Then, you attack 'assimilationists' when in fact all they ask is for migrants to emulate you.

The focus of the passionate Assimilationists (like me) is those who do NOT share your view and attitude. It is reserved for those who would cordon off the Rockpools at Cronulla in the name of their culture(for their women) or those who regard themselves as inherently superior and hate western values.

So, on the one hand you demonstrated how easy it can be, and how unstressful assimilation/integration CAN be.. and then you attack those of us who are concerned about others who do NOT share your generous embracing approach !

Now.. I hate to point out the irony of this but your rant against assimilationists actually DEMONSTRATED the very thing you rail against, but in that case it is a shirt you have to wear yourself.

You seem to be of the view that the only kind of assimilationist is he/she who simply does NOT WANT the migrant to be here or come here.

For me, all I ask is the following:

Migrants of different ethnicities and religions are welcome, subject to their numbers being controlled such that they do not constitute a social,cultural or political threat to our prevailing equalibrium on each of those points.

Now this view of mine is exactly in the form of "do for others as you would have them do for you".

If I contemplate going to a foreign country and establishing an enclave of Assies, who then form a lobby group and seek to alter the cultural,social,political situation of that foreign country into the shape more amenable to OUR cultural background, we would (rightly) be given the short shift out of the place.

please (all) read this article and replace the word "Jews" with "Migrant" and you will find one of the most compelling, reasoned and irresistable arguments for my views expressed above.
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/stephensen/prs3.html
written by my new hero of 2 days.. Percy Stephenson (the website where it is found is irrelevant)

BOAZ,

From your link above (published in 1940):

“In the pre-War years, however—say, from 1933 to 1939—as the resentment of Jews throughout the world against Hitler’s attitude towards their co-racialists in Germany came to a climax, Australia, like other non-German countries, was flooded with Prosemitic propaganda, amounting in essence to a loud appeal for help, couched in urgent and dramatic terms—with exaggerated vilification of Hitler and equally-exaggerated eulogy of Jewry. A propaganda of this character necessarily became tendentious.”

With the benefit of hindsight, I’d say they had a point, wouldn’t you?

BOAZ, you are a fright. The last sentence of your link reads

"That remedy is that the Jewish Race should abolish itself, by becoming absorbed in the common stream of mankind. If this is impracticable—as must seem likely after 5,000 years of their aloofness—then we others, who are so strictly excluded from the Jewish community, have at least a reciprocal right to exclude them from ours."

If anyone is going to win a genocidal war, I think that there are more muslims than christians.

Is there anything to be gained by spewing difference, fear and hatred?

Davo - that Percy Stephenson piece was fine methinks - thankyou.

Donkey's years ago I well remember going into the houses of new Greek and Italian immigrants, as a young electronic serviceman. The clothing - the smell of unfamiliar food on the stove - the faltering English - the snotty urchins - it was alien and scary frankly.

- yet we have blended in two or three generations and the whole country is far richer for that. Who cares any more? It was nothing really. Nothing at all.

So maybe the thing that most defines "Australian-ness" is the idea that NO-ONE is special - no-one coming to this country has the right to prevent their children and grandchildren fully integrating into the general populace.

I remember that it was the immigrant kids and first generationalists who had it toughest of all - because they were stuck in the middle, all on their own - no-one to turn to. And I see it again in the youngsters of Middle Eastern immigrants. Give 'em time. Give 'em time.

They NEED to be anarchists.

Don't smother them, because if the ties that bind prove too strong, then Mullahs, Rabbis and Priests will rule the day. Those kids will be sentenced to the prison of someone else's prejudice.

- and that will surely be a case of arrested development.

Chris, with respect I don’t think the Stephensen piece is fine at all. In summary he’s saying that those silly Jews have brought anti-Semitism on themselves by saying unkind things about that nice Mr Hitler, and by being… you know being… well, just being. I’m not sure this is the strongest pro assimilationist argument, especially in 2006. If anything, the parallels with similar arguments today have a chilling resonance.

I don’t feel any particular need for a Nationalist Hero, but if I did, it wouldn’t be a guy who was interred in World War II for his pro Japanese and pro Nazi position. Yes, I know it was a bit more complex than that, and that Stephensen was a complex man. See:

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A120084b.htm

OK, I'll try to simplify if I can -

Take two groups - any two in proximity - and tell one group that it is "special".

The "special" group has no trouble whatsoever in believing that little revelation - who wouldnt?

The other group is set apart and united by the injustice of not being "special" too.

It works for Jew and Arabs, Serbs and Kosovars, Tutsi and Hutu - the list is almost endless.

Notice that I didn't include my tribe. That's because white anglo-saxon protestants are "special". Oh, we wouldn't do that - would we?

Would we?

Seems to me that that a kind of humility is called for - called "she'll be right". People who don't cultivate that special humilty sell their ethics and morality very, very cheaply.