Now you see this proves my point...

"I don’t think multiculturalism works because some people don’t tend to want to blend or integrate into Australia, they just create little replica’s of their own country and it alienates and divides people and causes hostility. "

Jolanda, like many, doesn't have a clue about what Multiculti is.
It is not Assimilation or integration.
You don't have to blend anything.
Yes they create their own enclaves, and it alienates, divides and causes hostility. So much for social cohesion and strong society.
A housed divided upon itself can never stand.

The cracks in the Multicultural policy have been getting bigger for years. Only the tolerance and patience of the "Australian" society has allowed the experiment to last as long as it has without too much upheaval. Tolerance doesn't mean acceptance... and is hardly something to base a society on.

We are now seeing both that tolerance and patience running out. Just like it did at Cronulla... you can put up with abuse for only so long then you must take a stand.

This writer do not care,about this useless debate,about multi/pombackground bulldust,the only culture this country has that this writer thinks is real,is that of the original inhabitants,as for the so called,Beer/suntan/footy/slang culture,mate that is just not culture

T800. I guess it is how you interpret multiculturalism that determines how you see it. I had always believed that it meant that in Australia you could practice your culture and ways as Australia is diverse and accepting and tolerating of difference. This is what people coming here were told so you really can’t blame them for thinking that there was no expectation that they integrate or assimilate, they were in essence lied to.

My parents came from Spain nearly 40 years ago and totally embraced the Australian culture and ways and still today my mother is forever grateful for what Australia provided for her family and for the opportunities that she has had.

CULTURAL IMPERIALISM, RACISM and SOCIAL IDENTITY.

Its a funny thing about ‘people’......they obtain their self awareness from the group they grew up with. All the cues.. when to do or not do something,... what to say, when to say it.
What we do when babies are born, people are married, get sick...die...It’s called ‘culture’.

One such striking cultural value of Australians is the award for ‘Best and FAIREST’ in footy.
I’ve just chatted with some Americans...and the idea is quite foreign to them. They are only familiar with the idea of ‘winning’ where the referee keeps things ‘fair’.

The China Inland Mission began with an English Doctor going to China to bring the Gospel of Salvation to them. They aimed to establish ‘Chinese’ churches, run by and supported by and grown by CHINESE.

James Hudson Taylor (CIM founder) DRESSED in Chinese clothes. He GREW a pigtail. He IDENTIFIED with the local cutlure. He did NOT try to give birth to a little chunk of Christian Cultural England in China. During the first decades of the work, they buried more of their own children than they saw converts. Today there are tens of millions of Christians in China.

The British government and colonial forces took a different approach. They tried to bring ‘England’ to China.

The Boxer rebellion in China was against “Foreign Devils” and their cultural and economic imperialism.
The Lambing Flat rebellion in Australia was against ‘Chinese devils’ and their opium, language and culture.

Culture and identity are important to people. Failure to understand this, and to act inappropriately is to repeat the same mistakes which CAUSED both the Boxer and the Lambing flat rebellions.

Agnes. “Australians did not exist in LAW” ? I’ll share you a secret..they existed in their minds and hearts, which is where it COUNTS. Was that little sentence an exercise in cultural genocide? Because it sounded like you don’t want to admit there is such a thing as ‘Australian’ consciousness.

Are you going to bring up ‘Chinese’ Australians or.. ‘Australians’ of Chinese ancestry ? Its an important point and I hope you answer it.

David

It was evident from Ms Tay's article. She'll raise Australians...open-minded ones.

Jolanda wrote:

T800. I guess it is how you interpret multiculturalism that determines how you see it. I had always believed that it meant that in Australia you could practice your culture..

Jolanda, in Australia it is a little bit more than that, and the same time it isn't really multiculturalism.

Australian governments have set up 'Multicultural Resource Centres', at taxpayer expense, to enable people to practice their cultures. They have funded other projects and initiatives, seldom giving them the label of grants for cultural reasons, but have hidden some of these in, for instance, some of the precursor programs to the work for the dole programs. Schools that inculcate values other than the host culture's values are also funded.

The government has resisted, however, the implementation of other changes that would bring about true multiculturalism.

India, for instance, has a much more pervasive version of multiculturalism, in that different cultural groups are subject to different laws. Even Canada has a different basis of law, based on Continental law rather than common law in Quebec. Surprisingly, Louisiana, USA, has a similar, Continental, system, rather than the system based on common law used through the rest of the USA.

There are pressures for sharia law for people of Islamic culture, and similar laws for people of Hindu background, particularly in the area of family law. This hasn't stopped Islamic or Australian Aboriginal people from defying laws against marriage under the age of 18, it is just that no one has ever been prosecuted from those cultures for breaking those laws.

Your parents' culture, originating in Spain, is not so different to the host culture. They would have found churches that they could worship in, and the Spanish Civil War is evidence of the struggle to have Spain become a democratic country back in the late 1930s. Whilst the details of what you would describe as culture are different to the host culture, the basis is the same: respect for equality under the law, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the individual as master or mistress of their own mind.