It takes years for a melting pot to achieve a new identity. Even then it does not produce a single strain. In Britain the Scots, the Cornish, the Midlanders the upper classes the working classes all have different cultures and not always the same set of values. And Britain is one of the greatest of the ancient melting pots. (Celts Romans Anglo-Saxons Danes Normans etc.)

To my mind the biggest gain from multiculturalism is to ensure the melting pot is made richer by giving the smaller varied groups a higher profile and therefore making sure some valuable ingredients are not left out.

If multiculturalism is indeed dead then our children have lost a potential richness in their lives.

Logic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England

By AD43, Roman conquest of Britain begins< first sign of this “greatest of the ancient melting pots”

For the next few hundred years, the Kingdom of England would fall in and out of power between several West-Saxon and Danish kings. For over half a century, the unified Kingdom of England became part of a vast Danish empire under Cnut, before regaining independence for a short period under the restored West-Saxon lineage of Edward the Confessor. < I wonder how they fell in and out of power?

im guessing these times where full of peace and stability(wink).

The Norman conquest of England was the conquest of the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy), in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings and the subsequent Norman control of England. < more of this “Great melting pot”

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms tended to coalesce(definition-come together or form a whole) by means of warfare. < theirs your answer! That’s the fact! And the only way history will not repeat itself, is if we become a police state!

Yet you make the statement “And Britain is one of the greatest of the ancient melting pots. (Celts Romans Anglo-Saxons Danes Normans etc". My god, the “greatest melting pot” lead directly to mass death, social upheaval, poverty ( due to displacement etc.)

“If multiculturalism is indeed dead then our children have lost a potential richness in their lives.”
You tell me of the richness that those children "who were in that great melting pot" gained from multiculturalism? And tell me of what they lost?

obviously

The English language was one great product of the British melting pot and so were Shakespeare Dickens, Coleridge, Conrads. Pinter et al.

I had the experience of leaving Australia in 1965 and not returning until 1974.

On my return I noticed the difference immediately. Young Australians were more vibrant more expressive than when I left. People were much better dressed, the arts flourished in a way that had not happened before. The country was no longer a boring English colony, the cities were lively even on Sunday. Food was at last edible. (My 19th century Jewish backround had retained a sense of enjoyment of food).

In the intervening years Melbourne has become so much more exciting like a European or Asian city. We now see ourselves as Australians not as a backwater of Mother England. (Perhaps our Prime Minister has missed out on all of this). I could never countenence a return to the bad old days of Anglo-Saxon monotonous mono culture..

Braindrain,

If the way you interpreted my post is any insight into your character, then you have chosen the correct name to post with.

How dare you call me a racist? Go over my post, and come back with anything in it that was racist.

All you people are is a slogan, if one doesn't agree with your views, they must be a redneck. I'm the son of a migrant too, although my father embraced this place wholeheartedly.

If you thought my comments about western values being superior were racist,your more intellelectually challenged than I thought.

Do you honestly think you could show that western values aren't superior to those of cultures that use Sharia, caste systems, and other backward practices.

I look forward to your response, but be serious if you do.

You are so weak, you try to say your parents came here to make money, as though that's all you want from this place. For a start, that is incredibly rude, and probably explains why non-western migrants hardly ever join the fire brigade, police, and all those vocations that show they consider this their home.

Anglo's are the glue holding this place together mate. If it wasn't for people with western values, this place would be like the dumps you left.

Don't forget that.

Bennie - you may have the same name as I, but your intellectual capacity obviously isn't the same.

How do you get, from my post, that I think white people are superior to others? Go on, go back over it and show me where I said that, you leftists make me sick.

When you can't win the argument you get all spiteful and make things up.

I said western culture is superior, which is much different. I don't care if all Australians are yellow in a hundred years time, as long as they all share the values westerners share, of equality for all (not just those in the "tribe"), of democracy, freedom, yes, all those things George Bush says that make you self-hating leftists cringe.

Do you think you could show me that the values of Islamic culture say, or Asian culture, is superior to western values, which are essentially human, universal values?

Try yourself to death, you can never do it.

People are flocking here to live under a system with those values, from all over the world, especially Muslim nations.

To think western values aren't superior means you are a bigot, as you don't believe that non-westerners should live under values of equality, democracy.

Yet you call me a racist! Go and cry, your argument is destroyed!

"...Must understand that all non-western European cultures have to offer is their food, ..., only prepared according to western cultural standards

The morality of non-western cultures is backward

Then again, migrants agree that western values are superior since they flock here in the millions

Multiculturalism is why feminists never attack Muslim beliefs, or why Greens Senator Brown can hang out with the redneck Keysar Trad

MULTICULTURALSM PROTECTS REDNECK CULTURES FROM LEGITIMATE CRITICISM!

The problem is, those like the writer can't stand the idea that almost all of the racism in our world today, and in Australia, is perpetrated by non-whites

I wonder what the leftist herd tell themselves

All we want is for them to leave their racist ethnic hatreds back in the cesspits they left.
"

Redneck Racist Benjamin's quotes above all show him for the arrogant, blind, far right, raving white supremacist he truly is. Although to be honest he seems to equate all 'non-westerners' as Muslim extremists and is incapable of understanding (or perhaps of merely showing that he understands) that the world and multiculturalism is about much more than current history and those who follow the Islam religion.

"All you people are is a slogan".

And just exactly which 'people' am I, Red? ( and the slogan is....?)

"Do you honestly think you could show that western values aren't superior to those of cultures that use Sharia, caste systems, and other backward practices."

I honestly believe you to be incapable of understanding idea i have raised and that no-one will ever convince you of just why you are so very wrong in much of what you say and why it's mostly a load of racist ethnicist crap unworthy of being dignified with an intelligent response, Red. I am certain you could regale me for hours on end with one-sided views of why you believe you are 'right', Whitey.

cont...