FrankGol says: "My answer is first that 'Western values' is a meaningless term, and second that no values are universally accepted although I wish a few were were. See my earlier post for a tentative list."

"Precisely which values are 'Western'? For example do you mean capitalist values or socialistic ones or nihilistic ones? In 'Western' nations I witness cheating, geed, lying and dishonesty. Are these what you mean?"

Multiculturalists often dismiss the significance of Western civilisation, enthusiastically prepared to throw Western culture and traditions out the window. The Western world's Judeo-Christian-derived ethical and moral values, rule of law, customs and history, social structures and political traditions are seen as not only irrelevant, but are viewed with utter disdain by some multiculturalists. However, I must admit that FrankGol is the first person I've ever encountered who downright denies the existence of Western civilisation period. Congratulations on setting a new record for deconstructionist lunacy.

FrankGol says: "I want to know what you mean by 'mainstream Australia' and 'its values, culture, and heritage'. Are these the things that John Howard trots out every now and then when he wants to distract voters?

"Mainstream Australia" is first and foremost a Western society. In terms of cultural specifics, Australia undoubtedly has a predominant Anglo-Celtic culture, with a commixture of other ethnic groups, the majority of which share a Western background and, therefore, are not particulary dissimilar to the dominant culture.

The experience of the early settlers in this unique land and the hardships they endured to build the modern nation-state of Australia forged this country's distinct culture and national identity. Simply acknowledging Australia's mainly *shock horror* Anglo-Celtic heritage and the large role it played in shaping the nation's overarching culture does not constitute a longing for British colonial culture. I am, of course, acutely aware that multiculturalists are usually unfazed by petty annoyances like reality, but in terms of demographics, the vast majority of Australians still identify with the European, primarily Anglo-Celtic, culture of Australia. Sadly,"Anglo-Celtic" has become a pejorative, largely due to the efforts of self-abasing cultural cringers.

FrankGol says: "For every Gunnar K. A. Njalsson and Paul Scheffer (who?)"

Perhaps you should look beyond your insular suburban existence and take notice what's happening in the Netherlands at the moment as a result of multiculturalism. The Dutch experience should serve as a clear warning for other Western countries to abrogate this pernicious policy before it completely undermines social cohesion and national identity. Not that I expect self-styled cultural elites advocating the balkanisation of Australia to really take much notice. Such people tend to be slow learners, fervently believing their ideology can work here just as it fails everywhere else.

Davo

You, like David_BOAZ, say: "Australian culture can definitley be defined: the english language, capitalism, hard yakka, sport, the urban block in combination with a million other things."

So if that's right, what's the difference between Australia and New Zealand, England, Canada, South Africa, and the USA? BOAZy (suffixing surnames is a very Australian custom?) threw in handshaking which yvonne effectively sabotaged with the reminder that for Australian women it's only about 25 years old as a custom. BOAZy has me tagged as a Frenchman because it's my custom to hug and kiss my friends rather than shake hands. But my family has been in Austrlia since the early 1800s.

And we had 'best and FAIRest' from BOAZy too; but fairness is hardly a quality Australians own as a monopoly. Indeed, if you look at recent studies of poverty in Australia or Indigenous death rates, you'd hardly want to be trumpeting fairness as a 'fair dinkum' Australian value.

So it's difficult to see how, if the nature of Australian culture is so elusive, you can assert that: "Multiculturalism is designed to destabilise Australian culture for ideological purposes". Furthermore, what do you mean by 'is designed to'? Who designed it that way? What was their 'ideological purpose'? These sorts of cliched myths about Australian culture and core values, with Multiculturalism as the work of the devil, clutter OLO and people keep trotting them out.

I'll chance my arm and say that Australian values and culture are under continuing development and negotiation, rather than being a fixture to be pinned down on a museum display case. And the principal reason for that is that we are a democracy where these matters are debated in an on-going way and are never finally resolved. I think that's a situation to be proud of rather than to be afraid of, or upset about.

I think multiculturalism makes some people feel insecure, because they think it means having different cultures competing against each other. Multiculturalism is suppose to be something that naturally brings people together. So to have it all in the media made some Australians believe that it was being sold to them. But Australians who are open minded don't make a big issue with people from different backgrounds.

Frankgol - you are right, and I agree, but I also see Oligarch's point insofar as western traditions do exist, though they are perhaps not particularly country specific.

There are fundamentally western nations - those you listed - and they share a set of shared ideals, while there are certain wrinkles, such as the US's embrace of the death penalty in contrast to other western nations.

But it is undeniable that western culture is always evolving and in a state of change. The key is to ensure the tenets that have made western society a pleasant (and I hesitate to use that butchered word, but I suppose Freedom is the right one) and free society remain in place.

I think one of the key differences between the right and the left at present, is that while both see threats to the western way of life, the left see the bigger threat as coming from the abuse of power in our own government, while the right see the external threat as being of greater import, while the internal threat is laxity - be it cultural or institutional.

Amel,

Australia has always had a mix or nationalities and races since european claim this however, did not make Australia a multicultural soceity. This land before and after federation was of white man's law. Before this was black man's law. There was no such thing as pick and choose your law depending on what part of this planet you are from.

As for the person who called me a racist, you need to see the white flight as people flee Sydney to escape the ever increasing rate of racial hate crimes against them, committed by Arabs and Asian's. Also include the increasing rate of Asian owned shops refusing to serve white Australian's.

That does not make me racist. It makes them racist and those who except it as pathetic weak fools.