Bit late Frank, About 35 years. Where was your rational argument when the response, to anyone who could see problems with MC, was that they were 'racist and xenophobic'? Amazing, its over, MC is history and now you come up with rational argument.

1. MC and immigration are two different things. Governments have grouped them together and we were told MC would help migrants settle in.

2. and 9. MC is law. It was imported from Canada by Grassby and we were told it was to be. He thought the ideology great and it was implimented by Whitlam and Frasser to get the 'ethnic vote'

3. MC is inflexable. There was no allowable alternative.

4.Australin culture is not fixed but MC was social engineering to change dramically our culture.

5. MC does threaten mainstream culture. Each time we accomodate another aspect of some foreign culture, we compromise our own culture. Ours is unique in the world, we cannot go to some foreign country and reserect it. Those promoting MC deliberately belittled our culture.

6. Words like 'racist and xenophobic' were used by pro MC advocates to stiffle argument and put anti MC advocates on the defencive.

7. Mc implies that Immigrants can carry on their lives exactly as they did in the 'old country'. Things like cock fighting,dog fighting, eating dog meat and FGM can be done as the Government turns a blind eye. But, you know, best to keep quiet about these things. Occasionally, there is an annual bust on cock fighting.

8. There has been reams of meaningless hyberhole about the benefits of MC.

10. In practice, MC divided people into various ethnic groups, each competing for some of the generous funds governments made available to promote the various ethnic programmes. There was little interaction, except on a hostile level, and even some ethnic groups did not qualify for grants.

Whatever good intentions Grassby and others may have had in relation to MC, it did not work out that way in practise.

35 years is long enough trial and it will be good to see MC finally buried.

In response to FrankGol,

"Multiculturalism is not a doctrine that simply ‘came along’ nor was it invented by people of ill-will; it is a product of democratically-elected governments of both persuasions responding to community debate about cohesion amid diversity."

Nor was communism invented by people of ill-will. Yet both communism and multiculturalism are failed utopian ideologies with a simplistic and overly optimistic view of human nature. Like "New Soviet Man" prior to the USSR fragmenting along ethno-national lines, advocates of "Multicultural Man" subscribe to the utopian fallacy that cultural, ethnic, and linguistic differences are irrelevant. "New Soviet Man" was somewhat less contradictory than "Multicultural Man" though, as according to the multiculturalists, we're supposed to "celebrate" our differences at the same time as it is "racist" and taboo to recognize that any insuperable differences between groups of people exist at all.

Moving on, the introduction of multiculturalism as an official policy here in Australia was hardly democratic. Opinion polls at the time showed that some 90 per cent of Australians were opposed to its introduction. Studies by academics, such as Katharine Betts and Mark Lopez, on how multiculturalism came to be adopted as public policy in Australia reveal that official multiculturalism was pushed by a small group of self-appointed intellectual elites, people who "could and did meet in one room." The public was never consulted, let alone convinced.

FrankGol: "‘Australian culture’ and ‘national identity’ are not eternal products to be pickled and preserved, nor are they ‘under threat’; they are social constructs which intelligent Australians constantly negotiate, add to and progressively refine."

Culture and national identity are forged by a common national memory of events, history and traditions. Yet, multiculturalism has denied the existence of a common Australian culture and national identity. Moreover, it has disassociated Australia from its Western civilizational heritage. It has become a pernicious exercise in social engineering, divesting Australians of their "shameful" European inheritance by promoting redemptive infusions from disparate non-Western cultures.

Like Banjo, I fail to see how top-down social engineering can be considered "progressive" refinement.

FrankGol: "Multiculturalism does not threaten 'mainstream culture' which, by definition, is dominant anyway."

Somehow, you don't seem to look ahead to the time when those identifying with the Western culture and traditions that most of us would call Australian are merely another group within a disjointed ethno-cultural hodgepodge. If the current multiculturalism-high immigration paradigm continues, there is a real possibility that Australia will be left without an ethno-cultural majority. Only an authoritarian state could survive such a massive, Balkanizing demographic transformation of that magnitude.

FrankGol: "Words like ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobe’ do not stifle rational debate; but the actualities of racism and xenophobia are dangerous."

Kindly drop the tired old sanctimonious routine. The mere expression of opposition to multiculturalism in my first post was enough for you to scurrilously imply that I harboured racial supremacist attitudes. Celebrate diversity at all cost, just not diversity of opinion, right Frank?

Speaking of real, not imagined, instances of racism and xenophobia, why aren't you clamoring to condemn racism among some of our migrant communities? Try walking through some of the ethnic ghettos in Australia’s capital cities; the mistrust and animosity displayed by many of our multicultural masses toward the rest of Australia is palpable. Do you consider this to be racism or simply ethnocentrism? More importantly, do you consider ethnocentrism, the norm among non-Westerners, to be itself a manifestation of racism?

Aqvarivs: “Multiculturalism…pits cultures, races and religions against each other for recognition and social power.” There it is again - that magic reified multiculturalism. I repeat: It’s people, not words, that create and enact competition for power. Moreover, culture, race and religion are minor characters in the struggle for power in Australia compared with economic interests.

Banjo: I promote multiculturalism and have never belittled ‘our’ culture. What’s the evidence that multiculturalism has ‘compromised’, ‘belittled’ or ‘dramatically changed’ ‘our’ culture?

If cock fighting, dog fighting, eating dog meat and FGM are done with tacit Government approval, then the Government should be challenged or changed. These practices are illegal whether the policy is multiculturalism or not. If barbarisms occur in our democracy, we don't abolish democracy.

Oligarch: An irrelevant false analogies between communism and multiculturalism. Communism is a total system of government whereas multiculturalism is a social policy set in a democracy.

I won’t debate straw men like: “multiculturalism has denied the existence of a common Australian culture and national identity.” To claim that multiculturalism “has disassociated Australia from its Western civilizational heritage” is just verbal play-acting. School curricula look pretty much the same today as when I went to school decades ago. TV, radio and newspapers are pretty much unchanged (except for their American influences).

You are presenting a highly selective view of Australian history, contemporary life and future. To assert that “Only an authoritarian state could survive such a massive, Balkanizing demographic transformation of that magnitude” is scaremongering.

I can celebrate diversity, but I would never do it “at all costs”. I strenuously oppose illegal acts allegedly done under the spurious claim that multiculturalism allows them.

As for racism I do clamour to condemn it wherever it occurs. And I regularly walk through Footscray and Richmond without feeling mistrust or animosity. I treat people as decent humans no matter what their ethnic heritage. Your experience has been sadly different, it seems.

As for diversity of opinion, I happen to think some opinions are more rational and better argued than others

FrankGol, it is people and words. Especially when those people are spouting words bound up in social political policy. Competing cultures, competing ethnicity, competing religions as whole cards for culture and or race in terms of social recognition, empowerment, and government monies perpetuates a divisive social construct not a egalitarian social construct. A egalitarian model would have all cultures, ethnicities, races, and religions under one nation with no culture, ethnicity, race or religion given any notice as per social policy. Being comprised of diverse cultures is of no issue. Making culture an issue of social policy is of issue for it has proven an ill conceived political and social construct. Some of us are able to see the distinctions between having a country made up of many different cultures and a political social policy that directs that society by cultural reference.

FrankGol,
I won't debate the MC issue any further as the matter is over, kuput, finished, dead. Both major political have finally woken up to the fact that MC is divisive and they both have dumped it in favour of integration. I just hope that some of the money that used to go to MC is used to promote a closer community.

As I said before, what ever good intentions the instigators had, it did not work out in practice. Hey, I realize that it was not the likes of me that brought about the demise of MC, but the actions of various ethnic groups themselves.

I have no doubt that you will get over it and come to realize that we are better off. I certainly look forward to the future with a far more cohesive society.