Multiculturalism in this country is dead as long as Kevin Andrews is immigration minister.

http://www.andrewsmustresign.com/

Hmmm…What a cock up….is it just incompetence or a bit of politicking?

You gotta feel a little sorry for Haneef. I’ve tried to gives Andrew’s the benefit of the doubt but this self confessed Christian of ‘repute’ is starting to stretch a things little far…and to think I’ve voted liberal for all these years...

The online conversation by Haneef, another piece of wonderful evidence, included an entreaty by Haneef's brother for him to leave his contact details with the British police before leaving Australia. Something Andrews omitted to tell us.
Andrews's latest line is that he is still in possession of wonderful secrets.

All a bit of a sneaky subterfuge. As the SMH put it, “The little Aussie flag clamped to his buttonhole told us this was no ordinary desperate minister, this was a loyal Australian, albeit one giving off a lot of double-talk.”

“Australia is a multicultural society, full stop.” – K.A. He’s also just a little wrong there too.. even without the full stop

Xoddam,

You are trying to define away the problem by denying the existence of some of the nasty aspects of certain cultures.

The hijab, Jihad (in the military sense), the inferior status of women, homophobia, antisemitism and an intolerance of apostasy are VERY MUCH part of contemporary Muslim culture. Many INDIVIDUAL Muslims do not subscribe to some or all of these views. But many do and, in a liberal democracy, that is their RIGHT.

I am not trying to impose my views or culture on anybody. I am not trying restrict anyone's right of free speech. If you believe, as the OFT-QUOTED hadith states:

'The Prophet said: "Judgment Day will come only when the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jew hides behind the tree and the stone, and the tree and the stone say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him' - except for the Gharqad tree."'*

Then by all means preach that.

BUT I am claiming my own right of free speech. That includes the right to point out what I consider rotten in various cultures. Most specifically I am not going to be deterred by some wacky ideology called multiculturalism that tries to pretend all cultures are equally good and compatible with liberal secular democracy.

I am also not going to pretend it's a good idea to allow people holding the views I've alluded to above to migrate here.


I do not accept Putnam's research uncritically. I accept it because it was:

-Rigorous

-Extensive enough to produce statistically reliable results

-Confirms the results of previous research

-Demonstrates the opposite of what the researcher was trying to prove.

Putnam's research raises issues that need to be addressed. I don't have answers but a good first step would be to abandon denial, trying to define the problem out of existence, pious hopes, trying to guilt people into behaving better and any other such cute stratagems and to focus on REALITY.

Banjo and others

The oppression of women, child brides, pedophilia, FGM, the caste system, hatred, cock fighting, etc are becoming illegal or disapproved of in MC Australia, as is old fashioned ocker bing drinking and that is as it should be. Intending immigrants should be warned of that before they arrive. I would like to see arrogance and contempt for other cultures also ended but that I am afraid is embedded in our WASP attitudes and will be difficult to weed out.

Often minorities do avoid intermarriage, how is that a problem. Sir John Monash married within the small Jewish community, did that make him less of an Australian? I can give you many more examples.

Logic,
You claimed that MC was about hanging onto the good things of ones culture. I still want to know what you think should be done about the bad things that come with some cultures. Oppression of women and cockfighting still occur despite knowledge of the illegality and FGM is illegal and increasing in the face of a huge education campaign. Obviously they want to hang onto these too.

You need to remove your rose coloured glasses and see the real world. Hey, these are Aussie girls that suffer FGM and you idealistic pro multiculturalists continue to ignore it and all the other baggage that comes with some cultures.

How about we only allow migrants in that have acceptable cultural things and we exclude those nationalities that have shown they cannot or will not abide by our laws and social standards. Fair enough?

logic - on this and other threads, your contributions are invariably level-headed, reasonable and intelligent.

You rock, mate. If only the rest of us (me included) approached these issues with your equanimity, we might actually get somewhere.

I suppose we all approach multiculturalism with perspectives and passions that are more or less immutable, so it strikes me that when this issue is discussed - online, MSM or academically - we are mostly wasting each other's time and energy.

When sentiments such as Tom's are expressed in this forum, they invariably attract ignorant, hateful and otherwise counterproductive commentary such as we see above. I'm as guilty as many of posting comments about multiculturalism that are less than conducive to reaching some kind of middle ground.

Is it not possible to discuss multiculturalism from a dispassionate, civil perspective that recognises the contemporary world, rather than from one that pines for a nostalgic and imaginary homogeneity?