Logic,
What do you do when some ethnic groups want to hang onto the bad things (in our eyes) that comes with their culture. Things like oppression of women, child brides, pedophillia, FGM, the caste system, hatred, arrogance and contempt for other cultures, cock fighting, etc. What does the idealistic MC love in do about those types of issues. It simply ignores them and pretends they don't exist. We live in a real world and they do exist.

David Palmer,
"Mr Calma has a point in that we all should show respect for each other's culture, religion and race".
Of course we should, in fact Australians have been, in the main, very understanding and tolerant in this regard, but some ethnic groups are not. See reply to Logic above. Some ethnic groups are racist as shown in their hatred for others and in not allowing their children to intermarry.

I agree that these are tough issues and they have to be addressed.

yvonne,

Sorry to burst YOUR bubble, but your response to Forrest Gumpp on the status of Australians in the UK is simply not correct.

Australians are not regarded as aliens in the UK. Provided they are resident there, they can vote and stand for Parliament, whereas aliens, even those from the european community, and particularly from Burkina Faso or Peru, who are resident there, cannot. The same applies to all other commonwealth countries who have the Queen as their head of state.

The only restrictions on Australians relate to entering and working in the country. Similar restrictions apply to UK citizens here, but they cannot vote here unless they were on the roll prior to 1983.

The civilizational struggle that the west is engaged in with militant Islam, which looks as if it will endure for much of this century, will serve to strengthen the basic instinct of territoriality, which is older than mankind and will prevail when the current internationalism is a forgotten footnote of history.

Multiculturalism is balkanization with lip gloss. Rather than uniting us, this divisive ideology has eroded our sense of nationhood. It has diluted our national identity and transformed us into a hodgepodge of hyphenated citizens with nothing in common. No nation interested in self-preservation would bother with multiculturalism.

It's odd that in "multicultural Australia", the one cultural attachment no one can publicly acknowledge is the one that has shaped Australia the most. After Britain itself, Australia is still the most British country in the world. But rather than celebrating our predominately Anglo-Celtic heritage, we are told that Australia has always been 'multicultural', as if to say that this silly Canadian-devised ideology has been an integral part of Australia's development since federation.

We don't need to be multicultural, we need to be Australian. And yes, that means overcoming our cultural and historical amnesia, and recognizing that people from the British Isles played the dominant role in building and shaping modern Australia.

Quote: What these commentators fail to point out however, is that showing respect for each other’s culture, religion and race is a core universal value and fundamental to our democratic principles. Universal whether in Australia, London or Hanoi.

Does "showing respect" include certain immigrants respecting our culture? Or is it a one-way street where people must respect immigrants but immigrants need not respect others?

Does it include respecting gentital mutilation, forced marriages and honor killings? Does it include respecting Muslims right to kill apostates, as a Muslim group in Canada proposed? Does it include the right to silence the speech of citizens if that speech upsets certain immigrants? I doubt that the "religious intolerance" he refers to has anything to do with the hate that Islam preaches toward non-Muslims. No, it is us because we dare take note of it and condemn it - that is what Calma considers "intolerance'. Pathetic.

I notice that the author mentions Australia, London or Hanoi. I doubt that multiculturalism or democracy is a big issue in Vietnam. I know that in London there is a group of people that preaches hate and violence, and once in a while people from that group go out to kill others because they are 'the other.' Perhaps Mr. Calma should redirect his efforts to explaining that "respect" thing to this group. I also notice that he does not mention cities like Mecca, Cairo, Teharan, Damascus, etc... as places where "core values" would benefit from democratic principals or multiculturalism.

You will notice that Mr Calma also dos not specifically call upon immigrants to respect our values. Like I said, a one way street. These same people, the multiculturalists, would condemn us in a minute if we went to other countries and didnt heed local laws and customs, yet have no problem in condemning us when we ask that immigrants respect our customs.

Bigoted people like Mr Calma only care about themselves and their own "feel-good' egos. Pathetic. They add fuel to the fire and when it explodes they blame everybody but themselves and those that lit the match.

Kactuz

CJ and the IDEOLOGICAL POLICE... wow CJ, I see you are apparently keeping a comprehensive dossier on we Christian nutters ? :)

You don't need to refer to Davids theological background 'Calvinist' in connection with Multiculturalism ... thats getting a bit errr.. u know.

Yvonne said:

"I do not understand why there is this persistent notion that multiculturalism is about hanging on to your previous culture. Or that is against integration. Integration is inevitable"

Hooray.. so Yvonne.. if that's the case, lest simply lose the word 'Multi' and change the focus of our policies to REFLECT that fact and FACILITATE it :).. duh..its not realllly that hard,...like

a) It is inevitable.
b) Lets assist it.

David Palmer brings out the CRITICAL point about respecting cultures.
(which has less than ZERO to do with any Calvinistic/Presbyterian background) and that is....where they CLASH!

For example.. a Japanese man usually 'bows' when greeting someone, and they depth of the bow depends on the status of the other person.. well here in Australia, we SHAKE HANDS... i.e.. 'CLASH' but not a serious one of course.

"Women are worth half that of a man"(in court) aah..now there is a much bigger clash.. if a Muslim man is taken to court, on the accusation of a woman, he is likely to reject what she says because of her intrinsic 'half value' in court. So, in this case Australian culture and law must prevail.

So... policy should reflect the need to EDUCATE migrants on this matters and inform them of it before they arrive and after.

This is soooo simple.. I don't know why people resist it. OOps.. now I remember. "power"
-keep them separate.
-Build up their sense of 'difference/migrant'
-Keep them voting left.

Yep..Now I get it.

Plerdsus, whom I thank for his amplifying remarks in the 44th post in this thread, has illuminated an interesting example of 'Multiculturalism' at work in its true anti-British culture role.

Plerdsus says: "The only [UK] restrictions on Australians relate to entering and working in the country. Similar restrictions apply to UK citizens here, but they cannot vote here unless they were on the roll prior to 1983."

In the light of the neccessary implication of Section 44 of the Constitution (see the link in my second post), a section unaltered since Federation, how can the legislation that disfranchises permanently resident British (UK) subjects who were not on an Australian electoral roll as at 25 January 1984 be constitutional?

How many British subjects who linguistically, and in every other way, fit instantly and indistinguishably into the cultural fabric of Australia are denied this basic civil right to vote as a consequence of that (unconstitutional?) 1983 legislation? Does anybody know?

There may be a very sinister aspect to this disfranchisement of the British citizens. If you go to http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/em/elect04/subs.htm you will see a list of submissions to this Parliamentary Inquiry. If you then click on submission no. 123 (a 1.3 Mb PDF), open it and go to page 44 of the PDF (page 43 of the submission), you will see a section headed "Row 100 The Conditional Disfranchisement of the British Citizens". It makes for very interesting reading! I wonder how many members of that Parliamentary Committee have actually read and understood it!

On checking this reference, I see the author of the submission has answered my question as to how many may have been disfranchised. He indicates that as at 1986, around 60,000 such persons in Western Australia alone were robbed of this basic right. If I read him correctly, maybe as many as ONE MILLION Australia-wide!

And if I get the drift of the submission correctly, this possible million disfranchisements may be being used as cover for as many virtually undetectable fraudulent electoral enrolments!