I repudiate altogether the idea that multiculturalism does anything to denigrate Australia's British cultural heritage and legal system.

Multiculturalism never settled foreigners in ghettoes and gave them citizens' rights whilst letting them behave as though they lived elsewhere. No suburb is dominated by one non-Anglo culture; these "ghettoes" are imaginary scapegoats.

Assimilation was an illiberal policy of conformity which produced a vibrant multicultural society. Imposition failed, so we stopped trying. A little before that we also started accepting dark-skinned non-Europeans -- perhaps this is your real objection?

Multiculturalism is about being a gracious, liberal host.

Forrest Gump, plerdsus: you're *both* wrong re. UK voting and citizenship law.

*All* Commonwealth countries have had *citizens* since 1949. "British subject" lost its traditional meaning in UK law in 1981 ("Commonwealth citizen" replaced it) and now means something rather peculiar. The term disappeared from Australian law in 1987.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_subject
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nationality_law

Citizens of any Commonwealth or European Union country may vote in UK elections if they are legally resident in the UK.

Before 1983, any rights Australia accorded to "British subjects" likewise applied to all Commonwealth citizens, whether from Pakistan, Uganda or Scotland.

StevenLMeyer says "We also should drop the pretence that all cultures are compatible with liberal Australian democracy when plainly they are not."

This interpretation of "culture" is inconsistent with any sensible notion of multiculturalism.

There are *ideologies* that are incompatible with liberal Australian democracy, but we've always had those. I believe there is no *culture* which cannot successfully be integrated into a secular liberal polity. Remember the English once fought a bitter religious civil war.

Just as banning the Communist Party of Australia was inconsistent with our liberal democracy -- no matter how incompatible its Stalinism was with liberal democracy itself -- so too would be the suppression of illiberal "cultural" ideologies like Christian Dominionism. Theocratic ideologies are more dangerous in Parliament than in the mosque!

Secular liberalism cannot defend itself from such authoritarian threats by setting up defensive thought police. Being superior in its own right is the only defence. It worked against the Stalinists, why not against the theocrats?

"Forrest Gumpp

You want to hang on to your British culture, and as a multiculturalist I agree with you. But why should non-Anglos not be allowed to hang on to theirs?

Our oldest and most distinctive heritage is that of the Aborigines, should we all adopt their culture? If not why should we adopt that of Johnny come latelys like yours? And where do you place the Irish Catholic culture? Or the Jewish? They all arrived together on the First Fleet and each contributed in their own way. If the Jews had adopted the British views on education we would not have had so many intellectuals, or if we had all adopted British cuisine we would not have a great wine industry, or for that matter many tourists.

Muticulturalism does not have to mean separation, it means hanging on to what is good in your own culture and sharing it with others, so that we are all enriched.
Posted by logic, Thursday, 23 August 2007 9:38:04 PM"

VERY WELL PUT LOGIC!

Xoddam wrote:

>I believe there is no *culture* which cannot successfully be integrated into a secular liberal polity.>

Your belief is drivel. There is no other way to put it. There are cultures that deny women access to education, enforce arranged marriages, do not permit freedom of religion or speech, kill gays and so on. By definition such cultures cannot be "integrated into a secular liberal polity." At least not into a 21st century secular liberal polity.

You are also wrong to deny a link between culture and ideology. In some cultures ideology, culture and religion are inextricably linked. I happen to belong to one such culture and am very aware of the connections.

Xoddam wrote:

>This interpretation of "culture" is inconsistent with any sensible notion of multiculturalism.>

What interpretation? So far as I can see multiculturalism IN PRACTICE means trying to keep people in cultural, not necessarily physical, ghettoes. In effect MC does impose a culture.

I have to agree with the left wing commentator, Terry Lane. The best position is "TOLERANT MONO-CULTURALISM." This amounts to saying you can follow your own culture but where there is a clash with the mainstream culture, it's the mainstream that prevails so you cannot force your daughter to marry her cousin.

There is no pretence that the mainstream culture is static. It will evolve as all cultures should. (One of the problems with MC is that it helps FREEZE CULTURES)

Xoddam, none of this addresses the issue that too much "diversity" does seem to DESTROY SOCIAL CAPITAL. That is a very SERIOUS ISSUE. You cannot wish it away. Putnam's research merely confirms what other researchers have already found.

But Putnam's research weight because he was trying to prove the opposite of what he found. Despite putting a positive spin on his findings he was at honest enough to publish them.

Xoddam you need to quit thinking that something must be so because you "believe" it. Rather look at the CRUEL facts.

The fact that you "believe" any culture is compatible with a (21st century) secular liberal polity does not make it so.

Congratulations CJ Morgan for being able to tie Presbyterian and Calvinist together and I myself am proud to be called a Calvinist. There's a bit of multiculturalism for you to meet and celebrate CJ!

Come to any number of Presbyterian (Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, etc, etc) congregations in the 'burbs and you will see real live multiculturalism at work across multiple ethnic groups and all under the Christian banner.

Kwame Appiah ( N.Y. Times) in an interesting article, refers to culture, globalization and authenticity in culture where trying to find some primordially authentic culture, can be like peeling an onion. Cultures are made of continuities and changes, and the identity of a society can survive through these changes. Societies without change aren't authentic; they're just dead.

The textiles most people think of as traditional West African cloths are known as Java prints; they arrived in the 19th century with the Javanese batiks sold, and often milled, by the Dutch. The traditional garb of Herero women in Namibia derives from the attire of 19th-century German missionaries, though it is still unmistakably Herero, not least because the fabrics used have a distinctly un-Lutheran range of colors.

Salman Rushdie, who has insisted that the novel that occasioned his fatwa "celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelisation and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Mélange, hotch-potch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world."

The Unesco Convention affirms the "principle of equal dignity of and respect for all cultures." (What, all cultures - including those of the K.K.K. and the Taliban?) It also affirms "the importance of culture for social cohesion in general, and in particular its potential for the enhancement of the status and role of women in society." In northern Nigeria, mullahs inveigh against polio vaccination while sentencing adulteresses to death by stoning. In India, thousands of wives are burned to death each year for failing to make their dowry payments.

As with the mad Mullahs and bin Laden etc. their motto might as well be the sardonic German saying Und willst du nicht mein Bruder sein, So schlag' ich Dir den Schädel ein. (If you don't want to be my brother, then I'll smash your skull in.)

Tolerance indeed has its limits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/magazine/01cosmopolitan.html?pagewanted=9&ei=5088&en=065751ceb5e1741c&ex=1293771600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

StevenLMeyer,

The entities committing the "cultural" crimes you list aren't cultures in the sense of multiculturalism, but in the sense of a "culture of fear".

It is not Iranian culture that enforces the hijab but a bunch of traditionalist thugs. Palestinian culture doesn't send suicide bombers to Israel, it is the al-Qassam brigades. American culture does not bomb Iraq, the American air force does. Jewish culture doesn't demolish Palestinian houses, the Israeli armed forces do.

These crimes are not acceptable in a liberal democracy. I do not think liberal democracies should therefore refuse entry to people from the places where these crimes are normal; quite the contrary.

It is already criminal in Australia to kill. I happily endorse a campaign to make it a crime in Australia to prevent a woman from educating herself or to force her to wear particular clothing, if it isn't already.

If I were to say instead, I believe there is no *person* (from any culture) who cannot be accommodated in a liberal democratic polity *provided* that the person is prepared to obey the laws of that polity, could you respect that opinion?

You seem unquestioningly to accept Putnam's (reluctant) conclusion that diversity has costs independent of the other variables affecting social capital: home ownership, levels of education, economic inequality, population mobility and even the time people spend commuting. He acknowledges that ethnic diversity has a very strong correlation with some of these variables. I have doubts that accurately "correcting for" these factors is possible. He *hasn't* studied variables like job security, time in front of computers, or the prevalence of intolerance in received wisdom like the press and the pulpit.

A priori and from personal anecdotal evidence ("Bin Laden, get off the bus!"), intolerant public discourse directly erodes social capital in diverse neighbourhoods. Public inclusiveness probably has the opposite effect.

The question of social capital is a big one and goes much further than the costs of ethnic diversity. Even if diversity does have a real underlying impact on social capital, it is clearly possible to improve social capital by addressing the other factors.