mu : "The Cronulla riot was set up and fuelled by fabulous Alan Jones..."

Must as well attribute the rising of the sun to the cock's crowing.

FRANKGOL.....

you are frustratingly thick sometimes mate... truly.

You said:

Can you tease out for us the causal links between diverse rates of communal behaviour and social policy? What's the logic behind your use of the word 'therefore' in the above quotation? That is, how do you justify turning an empirical statement ("...are less likely...) into a value statement ("are not really that great")?

1/ CAUSAL LINKS. should not be connected to 'social policy' but 'social outcomes'....
The causal link is between 'ethnic diversity and ethnic rivalry'....it is self evident in the same way the 2 competing footy teams both seek to win...How come this is obscure to you ?

2/ EMPIRICAL -> VALUE

Again.. this is so simple..I'm surprised you mention it. (because to do so is a bit of an admission of 'thickness' :)

Follow Pericles FINGER....

a) "Less likely to" (Integrate, adjust,join in with, participate in, share values of, work together with)

b) "Not all that good"

Now.."B" is the direct consequence of "A"... As clearly as day following night.

The only way I can understand you not 'getting' this is either:

1/ Dogma.
2/ Thickness.

You seem to 'get' it in your piece about mixed spouses for 3rd gen migrants....but then.. suddenly you slip into some wierd mode of denial......

"He's a walking contradiction..partly fact and partly fiction" as the song goes :)

I have a feeling we have a communication breakdown. You are often claiming "If we really knew what MC is all about" we would not oppose it.
But I suggest, "If you appreciated WHAT we oppose.. you would disagree less with us"

It seems that "what" we oppose, is not what you see MC to be...hence the problem.

Another classic, Boaz.

This time from your "if I use enough words it will look as though I'm saying something" catalogue.

>>The causal link is between 'ethnic diversity and ethnic rivalry'....it is self evident in the same way the 2 competing footy teams both seek to win...<<

So we can assume from this - since it is a causal link - if there are, say, half a dozen Greek footballers in each of the the teams that are playing each other, they will join together to beat the non-Greeks?

There is no reason why different ethnicities shouldn't work together rather than compete - in fact, it happens every day. Just look around you.

One of the factors that is excluded from the equation is time. Yet even Boaz, with his famous coffee-coloured melting-pot concept of integration, would have to acknowledge that before you reach coffee-coloured, you need to move through the black-and-white stage.

The problem here is that when you take a snapshot, everything is trapped in a time-bubble. The photograph cannot tell you what went before, or what will come later. In the same way that an opinion poll taken three years before an election will not tell you what will happen three years into the future, a survey conducted in a particular year will only record views that existed at that moment.

The Putnam piece is interesting, and does clearly show that there is a greater level of interpersonal discomfort in areas where different ethnic backgrounds live side by side. But what it cannot show - because it was a once-off exercise - is whether these relationships improve with time, or decay further.

It would be more useful, I suspect, to see a "five-years-on" survey conducted with the exact same population - and I mean the same individuals - to measure their discomfort levels and compare.

In my experience, familiarity causes these fears to disappear over time, and for the individuals to live more comfortably with each other's differences, rather than insist that everyone conforms to some arbitrary norm.

Well said Pericles! Time will take care of things - at least for those of us - who are willing to put the 'fair go' into practice, and not merely mouth the words.

FrankG,

yes, that was a typo. I meant table 4.2, not 4.3.

4.2 clearly shows the level of intermarriage with mainstream Australia is extremely low.

Take the Greeks. This group is often touted as an example of how well an ethnic group can assimilate. But look at the stats: even in the third generation, only 14 per cent of Greek men and 11 per cent of woman marry people with Australian ancestry.

You on the other hand, are pinning your argument on stats that merely show higher intermarriage rates among immigrants only. So what?

grn,

Apart from your ‘typo’, you are quite wrong about the ABS intermarriage statistics.

You say Table 4.2 “clearly shows the level of intermarriage with mainstream Australia is extremely low”. It does nothing of the sort.

You suggested we take the ‘Greeks’ because they are “often touted as an example of how well an ethnic group can assimilate”.

So you find that “ even in the third generation, only 14 per cent of Greek men and 11 per cent of woman marry people with Australian ancestry”.

You fail to understand one crucial factor (discussed at length in your ABS reference). “Australian ancestry” does not include people from British ancestry. Millions of Australians fill out their census form with English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh as their ancestry because that’s how they define it.

Only 36% of Australians gave ‘Australian’ as their ancestry. Several millions more referred to themselves as of British ancestry even if their families had been here for generations.

If you use this very restricted definition, you find a remarkable fact: Couples where both spouses are of ‘Australian ancestry’ make up only 17% of all couples in Australia.

But if you take Greeks with a spouse of Australian or Anglo-Celtic ancestry the figures are:

2nd Generation – Males 26% Females 19%
3rd Generation – Males 62% Females 56% (People & Places p39)

So I am not, as you claim, pinning my argument “on stats that merely show higher intermarriage rates among immigrants only”. So what, you asked me, anyway? Well, it was you who claimed that in Sydney “there isn't much obvious racial friction simply because of the fact that people of different cultures and races don't mix that much”.

Table 4.1 clearly knocks your theory for six:

It shows that 42% of 2nd Generation Greeks Males and 35% of Females have a spouse of non-Greek ancestry and for the 3rd Generation, it’s Males 74% Females 68%.

Looks like mixing to me.