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The Forum > Article Comments > Cultural diversity - our social challenge > Comments

Cultural diversity - our social challenge : Comments

By Andrew Jakubowicz, published 21/11/2007

My hope is that Australia's next government will see cultural diversity as the central social question for the future.

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Boaz, if you are suggesting that youth violence is a) new and b) confined to racial groups, refresh your memory with this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/18/newsid_2511000/2511245.stm

or this:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/23/2067327.htm

or this:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,22794216-3102,00.html?from=public_rss

or even this:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22385206-2862,00.html

Read those stories and compare with your little skirmish in which i) one police officer suffered "possible fractured ribs" and ii) four kids were arrested.

Don't you think you might be making a fuss about not very much? And you wouldn't be trying to make a broad generalization from a single incident, would you?

And this:

>>When I say harsh.. I mean 'speak the language these people understand'.. full on.. no holds barred, take no prisoners.. wham bam thankyou mam all dissidents arrested.. all. Send them to re-education... if they don't then 'get it'..DEPORT.<<

Would you take the same action if the miscreants are a) Australian b) christian and c) white?

No need for an answer on that one, we all know your views.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 30 November 2007 6:06:00 PM
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Pericles: "Australia is predominantly a refuge for migrants from overseas, first Europe, then Asia."

Actually, first Britain. For *150* years!

Then Britain and Europe. For 30 years.
Then Britain, Europe and Asia. For 30 years.

This history created a British/Western cultural reality.
People born here are immersed in that reality.

"As a nation, it (Britain) has always been an amalgam of imported ideas and ways of life. As is the case in Australia."

But neither cultural amalgam is *infinite*.

""Why ask for some permanent, universal list of what "Australian" is?"
Actually, I didn't."

So what was this comment to BOAZ_David: "You have yourself tried on a number of occasions on this forum - and failed - to squeeze from your fellow-citizens a definition of Australian-ness that they can *all agree* upon."

All agree = Universal

"Describe a particular trait or combination of traits that are somehow *uniquely* Australian"

Why uniquely?
"Our" traits cannot be shared?
They just appear out of thin air! Ridiculous!

"Collective ethnic self-identity is not a recognizable concept."
But "I am perfectly happy to describe myself as "Australian, not Kurdish"".

First ridiculous, now insane.

If there's no such thing as "Kurdish" (a collective ethnic identity) then you can't define yourself in relation to it!

If ethnicities (collective by definition) don't exist, what do all those anthropologists actually do?

If *no* ethnicity exists, they're just figments of people's imagination.
Why then encourage migrants to retain their fictitious ethnicities?
Isn't that encouraging delusional thinking?

"A collective Australian self-identity does not exist. Except in the minds of some nostalgic folk who prefer to think of us *as we were* in 1947."

Now there *was* a distinctly "Australian" Australia in 1947?!
But I thought we never had our own culture?
Make up your mind!

"I am perfectly happy to describe myself as "Australian, not Kurdish", but that only tells me what I am not, not what I am."

Knowing what you're *not* is half the story.

"Australian" isn't Indian, Chinese, Turkish, Ethiopian, Zulu, etc.

We're part of Western Civilisation.
A cultural family.

Other cultural families have *nothing* to do with us.
Posted by Shockadelic, Saturday, 1 December 2007 7:15:55 AM
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“On November 25 Australia is still going to be culturally diverse. On November 26, even more so, and exponentially into the future.”

Nonsense.

It ignores the continual, natural and inevitable certainty that the barriers which allow people to signify “cultural diversity” are being eroded by the forces of assimilation. Just as the force of the ocean erodes sandstone. I refer, of course to the impact of “intermarriage” and inter-propagation.

The identifiable clusters which distinguish “cultural identity / exclusivity”, as they exist today, will not withstand the practice of some people freely choosing to copulate with someone of a different “cultural” heritage.

Within a few hundred years, Australia will be populated by Australians with little to no regard for their “Cultural diversity”. Being Australian will be what matters, not Anglo Australian, Greco Australian or Vietnamese Australian.

I saw a TV show recently in which a lot of “English” people had their DNA analysed and found out that what they thought they were (true blood English) was not as true as they surmised. One (a particularly unattractive lady lawyer) even threatened to sue the TV producer when the analysis of her DNA suggested a significant Romany Gypsy influence.

Eventually, we will all end up brown eyed and olive skinned. Blond hair and blue eyes, red hair and freckles being regressive genes and aborigines will be among the first to go (more regressive genes).

I have no faith in those who believe they are somehow “pure” or “special”, due to their cultural identity.
The only way to sustain any “purity" of culture or ethnicity or religion is to deny people their sovereign right to mate with a person of their own choosing and the sort of culture which seeks to sustain such “purity” have seriously marred the pages of history.

We are all the same and will become more “the same” as the natural forces intermarriage and intermixing erode the beach-head of ethnic and cultural diversity and bigotry.

So, bring on the melting pot. "Exclusive" (be they Religious, ethnic, cultural or gender) traits are inherently discriminatory and thus, morally reprehensible.
Posted by Col Rouge, Saturday, 1 December 2007 10:18:46 AM
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Col Rouge,

I'm not sure you're correct.

"Not sure" means just that. It means I think you could be right but MAY be wrong.

Some apparent counter-examples

The caste system in India has existed for thousands of years. All skin hues are visible in India. Yet fair skinned and dark skinned Indians rarely intermarry.

Jews and Parsi Indians have kept themselves distinct from the populations among which they dwell for centuries.

I would not even be sure that blue eyes are doomed. Sexual selection is a powerful evolutionary force. If some blue eyed people tend to find other blue eyed people sexually attractive then the genes for blue eyes may be with us for a long time.

Note that the existence of distinct cultural / ethnic / genetic groups does not mean zero gene flow between the groups. It simply means that most, NOT ALL, coupling occurs within a group.

It is possible that many groups will continue in their current "impure" form for centuries and that there will still be blue-eyed inhabitants of this island in 3000 AD.
Posted by stevenlmeyer, Saturday, 1 December 2007 11:24:57 AM
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As always, any entry using the words "culture" and "diversity" gets a whole lot of heat but very little light.

Col Rouge is right on the money when he points out that all this "cultural diversity" stuff is but a temporary phenomenon. Just as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans and so on disappeared over time as separate definable entities, so will our current fixation with "otherness" fade away. All we are seeing is the final feeble kicks of xenophobia.

stevenlmeyer makes an interesting point:

>>Some apparent counter-examples: the caste system in India has existed for thousands of years. All skin hues are visible in India. Yet fair skinned and dark skinned Indians rarely intermarry. Jews and Parsi Indians have kept themselves distinct from the populations among which they dwell for centuries.<<

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing, stevenlmeyer?

In your view, is India better or worse off with these enclaves of differentness existing in their midst?
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 3 December 2007 5:04:39 AM
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Stevenlmeyer “I'm not sure you're correct.”

“Jews and Parsi Indians”

Tempted to suggest “The exceptions which prove the rule”

As Pericles points out, the Indian Caste system is something which, whilst uncertain of any good, I can think of a lot of harm which has come from such, most despicable, a view where people are helpless to influence the level they hold within the system (being born to it).

The caste system and the view of Brahmins versus Outcastes was / is as abhorrent as and has striking parallels to the 1930 Fascist view of Aryans versus Slavs.

I would note it was enforced by a minority who used religious rules to oppress and discriminate against the majority and deployed enforced ignorance to keep the majority oppressed (which sounds a bit like the Church of Rome).

When I wrote the comment, I was not thinking of India but more locally to such organizations as the Exclusive Brethren and some of the whacko fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim and Jewish) sects whose beliefs (I would not call them “values”) reflect systematic cultural discrimination.

I would suggest, the responsibility of anyone with a functioning brain is to ensure such caste systems are consigned to the dustbin of history.

They do become examples of “the sort of culture which seeks to sustain such “purity” have seriously marred the pages of history.”

However, we also seek to be tolerant and accepting that people have a right to be stupid and make mistakes, preferring persuasion to legislation.

To me, it will always be sad, when someone denies their children their potential by forcing a dogma or doctrine which restricts and jades their life experiences and acquired values to something limited to an artificial exclusivity, be it class or caste or racial exclusiveness.
Posted by Col Rouge, Monday, 3 December 2007 7:32:16 AM
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