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The Forum > Article Comments > Where to for immigration detention? > Comments

Where to for immigration detention? : Comments

By Anna Saulwick, published 7/8/2008

After many years, mandatory detention, a policy that offered only despair to those who sought our help has been overturned.

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Spikey
Thanks for your comments. Your naivete is touching,to say the least.All I say in reply,Lets hope history never proves me right.If it does i hope you and others like you run for cover and are never heard from again except to sy Mea culpa.

socratease
Posted by socratease, Saturday, 16 August 2008 12:08:09 AM
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socratease,

I'm in about 50:50 agreement with what you say.

As for Africans and fitting in with our culture, I caught an overnight bus a couple of months ago and it was full of people from all kinds of racial backgrounds. An African guy, who was sitting across the aisle from me, was enthusiastically chatting all evening on his mobile phone. I don't know how many calls he made, but it was lots. Now, that was OK by me before midnight. However, after a coffee stop, he was at it again until after 1am when all the lights were out and people were getting some shuteye. I eventually told him to pipe down and to his credit, although he looked a bit shocked, he politely did, but only after he finished his call which was about 10 minutes later. It was clear he didn't have the slightest idea there was a problem.

While this is a relatively small point, it illustrates that cultures are different to the point of causing discomfort if there's too much intermixing.

As for migrants (eg Muslims) having their own schools etc and hating Australians, that's a sweeping comment. I'm sure there are only a few Muslims who genuinely hate Australians. If it wasn't for the beard, the turban and the obvious cultural idiosyncrasies, how would you tell the difference between the hardline Muslims and, as Spikey says, their counterparts in the HR Nicholls society (who hate ordinary people in all societies)? The most dangerous enemy, after all, is the one you do NOT notice because they're already part of the landscape.

Anyway, if migrants cannot be reconciled to the Australian way of life, I think it's probably inevitable that they will go back to their home countries once free of violence etc. Until that point, I think they should be welcome to do whatever they like here as long as they are law abiding and their presence does not, in an overall way, hinder our society. Being separate is not a crime, but over a period of time, I concede, it may become a problem.
Posted by RobP, Saturday, 16 August 2008 2:12:19 PM
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socratease

So the exclusivity that concerns you is not being locked out of affluent white Australian enclaves, just those 'others' that shouldn't be allowed? You only notice difference and being 'excluded' when it is people from a different ethnic background?

RobP,

You've never been disturbed by a white Australian using their mobile? Funny about that. An example of 'Africans' 'not fitting in with our culture'? I would have thought exactly the opposite. The man concerned was fitting in perfectly. Look around.

I think you like many others assume an 'Australian way of life' that is fixed and agreed upon by everyone. The truth is our way of life is complex and diverse. It is always under negotiation and ever changing.
Posted by Spikey, Saturday, 16 August 2008 3:06:25 PM
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Spikey,

I am getting a bit sick of your implied and predictable "you are a racist" snipe. What I was seeing is how the lack of cultural compatibility between people causes problems. Get it? Because, all this does is rub people up the wrong way when all they are doing is what comes naturally.

I do see lots of Australians using mobiles, but not in close proximity to each other after 1am on a bus when they're trying to get to sleep. Do you? And if a passenger was to speak out in such circumstances most Westerners would be more than a little embarrassed and put a stop to the call straight away. (Westerners who don't are the arrogant who think they can do as they please. And, yes, those ones do bother me. But at least even they would have known they were doing the wrong thing, while it was clear that the African guy didn't. There's a big difference.)

So, let me get this right, your attitude is to be so accommodating that things that have worked for us in our country should be overturned because we want to be extra nice to people, just because they are extra different to us? Talk about bending over backwards.

Your attitude is to find whatever excuse you can to overturn whatever is left that's any good from the conservative viewpoint. That's wrong.
Posted by RobP, Saturday, 16 August 2008 3:46:39 PM
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Spikey,I normally ignore stupid comments but I think you need to be reminded that in our communities there are organisations that charge more than other similar organisations, like health clubs, insurances and schools but that doesnt open up the problem with exclusivity in the sense that we are using it but you alone arent aware of. I cannot attend Kings College but that is only because I cannot afford to.I cannot join the Masons because they have a historical charter that gives them a right to admit who they want. We dont want madrassas like they have in Pakistan where enrollment is exclusively religious and meant for Muslims ONLY though the aims have been discovered to be anything but religious unless killing "kaffurs" is a religious obligation for which there is extensive education and training. In Perth we had to close down acollege for Muslim women most of whom were Sudanese and Somali refugees who were either orphans or very poor.That seems to be laudable but the authorities broke their agreement and were teaching only religion and religiously associated subjects like social and political actions.Tracts dealing with violent jihad were said to have been planted on them and which they knew nothing about.Yeah!! Do you think your Kings College students enjoy the same upbringing or the HR Nicholl Society have a similar set-up for its adult members? Not even you would be stupid enough to make such claims.

socratease
Posted by socratease, Saturday, 16 August 2008 7:58:52 PM
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RobP,

I don't accuse you of being racist. That's your own interpretation - and your own word. What I do say is that you cannot in all reason make a generalisation about a whole group of people based on one single experience with one person who may or may not be typical of that group.

You introduced your bus anecdote with this rubric: "As for Africans and fitting in with our culture". Surely you were making a claim about the whole group 'Africans'? (A huge place Africa.)

You ended your anecdote with the claim: "it illustrates that cultures are different to the point of causing discomfort if there's too much intermixing." On the basis of one encounter on a bus with one 'African'.

Yet you are perfectly capable of seeing your own fallacy when it is perpetrated by others. In your next sentence you tell socratease: "As for migrants (eg Muslims) having their own schools etc and hating Australians, that's a sweeping comment."

How would you ever explain matters if a 'white Australian' behaved on a bus the way your 'African' did? Would he be just a rude b? Or would you be able to make a conclusion about 'white Australians'?

Talking of socratease, he just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand his own inconsistency. He's totally opposed to exclusive practices when they are introduced by people of a certain type but accepts and even makes makes excuses for the exclusive practices of other types of people.

He's unhappy to be excluded by some groups but quite content to be excluded by others - because he can't afford to belong or because they have 'an historic charter'.

He accuses me of not understanding exclusiveness "in the sense that we [sic] are using it".

The uncomfortable fact is that I fully understand who he wants to exclude from having exclusive practices.
Posted by Spikey, Sunday, 17 August 2008 12:54:35 AM
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