Q&A's right, these are serious issues that need to be aired. I hope that we can continue to welcome discourse and as has been suggested by a number of people avoid the us/them arguments that are as apparent within this small forum as in the wider community.

My belief is, ignoring extremes of both sides, people prefer to get on with one another.

We can highlight differences in culture, we can argue what defines Australian culture or its peoples ... or we can focus on similarities and commonality.

Regardless of culture throughout the world, all races, religions; we share so much in common. We all love, raise families, trade, share, debate, believe. In fact, I'd suggest that throughout the ages there is more commonality in our social systems than differences. Nuances form in culture, language, practice, but the underlying theme is more or less the same.

So how do we use this to achieve a common purpose, as Q&A pointed out the Earth is finite, resource usage at current levels is unsustainable and unless there is significant environmental, economic and social change this entire thread and its ramifications will become redundant. At which point, who cares about similarities or differences.

CJ, as usual, you use terms that you don't understand. Don't you know what 'lunar' means? To point out your inadequacy rewards me with another of your childish insults. What does that say about you? Of course, you profess to be a Greenie enthusiastic heterosexual (an oxymoron if ever it was). Looks like the oaf calling the kettle black.

Q&A 'As to other cultures forcing their culture on us … we could be forcing ours on them'. Aren't we entitled to promote our own culture in our own country? Any time I have been overseas, I have conformed with what was expected in each respective country. I only expect visitors and immigrants to grant us the same courtesy.

Corri 'ignoring extremes of both sides, people prefer to get on with one another'. I'd prefer that too, but only as long as no-one comes here and tries to shove their foreign cultures down our throats. 'When in Rome...'

Dear Corri....

you said:

<<My belief is, ignoring extremes of both sides, people prefer to get on with one another.>>

and your belief is entirely correct.

But your understanding of human nature, lacks a dimension which is crucial. While you did recognize that there are extremes, you neglected to say it is those extremes which usually drive agenda's.

Most Germans were/are nice people... and the Nazi's were not many, but look what happened. Same with the Communists, Al Qaeda... etc.

The people with extreme views are highly motivated and highly mobile.

CRITICAL MASS.. is a key point in understanding cultural clashes and racial strife. When one group absolutely knows it has not even the chance of a snowflake in hell of changing things, they will be quite managable. But give them a sense of 'we can do it' and things change..even the moderates.

I can give you an example rather close to home. If the Indigenous peoples of Sarawak were not in fear of the Malaysian federal armed forces, they would probably address issues of gross injustice against them in ..shall we say 'more assertive' ways. I know what goes on, I know the politics, have family among them, and can speak with authority on this matter.

The abuse experienced by councillors at the Bankstown meeting to decide the fate of the Islamic school is a classic example. Around 200 'supporters' of the school came along and yelled abuse and foulness at councillors for rejecting the schools planning permit.

To them.. 'might makes right' when it suits their cultural/religious purpose.

It is for these reasons, we must be vigilant and aware of who and why people come here and more importantly...HOW they are likely to ACT once they feel they are part of a 'critical mass'.

Corri...and everyone...

for the pattern of 'migration to conflict' please read this report.

http://www.insideindonesia.org/edit70/Poso1.htm

It is the classic... and predictable way a multi ethnic community can be utterly destroyed, going from 'the richness of diversity' to the horror of attempted genocide.

Some background snippits.

<<The Japanese Occupation and independence in 1945 was followed by a chaotic period when Muslim rebels from South Sulawesi attacked interior animists and Christians.>>

<<Much had changed by the end of Suharto's presidency. In 1973, Suharto designated Central Sulawesi as one of ten new transMIGRATION provinces>>

<<The new roads and settlements also attracted a flood of voluntary migrants, especially Muslim Bugis and Makassar people from South Sulawesi.>>

(The 15 indonesians now at Christmas Island are from these)

<<Pamona Protestants lost their religious and ethnic majorities in the district. Many also had been displaced from their ancestral lands through processes of land commodification that had nothing to do with religion.

Pamona Protestant Christians, like many interior groups in the outer islands, had also lost some of their indigenous political control. After the 1970s, much local authority was removed from customary councils of elders and transferred to a national bureaucracy. Modernist Muslims were installed in high-ranking military posts and Christians found it harder to get their leaders selected for local governance.>>

<<A Pamona Protestant leader of the political campaign, Herman Parimo, was jailed for heading a group of fighting Christians. No Muslims were prosecuted. This apparently partisan response by the authorities increased Protestant resentment. >>

Need to read the whole report to fully understand.
cheers.

Ok, so based on this thread to date, I concede there is a flaw in my expectatance of human nature - further that there are significant issues with our existing immigration laws and the "assimilation" of cultures within a fledgling Australian society.

So based on this thinking I see no alternative to a Jihad - it is not if, but when that we need to ask ourselves. Obviously we are unable to find a common understanding to avoid this - the practices of each culture, especially at the extremes is too diverse to find common ground. We are unwilling or unable to co-exist, and though many Muslims might be "nice" people it is inevitable, like the Germans with Nazi's, that they will jump on board with the extremists.

It is a shame, on my behalf, that I do not know more Muslims to roleplay this thinking. It is a shame that I have not the depth of knowledge to truly understand ways and means to achieve a common vision or ability to work together. It is a shame that I am now fatalistic and accept that Jihad is but a matter of time ... but what else can we do?

Though I wonder how many people like some on this site asked these questions before Hitler really took control? I wonder whether there is something more to be done ...

Your logic, and the examples you use to support it, occasionally take some fairly bizarre turns, Boaz.

>>It is the classic... and predictable way a multi ethnic community can be utterly destroyed, going from 'the richness of diversity' to the horror of attempted genocide.<<

You use as evidence one short article, dated 2002, by the prolific, and apparently level-headed, Lorraine Aragon.

Let me quote - selectively, as you have done - from another of her works:

"...national development in Indonesia has been presented through the rhetoric of religion, from the Dutch colonial era up until the present, thereby inserting a moral and religious charge to programs of “modernization” that have unevenly affected different ethnic populations"

"In contemporary Indonesia, a particular religion is neither nationally mandated, as it is in Muslim states such as Malaysia or Catholic states such as Spain, nor is it free of state interference. Rather, beginning with independent Indonesia’s Constitution of 1945, citizens have been expected to have a world religion (agama) and choose from a government-created list of official religions. The result, in a nation of hundreds of different ethnic groups with backgrounds in hundreds of different spiritual traditions, is anxiety over conforming to state regulations, conflict among religious groups vying for government and popular favor, and creative interpretation of local spiritual practices to align them with government classifications"

And this:

"...many guests from a wedding we had just attended were stricken with violent attacks of vomiting and diarrhea... most villagers thought the epidemic was triggered by ancestral anger. The bridal couple... had not asked their parents’ permission to depart the village where the last wedding rite was held... [b]ecause their parents [were] dead. According to the Christian doctrine introduced by European missionaries, ritual obligations between children and parents end with death. For Tobaku individuals, however, such relationships continue with consequences in perpetuity. Misfortune struck an entire community because the bridal couple failed to make a small ritual gesture of respect that had been obliterated by the Protestant ceremony."

I guess that's what you get for introducing Christianity, eh Boaz?.