Jewely
I would have to disagree. Having travelled a bit in my life I believe there is much to respect in Australian culture. Yes we have the thuggery of the footy, the booze, binge drinking and issues with gender politics. I think you will find the machismo culture in the Middle East a lot more heightened than here in Australia.

There are negatives in all cultures. However the things I love about Australia is the fact that we do come together in the face of adversity such as in the recent natural disasters, we believe in freedom of speech and the right for people to make decisions for themselves as long as they do not harm others. We have a sense of humour, we don't take ourselves too seriously and we live in a country that values the welfare of the most vulnerable. Yes it could be improved but at least we are pointing towards the right direction.

I cannot believe that you could not find one thing negative about culture in the Middle East. Personally I would find it disconcerting to walk over blood on the cobblestones knowing that someone was beheaded. Yes you are living in another country and you have to respect their laws but what about living in Australia. Should our laws also be respected?

Australians do have a moral code. The code values freedom of the individual more than the right to tell someone how they should live their lives, that they will be stoned for infidelity or worse. Or raped because they are not wearing the right sort of clothing.

People should not move to other countries merely to find something they can follow or respect - the only place that comes from is from within. Are we all tending to see the negatives and forget about the positives within our own country. Should we one day lose these democractic freedoms we might come to respect them a little more.

Thank you Pelican and Fractelle for not shooting me. I was a little worried after I posted that message.

Pelican I should have added that I prefer Australia to NZ, actually I prefer it to everywhere else. Soon as I work out how to do it I will try again with the citizen application.

I am learning here just what you all do think of your laws and your government. And I appreciate the time some have taken to explain more to me.

Yes everywhere does have its own culture but I feel Aussie does not have a firm one. I think it is maybe because it is young. NZ does grab a lot of its identity from the Maori culture so maybe also young but quite firm in what it is and who the people are? Nuts mostly but there ya go.

Yes Middle East absolutely has a macho culture, what I didn’t clarify was that I was not arguing whether it was good or bad but that it is very clear as to what its identity is.

Am I making a little more sense?

Fractelle, when I moved here and found out about this baby bonus thing I was amazed, never heard anything so stupid in my life but realised straight away that my fostering services would be desperately required in a country that does this. Yeah - high five Oz.

This is the beginning of a nation… wish I could be around in 500 years to see which path it ends up on.

Jewely

One of the things I have always admired about NZ, is the influence of the Maori culture right through New Zealand. I know there are problems but the Maori POV seems to be given the respect that the Australian Aboriginals do not. Sometimes there is a break through, but mostly their culture is on the fringes.

Yes, we all know that macho-culture countries place women as secondary citizens. We also see evidence of a similar macho influence here, it is just more covert. Our male sports-people receive far more attention than female, ditto the replay of sports events - women's sport, while starting to gain some recognition, is still marginalised. I don't think I will ever see a group of scantily clad male cheer leaders any time soon and what is it with racing car drivers and those champagne bottles?

When we take in people from the macho type countries we expect them to treat everyone as equals, but that is difficult when most of our leaders, mentors and role-models are predominantly male. If we want people to adopt the Australian way of life then we should be leading by example.

Hey Fractelle, I want to share a theory about the Maoris and why the Pakehas do get on with them pretty well, Okay – I am on very shakey ground and making every attempt to not offend while I put my own little theory on race relations out there.

Whitey found the Maoris attractive; made assimilation overall much more pleasant. I don’t even know if there are any full blooded ones left because we liked them so much.

I think what made it even easier was that they were fully ready to embrace a culture that had guns which made the killing of a neighboring tribe a lot swifter. Pakehas lucked out with NZ. Mind you, white kiwis are still paying for the whole Treaty thing – don’t know if many indigenous races did that when they spotted ships off their coasts.

My son can speak Maori; most Kiwi kids know quite a few words of the language and a lot about the culture. And I wouldn’t claim that now and again smelly stuff didn’t hit the fan as NZ found its feet.

I would say Kiwi’s don’t feel the shame that the Aussie should but don’t seem to…?

I haven’t put a children right through school here... do the aboriginals have clubs at the primary schools and stuff?

Jewely

A white Australian can live their entire lives without even speaking to an Aboriginal. The Northern Territory has the greatest populations - I simply do not know if there are clubs in schools or not. The majority are marginalised into areas of land that was supposedly worthless - but if later found to have reserves of uranium or valuable minerals, just watch how Aboriginals receive attention then...http://www.dreamtime.net.au/indigenous/land.cfm

It is disgraceful. Also the same people who argue against immigration are often (not all Ludwig) the same who claim the Aboriginals have only themselves to blame for being treated as second class citizens.

"A white Australian can live their entire lives without even speaking to an Aboriginal."

Okay that really shocked me. I do know if a foster child is an aboriginal it does change things compared to other kids. But yeah my knowledge of their culture is severly limited although I did go learn up on their belief system the other day. Wore me out wrapping my head round some of it but really interesting.

"It is disgraceful. Also the same people who argue against immigration are often (not all Ludwig) the same who claim the Aboriginals have only themselves to blame for being treated as second class citizens."

This is like a dicussion I was having on another site with a white women (well she said she was), we agreed to stop and wait until we had an aboriginal to talk to otherwise we are doing what has always been done to them.

Course none turned up so that seems to be the end of that. Do we have some here?