Dear David F.,

Again Thank You for this discussion.

My parents set a precedent that has had much to do
with some of the paths I've taken. They showed me that
it is possible for people to change their lives and
venture into the unknown. Being a part of a minority
in this country - a culture within another culture was
an experience that challenged and I will always be grateful
to my parents for the role model they provided.

The following link may be of some interest to those
who still question the validity of the nature of
our Australian society and who see nothing but problems
and want "multiculturalism" disbanded:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4278128.html

What a shock, Foxy doesn't respond to a single element of my meticulous explanation of what I actually think/believe.

Let me guess, you didn't even read it.
And will continue to react to me as someone I'm not.
Your invented boogeyman.

This is why you cannot win, Foxy.
(a) You can't even recognise you are in a battle/war.
(b) You fail to adequately defend your side.
(c) You fail to effectively attack your opponents.

Warriors who can't effectively defend or attack, and don't even realise they're at war are an army doomed to defeat.

Saltpetre "How many new immigrant arrivals would turn around and say "This is not what I was expecting; I want to go home"?

A quarter of them.

david f "When the settlers came to Australia they completely disregarded any rights that the Aborigines had to their land."

Then please blame the appropriate people, the British, not "Australia" or "Australians", which didn't exist at the time.

"It is common for tribal people to call themselves by a name meaning 'the people'. The clear implication is that those who do not belong to the group are something other than the people"

Other than "their" people.
Every tribe so-named is well aware of neighbouring tribes and what their names mean too.

If the thousands of distinct "peoples" in the world did not exclude "others", none of them would exist.
There'd be no "multi" without first having many "monos".

SteeleRedux "In my youth nationalism wasn't a big thing at all,... but I'm not really sure what changed"

The people did.

Up until the 1960s, there was no question of what "Australians" were.
Now every second person you see in Sydney or Melbourne looks nothing like "Australians" did in your youth.

Today's youth are growing up with that transformation and a simultaneous *awareness* that it wasn't always like this.

They are feeling "nostalgia" for an "Australia" they've been deprived of.
An Australia they might actually feel they could *belong* in, that represented their particular people's nature/character.

The link Foxey posted is typical of those supporting MC. I contains no hard or practical benefits to our community, in fact it acknowledges that we have become far less patriotic. This is clearly evident when the national anthem is played at major sporting events.

About 95% of the comments were against MC, si I will simply post the first as an indication of the rest.

Old Crispy Dog :

26 Sep 2012 8:53:05am

'Multiculturalism' is the self-righteous, arrogant term that means, 'We have no intention of fitting in/intergrating, and we'll do and say whatever we bloody well like...and there's not a thing you can do about it. (If you do we'll just cry "racism" that'll shut you up). And by the way we're very short on cash for our new radio station and our 'ethnic' community centre and our 'ethnic' school and why haven't we been given extra cash for our 'ethnic' swimming pool? It's very insulting to us that you show such disrespect to our way of life. It's very discrimanatory. We'll make a complaint to the Human Rights Commissioner'.

If all this stuff isn't calculated discrimination in reverse; I'll go he.
It's the very reason the various 'ethnic' countries they come from are either blatantly fascist or in utter turmoil.
And now we are being infected with the same social disease.

Dear Foxy,

>>My parents set a precedent<<

Unless I mistake you for somebody else, your parents came from Lithuania. I think one has to distinguish between multiethnicity - that has characterised the West built on a common culture with more or less “Judaeo-Christian” foundations - and multiculturalism, although multiculturalism as a new ideology on the North American continent was an unintended outcome of Michel Novak’s pioneering book “The rise of the unmeltable ethnics: the new political force of the seventies” (Macmillan 1972).

Dear OTB,

I was born under the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge while my father was stationed there doing his clearance diver training. He had returned from service in the Malayan Emergency and the Korean War.

He too didn't think much of the Yankee propensity for overt nationalism so perhaps I can attribute that part of my sensibilities on my upbringing, though I can vividly recall all his mates expressing similar views. That being said they were a bunch of hard nuts.

Earlier this year I had an exchange with a 97 year old digger who had fought in New Guinea during WW2. I put to him;

“In one of your replies you said your hope for the future was "I hope that all wars are finished. I hope they realise that no one gains from war". I was reading about the Aitape-Wewak campaign in which you fought, with real guts I might add, on the Australia War Memorial website. It states that it was "one of several of those fought in 1945 that has been subsequently branded an "unnecessary campaign".

I am keen to hear what your thoughts were and of those around you toward the job you were tasked with. Was there resentment or a sense of let's get the bloody thing done and get home?

Finally I would like to hear your attitude to the last series of wars Australia has gotten itself involved in in the Middle East. Do they qualify as 'necessary campaigns' in your mind? I ask because those I have met from your generation seem to have a different take on war than the current one. What guidance would you give them about war?

Kind regards mate and thank you again.”

Cont...

Cont...

This was his reply;

“When the Japanese bombed Darwin, we felt that was it, they're coming down here and we need to clean them out of New Guinea and stop them. That was 1942. They'd already taken Singapore and places like that and they hadn't been beaten in battle. Nobody knew that the bomb would be built or work or how it would play out. We just wanted to get the job done and finish the war later on and were glad when it did finish. We found invasion money on them over there - if things had gone better for them in New Guinea, who knows. Now I would prefer that we stay away from wars, they are no good.”

I have a very real sense my father and Norm would have gotten on famously, I am almost as positive neither would have thought much of you. If you want to claim having lost family members in a war forces a universal American style nationalism on all and sundry then perhaps you need to immigrate mate because this is not what those men would have believed nor is it what I believe.

I invite you to re-read your post and contemplate what a simpering, mealy mouthed, effort it was.

“Where and when were you born?” Really? Nick off.