The content on this webpage contains paid/affiliate links. When you click on any of our affiliate link, we/I may get a small compensation at no cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure for more info -----------------------
Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:44 pm
The Age’s Pamela Bone on multiculturalism, which she has long supported:
Perhaps it is time to say, you are welcome, but this is the way it is here.
Read the whole piece. Actually, the problem isn’t multiculturalism, which has thrived in Australia for decades. The problem is an anti-democratic, oppressive, extremist strand that exists primarily within one culture.
Multiculturalism is a euphemism for divide and conquer. In the US, we had and hope we will have again soon, a melting pot. We’re all Americans, but we also have lots of different customs, yummy food, old country traditions, etc. The politically correct crowd wants us all to be hyphenated Americans and instead of all of us pledging our allegiance to our country, we’re supposed to relate only to our race, religion, ethnicity, etc. and they’re busy pitting all these different multi-culties against each other.
I hope you in Australian haven’t fallen for that nonsense.
The chief advantage to having a Constitution is that we have a clearly defined social contract under which we all live. You come here to live and work under the boundaries of that contract, you’re an immigrant. You come here to help overthrow it, you’re an invader. It’s pretty much that simple.
Posted by Aaron – Freewill on 2005 07 17 at 01:54 PM • permalink
Lefties are running into the fact that many of their most sacred ideas contain within themselves the seeds of their own destruction.
Pacifism doesn’t work in the face of a determined and violent enemy. To get peace, you must be willing to fight wars.
Infinite tolerance equally fails in the face of those who themselves are not tolerant. In order to preserve tolerance, you must be intolerant of the intolerant.
Yet to leftist idealists, that forces them on a slippery slope, and they ask plaintitively, “But then were does it stop? If we are willing to fight wars to preserve peace, then what is to stop us from fighting wars for other more sordid reasons? If we are intolerant of the intolerant, then will we not later become intolerant of those we disagree with?”
Yes, that’s a danger. That’s how it is here in the real world. Bummer, ain’t it? Sometimes there are no perfect solutions.
Posted by Steven Den Beste on 2005 07 17 at 02:37 PM • permalink
..It is interesting that in France, the widely criticised ban on the wearing of headscarves in state schools has been fairly well accepted, according to reports. (I am not advocating such a ban here.)..
Why not? It’s unnecessary and a very visible form of apartheid. I’d say that’s at least something France got right.
Yet to leftist idealists, that forces them on a slippery slope, and they ask plaintitively, “But then were does it stop? If we are willing to fight wars to preserve peace, then what is to stop us from fighting wars for other more sordid reasons? If we are intolerant of the intolerant, then will we not later become intolerant of those we disagree with?”
It’s only a slippery slope for those without the ethics and common sense to make judgments about where to draw the line. Which, I’m convinced, makes it a dangerous place for lefty idealists, but not for other people.
Steven den Beste — no, the real irreducible conflict for leftist idealists is that they need a solid body of reactionaries who will stand between then and the consequences of their beliefs, who will fight their wars for them and later accept the idealists’ profession of moral superiority over them… but if they live out their ideals properly, those reactionaries will no longer exist.
Not that I’m convinced there’s any such thing as a lefty idealist, anymore. I’ve never met one who wasn’t a bossy PTA mom in the depths of their soul…
Oh, and…
If we are intolerant of the intolerant, then will we not later become intolerant of those we disagree with?”
Whattaya mean, later?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 17 at 05:24 PM • permalink
- From The Age’s Education Supplement today 18/7, which can be found inside the Metro supplement which is inside the Sport supplement. Speaker is Graeme Lane, deputy president of the Victorian Primary Principals Association, talking about ‘how our schools help children interpret an unstable world’.
“I’ts about getting the message to children that these people (terrorists) have strong beliefs based on inappropriate models of behaviour – and that we wouldn’t behave like that.” {Can’t find any link but it’s on p6 of the supplement, third column).
I suppose the Chechen terrorists who killed a couple of hundred primary school students in the siege, were also using an inappropriate model of behaviour.
Nice to see The Age columnist agrees with Nicky…
Scroll down to Mr Death Comes About the Reaping
— Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 07 17 at 08:20 PM • permalink
The problem with “multiculturalism” as we know it today is that it is sponsored by the State.
Instead of people coming here and holding onto what is useful to them and discarding what is an impediment to their new life, they are directly influenced in that choice by government bureaucracies whose interest it is to have maintained as many cultural differences as possible. All this is subsidised by taxpayers’ money.
If us plebs think that this is inappropriate then the bureaucrats will come down hard with anti-descrimination legislation to cower the population into toeing their line.
This whole ediface can be brought down by abolishing the departments of State that sponsor this nonsense. Once the money dries up then people will again make rational decisions on what to keep and what to discard which is the essence of “the melting pot” which was so successful in the past.
As amortiser alludes, the problem isn’t “multi-culturalism”, it’s “other-culturalism” wherein the immigrants seek to establish a “New Karachi” or “New Damascus” within their adopted society, rather than integrating. And unlike one hundred years ago, they’re being encouraged in this. From the NYT (via Jeff Jarvis), regarding fellow muslims’ views of one of the London bombers:
“They did not agree with what Mr. Tanweer had done, but made clear they shared the same sense of otherness, the same sense of siege, the same sense that their community, and Muslims in general, were in their view helpless before the whims of greater powers. Ultimately, they understood his anger.”
When folks move to a new country to set a version of their old country, when they come to take the riches rather than share in the culture, it isn’t immigration – it’s invasion.
Posted by Waffle King on 2005 07 17 at 08:53 PM • permalink
A school teacher said, “It’s about getting the message to children that these people (terrorists) have strong beliefs based on inappropriate models of behaviour – and that we wouldn’t behave like that.”
That’s the message he’s putting to school children? It’s a confusing, long-winded message that would be obscure even to 3rd year uni sociology students. Still, few school teachers are able to express themselves simply and clearly in my experience.
The message for primary school children (and perhaps this message should come from parents, not teachers) needs to be simple: “They are very bad people and will go to gaol”.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 07 17 at 08:54 PM • permalink
Spot on amortiser. Your comment brought back to mind and old flic They’re a Wierd Mob which basically portrayed Australia as seen by a migrant.
The main character both influences and is influenced by the characters he meets. He encounters a range of stereotyped Australian’s all who react naturally to him. Nowadays of course statutory PC taints everything.
I have long valued political diversity. But there is something wrong when second and third-generation Lefties can believe the society in which they grew up – indeed, into which they were born – is evil to the core and needs to be destroyed.
At last The Age gets it… admittedly after I changed a couple of words.
Posted by blandwagon on 2005 07 17 at 09:26 PM • permalink
Should we blame multiculturalism for this? Does it mean we can’t any longer afford to be as nice and welcoming as we would like to be? I hope not, for as others have observed, if we change our values in response to the threat of terrorism, the terrorists will have won.
It’s true, lefties are the new conservatives. Except that they don’t quite seem to understand the logic behind keeping traditions and values. While traditional conservatives keep values intact because they’re useful, the new left-conservatism sees keeping values as intrinsically good, with no attention paid to the actual, err, value of those values. (For further evidence, see the infatuation with “stability” that is almost universally shared by lefty politicians these days.)
Pamela is halfway there…a few more terrorist attacks and maybe she’ll start to wonder if those values she holds so dear are actually useful ones to keep.
- There’s nothing really special in “multicultural” food. Everyone’s been pinching everyone else’s food for millenia.
Can you imagine Thai food without chillies?
Italy without coffee or tomatoes?
Life anywhere without chocolate?I don’t believe that a ‘multicultural’ society can actually work in a meaningful way.As a Jewish chap remarked a long time ago, you cannot serve two masters.
Posted by pog-ma-thon on 2005 07 17 at 10:24 PM • permalink
What has yet to be explained adequately is the merits of multiculturalism and government multicultural policy.
The fact I can buy a salami sandwich on turkish bread smothered with tzatziki, all washed down with a double macchiatto is not a paean to the success of multiculturalism either.
Is my “culture” so fragile that I need a concerted effort on the part of the governments (local, state and federal) to preserve some mythical elements of my ancestry lest they be ‘lost’ for all time.
Cultures evolve over time and interaction with other cultures means the ‘garden of eden’ concept is moot.
The fact that after 40 years of living in a country where English is the main language and you still cannot speak, write or read it properly – and in fact are encouraged not to – is a damning indictment on the misguided fools who formulate policy along multicultural guidelines.
And the dumbasses who believe it works.
Posted by Jay Santos on 2005 07 17 at 10:37 PM • permalink
- One of the many problems of “multiculturalism” is that the word got hijacked. About 10 to 15 years ago if anyone had asked me I would have said that the best thing to happen to Australia since WW2 was “multiculturalism”. Why? Because we had a wave of migrants who brought in new ideas, new foods, were hard working, interesting.
There were the Greeks, the Jews, the Italians and then the Asians. And Australia was better, a lot lot better for it.
But (as they say these days) the left grabbed the term and transformed it into something whereby any beliefs or values from our migrants were acceptable and that our old fashioned Anglo-Saxon values were wrong, and we should not attempt to impose them on our migrants (That this led to all sorts of quaint conflicts and dilemmas for some of these feminist lefties (such as them having to defend female circumcision, lack of rights for women, support of murderous regimes etc) is another story)
So Bone is just the latest to recognise the silliness of this position.
The great strength of the old version of multiculturalism and the reason why it was such a success in Australia is that it was allowed to flourish because of our adherence to old fashioned Anglo-Saxon values (freedom of speech, right to vote, democracy etc etc).
In the meantime we had a period of about 10 years where any attack on the new lefty meaning of multiculturalism led to you being labeled as a redneck (including the refusal to see that there was any rorting of the system by ethnic bodies (as exposed by Paul Sheehan etc.) and the refusal to see any merit whatsoever in the rural-regional concerns of the Hanson supporters). Anyone who opposed Lefty Multiculturalism was a racist bigot and a sexist.
In conclusion, we have to go back to the original version of “multiculturalism” As Tim says “Actually, the problem isn’t multiculturalism, which has thrived in Australia for decades. The problem is an anti-democratic, oppressive, extremist strand that exists primarily within one culture.”
So what do we now call this earlier benign version of “multiculturalism”? As that word has become so tainted, do we have to invent a new term?Posted by arnienelly on 2005 07 17 at 10:43 PM • permalink
Right, Jay. Communities have been intermingling for centuries and managing fine without government intervention. Sometimes there were tensions but they got sorted out soon enough thanks to people’s innate good sense. It’s when governments seized on ‘multiculturalism’ as a policy, and institutionalised it, and bureaucratised it that it went wrong. The community itself with its instinct for checks and balances was marginalised. As usual, when governments intervene in things the community is pefectly capable of dealing with on its own, the result was a disaster.
Yet to leftist idealists, that forces them on a slippery slope, and they ask plaintitively, “But then were does it stop? If we are willing to fight wars to preserve peace, then what is to stop us from fighting wars for other more sordid reasons? If we are intolerant of the intolerant, then will we not later become intolerant of those we disagree with?”
Yes, that’s a danger. That’s how it is here in the real world. Bummer, ain’t it? Sometimes there are no perfect solutions.
That’s the real job of the pussy, it’s to stop the dick from going too far, they’re our safety net to stop us becoming that which we fight. Sadly these days the pussies are full of shit and are protecting the assholes.
Note to pussies, your job is to restrain the dick, not guard the asshole.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 07 17 at 11:07 PM • permalink
- Assimilation, being a “melting pot” isn’t that important.
Eg. the Amish haven’t assimilated. This is “organic multiculturalism”: we’re what we are, we show respect to the host state and other citizens, now leave us alone…
This is the opposite of today’s multiculturalism, which is: we’re what we are, we hate you but give us money, respect us above everyone else, other cultures/view are to be destroyed, etc.Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2005 07 17 at 11:35 PM • permalink
- Here’s state-funded multi-culti at its worst:
A senior Pakistani politician received UK state benefits for months after returning to the country as a governor.
Dr Ishrat-Ul-Ebad Khan sought asylum in 1992, said the Sunday Telegraph, and claimed benefits from 1999 to 2003.More here
Interesting. You have to think that over time, the dominant culture will eventually wipe out, or at least subsume, others. After all, most of us on here are products of a foreign culture which superseded an earlier one. Our forefathers paid scant respect to the existing cultures when they set up house in Jamestown or offloaded the convicts in Sydney Cove.
I can imagine the first Aborigine saying to the First Fleeters: “You’re all welcome here, but you have to speak our language and follow our laws!” Then “ARRGGGHHH” as he it the beach, complete with the First Bullet in the Head.
So, the stronger culture wins out. Surely, over time, this must inevitably happen again?
In short, I think we err if we view multi-culturism through the prism of here and now. It’s the longer haul that matters.
Which leads me to speculate as to what the dominant culture might be in say 100 years time. One suspects it might be sourced from multiple cultures that exist today. Islamic? No way. The Anglosphere? Doubtful. A polyglot European style blancmange? Maybe. But more likely we’ll all be Chinese, Indian or Hispanic, wouldn’t you think?
I can hear it now in a Blair blog of the future…”if these people want to stay here in Australia, they had better learn to speak Mandarin like the rest of us…”
The Age is reporting that police are powerless to prevent the sale of pro-Bin Laden, pro-terror literature at a Lakemba Islamic bookstore, because this doesn’t break any laws.
A spokesman for NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus today said the state had laws against racial vilification and incitement to violence.
But on the face of it, the content of the books did not appear to constitute incitement to violence, he said.
“For incitement to occur, violence has to actually take place (as a result of publishing the material),” the spokesman said.
Tell that to the two Christian pastors down in Victoria.
It’s not often that I agree with something published in The Age, but I shall agree with the given quote.
I once had a conversation with an acquaintance of foreign origin who had recently begun living in Australia. On the issue of the Australian Crown he informed me that he was all for a republic. His reasoning: (I’ve paraphrased this a tad) “I don’t want to swear an oath to a Queen, I wouldn’t have to do that in [insert foreign country here, I shan’t for fear of racial accusations!]”. In short, I told him to consider returning to his country. By my books, you don’t emigrate to a country only to complain about its culture.
Actually Democracy = government by the people ie MANY cultures
Therefore, multiculturalism is the very essence of democracy.
Democracy must, however, defend itself against those who would destroy it. Therefore, whilst most cultures should be very welcome in a modern democratic society, those who wish to destroy democracy should be fought in every effective way.
- This article is a milestone in the Age’s output. Good on ya Pam!
But it remains to be seen if Australia has a legal System capable of no nonsense dealing with terrorists. Europe has certainly proved it does NOT. in Germany, and the UK.
Fortunately Australia has only inept lawyers such as Mr Hopper to defend those who seek to murder us en masse.
The Stus of Hero worship my the Australian press towars Mr Habib and Hicks does not augure well.How many bold criminals have used entrapment to escape punishment? How else for example would agents infiltrate islamist groups bent on mayhem.“Agent Martin. Did you pose as a jihadist and offer your services as a suicide bomber in Melrbourne? “
“Yes my lud”
And were you then supplied with a bomb belt containing high explosives?”
“Yes my lud”
“ Your honor i move for an instant dismissal on the grounds of entrapment!”
“GRANTED”
The Age is reporting that police are powerless to prevent the sale of pro-Bin Laden, pro-terror literature at a Lakemba Islamic bookstore, because this doesn’t break any laws.
Well, logically, isn’t the real problem that the shop has *customers*?
Actually Democracy = government by the people ie MANY cultures
Well, the equally valid argument can be made that “the people” applies in the sense of *A* people, that is, a cohesive and like group. This is quite logical since only in a cohesive group like a Greek city-state or an Icelandic althing can pure democracy function: Like Ben Franklin said, democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on what’s for dinner. Liberty is when the well-armed sheep can contest the ballot.
Posted by Aaron – Freewill on 2005 07 18 at 02:24 AM • permalink
Was just watching Channel 10 news, they went into the Lakemba bookshop selling the terrorist material and guess who was there looking like he was working the till? Bilal Kazal, the ex qantas baggage handler currently charged with a number of terrorist offences including creating terrorist material. So this guy is on bail but he is still allowed to sell material virtually identical to that he is charged with creating!
- Gosh it takes repeated head bashings against walls for the penny to drop don’t it! Incalculable harm has been done by these intellectual traitors,possibly ALMOST irreversible.
slightly off topic.
Glenn Milne writes VERY interesting but stupid article about Bazza Jones’little contretemps with the Labor faithful and the Press Club do.
“The official reason for the no show was a leak in the press club roof.Real reason,not enough people booked.
Jones,you see, represents the only real democratic voice on Labor’s supreme body.”
“Warren Mundine, who’s already earned the ire of his party colleagues by backing John Howard’s notion’s of “practical reconciliation” in indigenous affairs.EXCEPT THE CRITICISM OF MUNDINE HAS BEEN NECESSARILY MUTED BECAUSE HE’S BLACK.”
“Press club addresses are no different to any staged political event.When a senior figure from either side of politics appears, the respective parties STACK the press club audience with partisan supporters.”
When 2 weeks ago Greg Combet spoke, it was too a packed house,including tables of senior union officials.
But no such effort was put in for Jones.Now some of his supporters are claiming foul play.They allege the word had been put out that Jones was not to be supported because of the nature of his speech.Those who have seen Jones’ speech say its highly critical of the (Labor) party.
Jones may have been thwarted last week but he’s told his colleagues he will make his speech.”
Talk about tolerating the intolerant . . . . how many young muslim guys do I see wearing their Wu Tang and FUBU tracksuits and fucking bling-bling cheap-arse jewellery, and they’ve got their wife decked out in ankle-length sacks and hijab headscarves. Makes me want to punch these guys’ fucking lights out.
Posted by Young and Free on 2005 07 18 at 04:45 AM • permalink
1. Multi-culturalism is unacceptable.
Multi-ethnicity is acceptable.
2. In the USA (or Australia) there should be one culture – American (Australian) culture. However, in the USA there are many ethnicities (Irish, Japanese, Armenian, Jews, Italians, Germans, Mexicans, Chinese, Cambodians, and…oh..English and Scottish). The ethnicity is more visible among the recent immigrants, yet most come to the USA to be part of the American society and culture.
3. The left/socialist/liberal crowd promotes multiculturalism and bi-lingual education and similar “social engineering.” The immigrants do not desire it.
4. Look at Canada – it has 2 cultures – French and English, with constant fighting, bickering, disagreement, etc. Awful
5. Look at the Balkans – where every ethnicity promoted its own culture. Awful.
6. NOTE: My site is not work place safe, because it contains some pictures of semi-clas beautiful women.
- Tony Blair’s feeble attempts at drawing some attention to the dangers of islamism must not be repeated in Australia, should we too get attacked.
Blairs feeble attempts at damage control for the cowardly policies of the British government that has now left Britons open to attack from within are disgraceful.
For years it’s open door policies to muslim extremists and the offering of British soil as a safe Haven has backfired, but not after British islamic terrorists had caused death and havoc in foreign countries, such as Egypt, israel and america.
For the last thirty years Britons have been brainwashed by their media to respect and love and welcome Muslims and Islam.
recently they have also accepted their roles as dhimmies Now this love and respect is bearing fruit , the kind of fruit which hanged from Billy Holidays tree.
Multi-cultis are quick to brand Western influence in other cultures as corrupting chauvinism or imperialist interference. Yet demands for accommodation, special treatment and autonomy by non-Western cultures living in the West (often with the host’s financial assistance) are considered an exercises in ‘tolerance.’ Go figure.
Hey, Aging Gamer (comment #29), do you think you can stuff the extra-macho obscene talk? As I’ve pointed out to others here, people do read this site at work. I haven’t said much about the level of obscenity in the comments because I normally don’t care (and I am not one to avoid swearing like a truck driver when I think the situation warrants it), but yours was a disgusting and wholly unnecessary example of it. Don’t make me turn on word censoring. (For one thing, it would make half the comments here unreadable collections of asterisks.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 07 18 at 07:10 AM • permalink
- Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 18 at 09:36 AM • permalink
- I read Tim Blair a work all the time but never read when people are too close – should they become aware of my non-lefty views. Luckily the font is pretty small. Once I clicked onto a link which happened to be sound file from Team America – and I couldn’t find the close button fast enough.
The worse situation I had at work was when I did a search on the net for a crack code to some software and all of a sudden all these porn sites start poping up and I looked up and our CEO was walking towards me. I dived onto the floor went uder my desk and pulled the plug on my computer.
Some of these comments are similar to the justification often given for the quota system aka affirmative action at some of our (U.S.) more prestigious colleges and universities. We must force the admission of protected minorities because if we admit strictly on merit, our student body would be overwhelmingly Asian!
My reaction which usually surprises the liberal mouthing those racist statements is, so Asians win the top spots. So what? What’s the problema?
I feel the same way about the future of the anglosphere or anywhere else around the world. Let it evolve naturally. That’s all I ask, but it’s too hard for the nannies around us. They are so much smarter than we and ever so much more exquisitely sensitive that they can’t leave us all the he!! alone.
In the words of that beloved nursery rhyme, Leave us alone and we’ll get home, wagging our tails behind us.
But more likely we’ll all be Chinese, Indian or Hispanic, wouldn’t you think?
Not with this here English-language-dominated Internet and world economy.
I think in 200-300 years we’ll all be speaking English, many of the darker people will be lighter, and many of us lighter people will be darker.
all of a sudden all these porn sites start poping up and I looked up and our CEO was walking towards me. I dived onto the floor went uder my desk and pulled the plug on my computer.
Now there’s a woman who knows how to keep her wits about her when the sh*t hits the fan.
Funny Melanie should mention Team America, as that’s what I was referencing above.
Forgive me for indulging in cultural references.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 07 18 at 12:18 PM • permalink
All I need to know about multiculturalism is that it’s a lefty construct.
Unlike the left’s destructive economic policies, which were quickly exposed as unworkable, the folly of implementing their immigration, cultural and racial policies is only now becoming evident. I believe the left is a far greater threat to us than Islam and if we don’t stop their radical experimentation with our societies there soon won’t be anything worth fighting for except personal survival.
#53, blerp has it right. Affirmative action in the US was a good idea for redressing some disadvantages, until it got hijacked and turned into code for “special consideration”.
We would do well to return to our roots, and take note of a slogan we put on our lowly penny long ago: E pluribus – unum. From the many – one.
Rebecca – I think the motto you’ve quoted is an excellent expression of the objective of multiculturalism – especially since it’s expressed in the language of another culture, ancient Rome. Multiculturalism has served ‘melting pot’ countries such as Australia and the US well, by and large. It’s given us (among other things) spaghetti, laksa, Beethoven, the Kama Sutra, our number system, Christianity, couscous, fireworks, algebra, surfing, impressionism, acapuncture, flamenco, monokinis, zydeco and Abba (you have to take the rough with the smooth, I suppose).
Multiculturalism has two basic problems in my view:
a) it’s easily confused with cultural seperatism (which defeats its purpose)
b) it’s a really easy target for xenophobes.
In a modern democracy (as distinct from the embryonic democracy of ancient Athens ), everyone is able to participate in the electoral process equally, regardless of gender, race or cultural background. Multiculturalism therefore is the very essence of democracy.
When I worked as a research officer at the Victorian Ethnic Affairs Commission when ‘Multiculturalism’ was all the rage in the mid-80’s. I realised that multiculturalism as it was implemented by Australian governments was a ‘con’. Its purpose was to give the illusion that it gave free expression for different groups to express their culture, but this was certainly limited to ‘safe’ things like food, dancing, literature etc. Once you went into more serious things like law and education the culture stayed resolutely in the Australian tradition.
I agree with the sentiment expressed by President Clinton in 1998, which could apply to Australia:
”….just like native-born Americans, immigrants have responsibilities as well as rights, including the need to put country and humanity before ethnicity and race. I say, as President, to all our immigrants, you are welcomed here. But you must honour our laws, learn our language, know our history, and when the time comes, you should become citizens. If you do this it does not matter how long you have been here. You are Americans.”
the problem isn’t multiculturalism, which has thrived in Australia for decades. The problem is an anti-democratic, oppressive, extremist strand that exists primarily within one culture.
I think that Tim B is on the right track here, but is buying into multicultural ideology which is always a risky venture.
Multiculturalism rests on two fallacies, the identification of racial and cultural traits and the identification of Continental European culture with a culture that is alien to Australia.
Multi-cultis are constantly asserting that multiculturalism is identical to multiracialism, which implies that any opponent of multi-culti must be a racist. Yet it is obvious that cultural traits are artificial whereas racial traits are natural. Thus persons of the same race can have wildly disparate culture (eg Hitler and Churchill). Whilst persons of different races can have similar cultures (eg Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft).
The multi-cultis second fallacy is to point to the success of the wave of post-war immigration from Continental Europe into AUS as proof that multiculturalism works perfectly. But this belief rests on the confusiion that most of the immigrants to AUS were some how from an alien culture.
In fact most post-war immigrants were Caucasian Christians from Europe ie bearers of the foundational culture of Western Civilization. They were not that different from Anglo-Australians in culture, indeed they were more likely to be better at Western culture than most Anglo-Australians eg the Dunera Boys. We now recognise this and fall over ourselves to participate in various cosmopolitian sub-cultures.
I have no problem with ethnic diversity so long as we have ethical uniformity. Multi-racial immigration to AUS, including NESBs from the alien cultures of Asia, Africa and Arabia, can still work under certain conditions. But the immigrants should be selected on the basis of utilitarian national interest and integrated on the basis of communitarian national ideology. That means that multiculturalism, as the official settlement ideology of the AUS government, must be ditched. Good riddance.
- kywong 73.Multiculturalism is the essence of democracy.
Democracy —Government of the people,FOR THE PEOPLE,by the people.
Multiculties will each want to govern for their own group,that’s why it doesn’t work.
We all have seen that immigrants come here because they really love the way things are.
Almost immediately they are seized with a compulsion to CHANGE the country to be more like the country they came from.
That is why it doesn’t work.
I say when their country of origin becomes as easygoing,tolerant,justice orientated,peaceful and prosperous as this one then maybe they can venture to make a suggestion.
Crash – sorry, but I disagree. If we are an “easygoing, tolerant, justice oriented, peaceful” society (and by and large we are, I think), then we have to express those qualities by allowing and tolerating debate from all sectors and cultures within our society.
The difficult issue is to decide where to draw the line between debate and incitement. If we believe we have a right to free speech then we have to allow everyone in our society to have that free speech, even if it’s an Imam preaching jihad .. or are some animals more equal than others?? In that direction lies totalitariansm.
The best response to affronting debate is to defeat it with better ideas, better values and a better quality of life for those who follow our ideas and values. Through that process, we can achieve e pluribus unum and over time merge the best of many cultures into one, much more robust Australian culture.
Page 1 of 1 pages
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Members:
Login | Register | Member List
Good to see you finally telling it like it is Tim. I wonder, however, if the Liberal party will ever forgive you. hehe.