Thread: Australia the most racist country?

When I first moved to Leichhardt - late eighties - it was an Italian enclave.

If you didn't speak Italian you got served last in the shops and all of the jobs were advertised in the windows in Italian.

I like the open-handed idea of assimilation, but also the flavour that cultural enclaves lend to the city. Where would Sydney be without Chinatown, Bondi, Leichhardt, Marrickville, Campsie...

Leave your fights at home, but bring your food with you.

Simon

G'day Rick130

"Multiculturism" was the term coined by the late Al Grazby (he of the multicoloured suit) to usher in a new era whereby those that immigrated to Australia could keep their culture and everybody else would (hopefully) welcome this new mix of "wonderful" people, BUT he didn't even think of the long hatreds that came with this idea, when the first of the "displaced people" came post WW11 one of the main criteria was that English had to be understood or hopefully spoken,then with the "Snowy-Scheme" all and any migrants were accepted,English classes were held in council halls or evening school classes, I am aware of many homes where english is/was spoken outside, and native language only spoken at home, I have witnessed a mother give a 5 year old grade 1 student at Strathfield Primary a fearfull hiding in the schoolyard, because she spoke english to her mother who was picking her up, "YOU NO SPEAK ENGLISH,YOU SPEAK GREEK" I was picking up my grade 2 daughter at the time, teacher stopped the belting, 1978.

cheers

Originally Posted by abaddonxi

<snip>
but bring your food with you.

Simon

yep !

Originally Posted by rick130

I wrote quite a post but have scrapped it.

Instead I'll ask a question, seeing as many have already mentioned the word.

What does Multiculturalism mean to you ?

Does anyone have a hard and fast definition ?

Oh well Rick, my spanglish is not the best but my interpretation is that we allowed to our way of living and culture for the last 200 + years to be changed by a mix of different cultures (including rules imposed by them) instead to these cultures integrate on the Australian way of living and Australian culture.

Now we have a "salad of cultures" many of them trying to impose their religion believes and other things.

To give you an example, in Uruguay are more diverse cultures than here but the country always have the policy of "this is how we are, take it or leave" and things always worked very nice and smooth.

I hope that I am clear

I wonder how much of the Australian racism is the result of our mind numbingly stupid policies of denying Australian Culture in favour of migrants cultures for fear of upsetting a migrant.
People are very frustrated at our inability to be openly Australian in Australia.

I don't think Asians can talk too much about us being racist, my sister lives in Japan and even though she is married to a Jap she can never own property or vote.

I have seen stories on shows like 60 minutes about Australians living in some Asian countries where they are only allowed free travel within a certain radius of their home. One woman couldn't go to her church with out written permission.

Not saying racism is right from any angle. The sooner we can put race and ESPECIALLY RELIGION aside, the sooner we can all get along.

Steve.

G'day PhilipA


The operative word is "AUSTRALIANS" and that is where it is wrong, as most of these later migrants do not see themselves as "AUSTRALIANS" but as --------'s living in Australia.


cheers

Yes there are racist people in Australia, but I do not think it is any worse than the rest of the world. Look at the US, France, Spain, Germany, UK, Baltic States. They actually kill people when they do not like them or have large scale riots and protests.
Most racism in Australia is blown out of proportion by minorities that feel agrieved. The problem is if you say something against a minority, you are labelled a racist as it is the easiest way to take the focus off of them and get the person or section of the community that disagrees with them to shut up.
IMO there are three types of racism :
True racism where someone detests and persecutes a person on the basis of race, colour, creed, religion, ethnicity, sex or sexual orientation. And while it is fine to fundamentally disagree with some of these to persecute people because they have a different belief is not right. I believe this type of racism is not widespread like some people would like us to believe. It does exist however and I have seen it.

Then there is the perceived racism, where comments and ideals are taken out of context. Where people make a philsophical statement that is disagreed with by another party who cry racism as it does not hold with their ideals or agendas. Quite often here there are hidden agendas and it usually relates to making an individual or segement of the community better off in some way. This is the mainstay of alleged racism I believe.

Thirdly there is reverse racism and a good example of this is sex crimes against men (which most people perceive as being a joke) and our courts system regarding fathers. This is also when minorities turn some of the above around by crying racism on statements that are made by people and disagreed with and has no real founding for the racism claim. It is in fact the person alleging racism that is the racist. Also when minorities will not interact with other cultures them selves and create their own little enclaves.There are also others.

I do not believe most people are racist at heart, but sometimes get caught up in sentiment or ideals.
I love meeting people from other cultures.

As for some of the stories of abusing, intimidating and assaulting tourists that is just not on either and these people should be brought to account. Tourists bring a lot of money into the economy and keep a lot of us employed. There is also a flip side to this as when travelling Australia we did come across a lot of arrogant tourists that believed they were better than us, had right of access and showed no etiquette. There are a couple of countries in specific that tended to this trait, but we have also met some fantastic people from some of these countries as well.
No short term answer I am afraid. What does amaze me is some of these people that do show a high degree of racism are only 1st or 2nd generation Australians, recent naturalisations or still have OS citizenship. Go figure.

Originally Posted by clean32

then there s ETA which is based around ethic lines.

ETA based around ethnic lines ????????. Basque people belong to the same race, and religion ¡ (many catholic clergy has been supporting the cause) , than the rest of the country. It is a fight about independence, I'm sure they would welcome any immigrant races that supported their independent views.