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gomaos

Refugees/boat people

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Originally posted by fruers:

No, that an important tie between two neighbouring countries was severed because of the capatilistic nature of the people that were coming through that channel.

If you're looking at numbers, then Indonesia is a far more important economic partner than NZ ... and they are neighbours too. Yet I don't see you complaining about them. Possibly cos they are not western whites??

Our last "great immigration drive" consisted predominantly of lebanese and vietnamese immigrants

What is the term for when popular perceptions override facts??? I believe it is racism. Check you immigration numbers.

Vietnam doesn't even rate in the top 5, with UK, china, philipines, india and a few others well ahead of it. Lebanon wasn't even in the top 10.

who's running the major crime rings in australia?

Australians and Chinese according to the NCA. Again, don't let popular perceptions cloud the facts just so they suit your concept of racial stigmas.

For a short time the vietnamese had a special ranking in the heroin trade. The Italians haven't been at the top for a few decades. One of the highest ranking drug export countries is Israel, but we never hear about them as it is politically incorrect. Most of the cocaine comes from the US rather than directly from south america, but dare we attack our big brother for not doing enough in the war on drugs.

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Originally posted by Torsten:

What is the term for when popular perceptions override facts???

Journalism smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Darklight (edited 07 September 2001).]

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Originally posted by rkundalini

Waterdragon, we do have an "Australian culture", I agree. But it is a culture of immigrants! Unless you're sitting there chewing pituri and banging on your clap sticks, I doubt you practice authenthic Australian culture. White Australian culture is a hodgepodge of European influences. It would never have come about without immigration.Do you "represent the Anglo community"? Fine, then by all means fuck off back to England and represent Anglos to your hearts content. (I don't really mean this by the way, I am just turning your language around on you so you can see what you're actually saying.)

If you can't see the point in "ethnic ghettos" maybe you should go live in a foreign country and see how lonely you get, how ungrounding and disorienting it is to be immersed in an alien culture and language. Forming ex-pat communities is a psychological survival mechanism.

Your final question, "how do we build a strong united nation if everyone is pulling in different directions?" is, I have to say, a tad scary. To want everyone to have the same opinions, the same ideas about the way things should go, smacks of totalitarianism. People are only pulling in opposite directions if they are still stuck in this neanderthal "us vs them" paradigm of intercultural relations. If they all pulled in the direction of the greater good then there would be no conflict...[/b]

.....anyhow, i don't pretend to represent any community. i understand the reasons why ethnic ghettos form but i'm more for assimilation than exclusion. i don't have any problem with australia being multi-racial, i just feel that the term 'multi-cultural' has a real lacklustre feel to it, australia has a culture of its own and it is a tapestry/melting pot of many cultures. i'm sure that when people become australian citizens they're not awarded a certificate with 'citizen of (one of everything)' written on it.

i feel that people elected to the parliament should be representing australians whatever their ethnic background, standing up and declaring that you represent one race of people only is racist in my view. if i stood up in parliament and stated i represent white australia i'd never hear the end of it. journalists would begin and end their careers bleating about how racist i was.

finally, i'm not silly enough to believe that everyone is going to agree on everything but as you say to have most of us 'working for the greater good' would be fine by me. and feel free to agree or disagree, it's all the same to me. i'm not discounting your opinion but i have one of my own.

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Guest Saph

Look it all Interesting seeing that you all have very strong feelings on this....

But how can we afford to keep taking these refugee when we have enough problem in our society as it is.

We have enough homeless people on the street that we do almost nothing about, yet we are try to look after people that sell everything to try and get to (Australia) the land of oppertunities when we can stop have homless people on the street then they should think about.

Really look at it from this way at least 90% of them cant speak english then what they are all going to be in there own little communities which our goverment has to pay for which means it our tax payers money.

If you think that it's nasty that they get turned away. Its not they should do it like everyone else has to apply for a visa get a job then see if you can get citizenship....etc

I do feel sorry for them but thats it lifes not about one free ride it more than that.

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Guest reville
Originally posted by Saph:

Look it all Interesting seeing that you all have very strong feelings on this....

But how can we afford to keep taking these refugee when we have enough problem in our society as it is.

We have enough homeless people on the street that we do almost nothing about

Really look at it from this way at least 90% of them cant speak english then what they are all going to be in there own little communities which our goverment has to pay for which means it our tax payers money.

I do feel sorry for them but thats it lifes not about one free ride it more than that.

Many homeless people are victims of hard times but a good proportion are there due to alcoholism, mental illness or some other form of dysfunctionality. I agree more should be done but im not convinced that that itself is a reason to deny them access as you are assuming that these refugees have the same capacity for change.I dispute that. Not only have middle eastern people and migrants from non western societies in my experience, had stronger familial support structures but they also had a totally different outlook on the meaning of life and their reaction to hardship- i doubt theres much in common between these groups.

As for english skills, i earlier posted that i support the notion of mandatory but subsidised english classes for new migrants. The reason is that i have been wholly impressed with the capacity of non english speaking people to pick up functional english language capabilities within a couple of years of being here even when they do not study formally.Do you disagree that migrants of the past have not adapted quickly? italians greeks germans lebanese chinese?

or that the net result of these people coming here has been profitable to the australian nation culturally and economically?

I also tend to disagree with the notion of a free ride. i imagine it is very hard to set up a new life in a foreign country and that

the story of the refugee is a sad tale indeed. Perhaps more needs to be made of a agreement between the govt and new arrivals in terms of their obligations to the new country but id never say it was a free ride.

There are many valid reasons to say no to the boatpeople but i felt that these from the perspective of the past and probability that these werent them. Of course i respect your right to a different opinion.

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Guest mandragora

actually what`s the newerst decicion about that? Here you hear nothing about that anymore?

I thought they have time till friday to decide?

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Much of the hardship migrants (refugees or other applicants) suffer is due to the subliminal prejudices and often blantant racism in australia. I found the only way to avoid that is to speak the language good enough so that nationality can't be picked up and to have white european appearance.

I have many non-european friends who speak english just as well as or better than myself, but they are still subjected to prejudice. Australia is a long way from integrating anti prejudice laws into everyday life. I have even been in the position (more than once) to have been given preferential treatment by employers simply due to the fact that they thought I was australian.

I am very sensitive to racism and prejudice (my pet peeve) and while racism rarely affects myself, I observe it around me almost on a daily basis.

As for homelessness and abject poverty, this is often due to poor education. If we had a society that valued education and knowledge more than money then we wouldn't have most of these problems.

And if anyone believes that migrants don't contribute greatly to this society, then just have a look in your immediate community. Both Daniel and myself are migrants for example.

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I thought Hawkie eradicated all child poverty back in 1990 & that one of his successor's to the crown was to make Australia the knowledgeable country - or some such thing - whilst similtaneously introducing & increasing HECS for uni students, thereby making it harder for kids from lower socio-economic groups to get thru uni & thus entrenching some peolple in their present situation. Still it isn't as bad as countries such as the USA.

In regards to racism - up here in Broome it is absolutely rife in regards to Aboriginals. The general state of their economic & social conditions are pretty poor. It's hard to believe we are living in the same town.

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apparently racism is a bad thing, you'd never know it by turning on the TV lately. i wouldn't fancy being of middle eastern origin at this point in time.

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