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Now today I read that Australian labour party leader Beazley would like tourists to, upon arrival, sign a pledge to uphold "Australian values" (
link to storyNow coming from a left wing leader he can't mean praying the rosary twice a day. So what does the good man mean.
Come up with some good suggestions people :P (now where's that "sayved yoo a spat on a beeych"-girl)
Comments
video 1
video2 (even better)
I cannot understand this!!!!!!
English language
[Edited on 15-9-06 by Clown]
If you're NOT taking the piss, I can explain it to you.
Large Australian cities - in particular Sydney and Melbourne -contain several 'slums' (for want of a better word) where crime is rampant and co-operation with police is nigh on non-existent. In the main, these are suburbs that are inhabited by immigrants (either first or second generation) from non-english speaking nations. Unfortunately, it seems that many people migrate to this country in the physical sense only, and Beazley is merely saying that if you intend to come to our country and enjoy our freedoms and lifestyle you can either leave the negative aspects of your culture at home or not bother coming at all.
I guess he's referring to the petty gang wars between Serbs and Croats etc etc that periodically blow up ..... you leave your country to get away from that shit so why bring it here and kick it off again?
The Liberal Party has been in favour of this type of legislation for years and has been well and truly caught off guard by the actual proposal being mooted by the other side of politics.
I think extending it to tourists is a bit off the wall but i'm all for imigrants being expected to leave negative aspects of their cultures at the door when they enter Australia and being asked to properly assimilate.
Might put me in the minority on here, but i'm not fussed.
Drink Beer....Watch Bathurst.... Drink more beer!
P.S. I bumped into someone the other day and he didn't know who
Brocky was... we don't need THAT sort of persone here!
2. The real issue is not uniquely Australian. Western Europe has a bigger problem that anyone in regard to non-integrating immigrants and this is just another symptom of that malady.
What the political parties here are trying to do is to take the perennial problems of immigration being:
The tendency for ethnic groups to concentrate
The tendency for older immigrants to not learn the local language
The potential for socio-economic groups forming that accept conditions below those considered marginal by the rest of the population, and for predation by parts of the socio-economic group on other parts of the group.
and avoid them developing in the first place.
Eclectic societies have a very real problem avoiding schisms developing within society when any groups within that society have a credo that is at odds with the structure of the host country. The easiest and most topical to identify is where religious law is considered above secular law. What a lot of the ‘desirable destinations’ of immigrant groups are concerned about is accepting people into their society who, by the definition of their religious principles, reject the sovereignty of the laws of their new society.
One way of making it clear to immigrants what the expectations, and indeed the limitations, of their new home are, is to provide them with a view of the ‘way of life’, or the ‘societal values’ that apply. It is not beyond belief that immigrants to some western societies may believe that a policy of religious tolerance will naturally translate to the acceptance of Shariah Law for example.
Overall, this can’t be a bad approach if it is done carefully and sensitively.
Another problem being experienced relates to the lowering of living standards that can occur when immigrants who don’t speak the language and have no transportable skills stick together in what can only be described as slums. They have nothing, feel badly treated, and are predated upon by exploitative elements within their own societies.
What is really interesting about the ‘home-grown terrorist’ fear that many societies are now becoming concerned about the possibility of, is that it aint new. Look at New York at the turn of the 20th century. The mafia effectively grew from just these origins.
The tried and true method of integrating immigrants is education, language and dispersement. The methods proposed in a number of countries, including Australia are targeted at exactly these outcomes with the addition of a bit of information to tell immigrants that what is expected of them in their new home.
Sadly, Beazly wants to extend that to visitors, which when you think about means that if you can successfully inculcate Australian values into every visitor before they get here, why would they bother to come? Look at the pictures and save a fortune. Idiots.
Funny how one persons "racist" views turn out to be someone elses policy, years later. After accusing them of racism in the first place.
Maybe Political Correctness has taken a back seat.
[Edited on 18-9-06 by Clown]
Interestingly, there's an Arab-Jewish thing going on in St John's Wood/Marble Arch but that's not about fighting ... just big money.
London: not without its problems but people generally rub along. The Tube bombers came from Yorkshire where there certainly is apartheid by another name, Bradford being the worst example (the north is also where the far right British National Party has most of its councillors although it did do well in poor, white Dagenham recently.)
Money is the main issue, as Lease says. Dissent lurks where people have given up (and that has as much to do with easy state handouts as anything else).
Now if you were an "orthodox" muslim, would you go to an event that circles around eating lots of pork trotters, drinking even more beer and women wearing those national dresses that leave little to imagination (especially after a few of the former). Isn't that a bit like the pope visiting a gay pride rally?