i think the media should fix this, seen as dough they made the mess. thanx steve.

“What’s with Australia?”

Firstly I have lived in Australia 23 years and never heard of Pearl Harbour Day, though I do know about the event.

I do believe there is some racism (if that is the right word) towards Japanese in Australia but this only comes from the older generations. There is a reason for this which comes from how the Australian prisoners of war were treated by the Japanese during WW2. How the Aussie POWs were treated is shocking beyond belief, and almost turned an entire generation against the Japanese. I have lived for many years nextdoor to an Australian WW2 vet who fought against the Japanese. In every way he was a great man but he could never forgive the Japanese for what they did to his mates all those years ago.

On the other hand I think the younger generations have no malice towards the Japanese, in fact I think that in general they like the Japanese and are very interested in their culture.

Major police alerts this weekend, all over Oz but particularly NSW. We’re all observing closely. Hope the folks organising the Harmony in the Park day in Sydney get a good turnout. Reconciliation marches, four years ago, drew 250,000.

I’d also like to shoutout to ANNA: thanks for facilitating this discussion. It’s been awesome. Keep challenging, Mutineers.

an article similar to what I was talking about earlier with regards to the geography/demographics of Sydney:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/a-tale-of-two-sydneys-affluent-versus-aspiring/2005/12/16/1134703611525.html

Siddhartha, I’ve actually done some research on the demographics of Sydney and class conflict etc. will be happy to pass it on to you/flygirl when I am able to compile it all in a coherent fashion.

Flygirl/Siddhartha:

the multiculturalist model is not fully articulated; …so there’s no fresh model out there for people to engage with, either in support or in disagreement

What about a Gross National Happiness Indicator?:). Jokes aside, yes, you’re both quite right, multicultural seems to be a dirty word here, it seems to carry with it connotations of invasion and job-stealing. There needs to be a greater promotion of the advantages of multiculturalism as a WHOLE instead of a focus on individual cultures as and when the situation calls for it. I have noticed that people here feel disconnected when, in an aim to promote the views of one particular nation/culture/religion, you overlook others. For example, in Sydney, since 9/11, there has been a strong focus on bringing an understanding of Islam to the wider Australian public. As a result, many Islamic youth groups were formed to educate people of the peaceful nature of Islam but failed as they refused to accept the views of non-Muslims(I dont want to discredit these organisations by mentioning their names). On the other hand, at the same time, organisations such as Affinity ( http://www.affinity.org.au )have emerged and have achieved enormous success in forming a cultural connection with the wider Australian community. Affinity is one of the few examples of such groups that are very much active in the process of forming ties with other religious organisations to promote the similarities between these belief systems. For example, I was invited to attend an Affinity barbeque, being Hindu, they were very kind in cooking a vegetarian meal for me as well as ommitting beef from their meals!

Similarly, a bridge of understanding is much needed today between Caucasian Australians and the Middle Eastern youths. Organisations as proactive as Affinity but with a greater cultural focus would do wonders to prevent any future riots and to create the much needed community cohesion that is very much lacking in Australia and other parts of the world today.

on that day i’d probably be nervous of getting beat up, but i don’t think i’d worry in aus in general

(btw, I’ve given up the name Raju for anyone who cares. Sahej means something like “calm” in gurumuhki)

I won’t answer that here because it’s very OT

siddhartha:

the multiculturalist model is not fully articulated; …so there’s no fresh model out there for people to engage with, either in support or in disagreement.

Absolutely! Exactly what’s happening right now. How, how do we buck the trend…