A True speakers corner rant

[Matt-75]

I think the Channel Tunnel should be shut to lorries and all Lorries leaving France by boat should be sealed air tight with nitrogen pumped into them to replace the air. Similarly they should xray each lorry, to make its contents are exactly what is said on its manifest, and any extra additions should be removed.

Im not particularly bothered about whether immigrant people in the country speak english or not, just as long as they tow the line, obey our laws, and dont abuse our hospitality. I think if they dont, they should be deported to one of those islands of scotland to a camp where they can instruct them on the error of there ways. Or alternatively deported to there home countries that im sure would happily deal with them for us.

[Keith Whittaker]

So you throw out all the immigrants and replace them with all the pensioners from the Costa del Sol who can't be arsed to learn Spanish ?

[dry suit diver]

heard on the radio that the Aussie PM has apologised for the way Aboriginal people were treated in the past.


when did you get Tony Bliar (sic) as your PM

[alrhem]

During European elections (about 5-6years ago) there was a guy standing I believe for a communist party...

I heard teh opening of one of his speeches (when passing by).

"Fcuk political correctness; give the best person for the job the job!"...

This made alot of people step back and listen, debate etc.

I know its a bit of a hijak but...


other than that - this email is an old one, as proven by previous posts.

Surely among our many varying constitutions (eu etc) we are entitled to express our own opinions. Yes they might offend others, but its their right to feel offended...

i fear political correctness is part of the british culture and its one i have enjoyed poking and proding to see if i get a reaction ou of people.... sometimes... :P

[Richard Mason]

As somebody who has lived in Australia for the last 20 years, I can assure you that John Howard didn't say that at all, but it would appear that most on here have now got their head around that fact. If he'd said anything like what was in the email, there'd have been an absolute bloody uproar, so I'd have remembered it.

What was actually said by leading members of the former govt, which lost office in Nov 07 is summed up quite well here.

Yes, Aus is a nation of immigrants, 23% of Australian residents were borne overseas and roughly the same number are the children of overseas born parents. Austraia has been doing immigration of one kind or another for a long time and since WW2 in particular, the emphasis has changed from virtually 100% Anglo-Irish immigration under the White Australia policy, (ironically originally expounded and supported by the Australian Labour Party), and which was only abolished in the late 60s.

Since WW2, there have been successive waves of immigrants from Southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Malta, Serbia, Croatia, Lebanon), followed by immigrants/refugees from the SE Asia war (Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians etc) and latterly, from China. The post WW2 Lebanese were largely Maronite Christians but latterly, since the Lebanese Civil War of the 70s and the Israeli occupation of the South in the 80s, we've had many more Lebanese from the Muslim community.

Unfortunately, and for a number of reasons, a significant number of this community have had difficulty integrating - some of it being possibly for cultural/religious reasons but some of it for economic reasions - unlike the Maronites who preceded them, many of whom are now leading businessmen (like Jack Nasser, one time head of Ford Australia and then President of Ford USA) etc, the Muslim Lebanese arrived here at a time of economic stagnation and lack of demand for unskilled labour and some have had difficulty making a success of things.

This has coincided with an upsurge, worldwide in Muslim radicalism and I think this was an unhappy coincidence - previous govts, anxious to promulgate multiculturalism, have been less than discriminating in terms of who they've allowed in to act as imams and it looks like we've had some very dodgy characters, espousing some very dodgy causes doing a fair amount of damage (does this sound familiar?), in particular, the former so-called Mufti of Australia, now deposed by his own community to whom he caused untold embarassment such as his sermon likening scantily clad females to "uncovered meat", when defending young men from the Muslim community who were on brutal gang rape charges involving non-Muslim females. There have been a number of very unfortunate cases of this, where gangs have specifically targetted and then entrapped "Aussie" girls and then used text messages to call their mates to the "party". A huge amount of resentment had been building over this and other related issues, resulting in outbreaks such as the Cronulla Riots, which really brought things to a head - there were disgraceful acts by hotheads in both the Lebanese Muslim and notionally Christian community and no one is proud of what happened.

The previous govt here worked very hard to minimise the activity of radical clerics, Howard basically read the riot act to the Islamic Establishment (reading between the lines) and formed a liaison committee to try and address these issues and, I have to say, that it appears to be working to an extrent - we are certainly hearing less of it - the radicals appear to be losing ground, they certainly aren't as vocal.

What was pleasing was that during the recent Israeli incursion into Lebanon, when thousands of Lebanese Australians were trapped in the war-zone that despite the whining from the usual suspects, like Keysar Trad, those who were brought back by our Govt, in specially chartered flights were keen, fresh off the plane after a gruelling journey, to express their gratitude to the Aus Federal Govt for sparing no effort to get them out. They talked like Australians - many of their women wore head scarves but those women spoke and acted like Australians too; they were undeniably Australians first & foremost and were glad to be, in their words........ "home".

That really got me thinking that despite all of the negative publicity and sh!t in the media that the vast majority of the people in the Muslim coomunity in Aus, at any rate, are just like me, they love it here and just want to live safely, with a good future for their kids and it made me realise that it's really just a few ratbags messing it up for everyone - as far as I'm concerned, their religion's their business and as long as it stays that way, I think the vast majority of people here are cool with that.

On a personal level, the only Muslim I have known reasonably well was a Malaysian, a female graduate trainee in our Engineering Services Dept and I find it pretty hard to reconcile being dragged along with popular opinion of Radical Islam with my experience of Hanum, who is one of the politest people I know with no hang ups and who was quite happy to get involved in all of our social activities, including Xmas functions and to wish one and all "Merry Xmas", and send Xmas cards, without a trace of resentment - truely a case of when in Rome

Whilst Australia has a lot of things to be embarrassed about in it's previous treatment of minorities and still isn't perfect, it is my opinion that we are not a nation of racists, despite what people might say - in my experience, the worst racism I've seen personally was as a young man in Manchester, it was horrible visceral stuff, particularly against the Asian community in places like Hyde, Ashton etc - I haven't seen any of that here. Whilst you certainly experience racism here, what has always pleasantly surprised me is the groundswell amongst most ordinary people against it and I'm sure it's much the same in most of the UK.

People do have a natural fear of losing national identity and devaluation of their own culture - I think that is perfectly understandable and it is vitally important to avoid ghettoisation of immigrant communities and I think, from what I read in British and local media that's what has happened to an extent in the UK - but much of this has occurred since I left, so I won't try and comment on it.

It's interesting that the world's greatest boogieman, the USA seems for the most part to have been extremely successful in integrating successive waves of immigrants over the last 200 yrs and despite a large Muslim community and a history of immigration from the Middle East, seem to have largely avoided radicalisation - the children of their immigrants are Americans front & centre and they seem to manage this withoput destroying people's cultures, so you have Irish Americans, Greek Americans, Italian Americans, and Black Americans but principally, they are Americans. How have they managed this where others countries have not?

[uwila]

Originally Posted by Richard Mason

It's interesting that the world's greatest boogieman, the USA seems for the most part to have been extremely successful in integrating successive waves of immigrants over the last 200 yrs and despite a large Muslim community and a history of immigration from the Middle East, seem to have largely avoided radicalisation - the children of their immigrants are Americans front & centre and they seem to manage this withoput destroying people's cultures, so you have Irish Americans, Greek Americans, Italian Americans, and Black Americans but principally, they are Americans. How have they managed this where others countries have not?

Because they didn't have any American Americans to resent the newcomers - well, not after they disposed of the native population...

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by Keith Whittaker

So you throw out all the immigrants and replace them with all the pensioners from the Costa del Sol who can't be arsed to learn Spanish ?

Fuck that. I don't want all those Mail-reading reactionary inglish twats back here, it took long enough to get rid of them. I'd rather have Abu Hamza any day of the week thanks.

Chris

[Finless]

Originally Posted by Arfie

I wholeheartedly agree with John Howard and I think it's time the UK adopted the same approach. Personally I have no problem with anyones race or religion, but they choose to live here and they should have 2 options, follow the laws and speak English, or free ticket back to where you came from.

If you choose to live in another country, you choose to live by the laws in that country and learn the language. Should you break those laws you should expect to be punished according to that countries proceedures.

Arfie

Free????????????????

As for bloody foreigners! I'm sure there is someone who goes up my local Club who is from West Sussex, FFS!

Is it not the nature of things to change and adapt? Oh well, bring back the good old days of the British Empire when the sun never set on all of it.

[big_si]

Originally Posted by Richard Mason

It's interesting that the world's greatest boogieman, the USA seems for the most part to have been extremely successful in integrating successive waves of immigrants over the last 200 yrs and despite a large Muslim community and a history of immigration from the Middle East, seem to have largely avoided radicalisation - the children of their immigrants are Americans front & centre and they seem to manage this withoput destroying people's cultures, so you have Irish Americans, Greek Americans, Italian Americans, and Black Americans but principally, they are Americans. How have they managed this where others countries have not?

How integrated are most of them actually? I could be a million miles wrong here but for some of these groups aren't there pretty segregated areas where most of these sub groups of American's live together?

A friend of mine visited Melbourne, Oz for a few months (her BF is a Vietnamese immigrant who lives there) and in her mind Australia was a land of multi-cultures living together but she was surprised to find that the various ethnic groups there were all fairly segregated. Many people not venturing out of their 'own' areas or having any relationships with other cultures at all. Must admit that it surprised me to hear as that wasn't the image I had of Australia either...

Not sure whether that arrangements works better or worse but it's what sprung to mind when reading the last part of your post so I thought I'd chuck it into the pot...

[String]

I agree with everything in the original speech except the god thing - why brainwash kids by forcing someones lunatic unfounded ideas on them in school.

Keep state and religion separate. Other than that, he's 100% right.