The reality of multiculturalism
The practical application of multiculturalism varies between what Professor Lauchlan Chipman has called "soft multiculturalism" (ethnic foods and dancing) through to "hard multiculturalism" (ethnic separatism, traditional hatreds, barbaric customs, etc.). Chipman said that "it is clear that advocates of multi-culturalism are operating in the middle and harder divisions of the spectrum; the soft end ... is reserved simply for astounding the shallower critics who, in expressing doubts about multi-culturalism, are made to look like racists, or illiberal and intolerant bigots. Fast footwork through the spectrum is frequently necessary in debates with multi-culturalists."
Multiculturalists advocate the right for other cultures to practice their own cultural traditions and "unique" ways of life, and feel that this liberalistic view is a fair and just position to take. How ironic, therefore, that we find that some of the cultural ways and traditions subsequently practiced are considered to be far from "liberal", "just", or "fair".
The reality of the multicultural ideology (despite what any of its promoters might claim) is that it actually encourages and supports various distasteful ethnic customs:
- Treatment of women as second class citizens, including a "sheltered, separate, limited and thoroughly sexist upbringing for daughters" that exists among fundamentalist Muslims.
- Female genital mutilation (also known as female circumcision) by Africans.
- Greek and Italian daughters raised in strict households, not being allowed to associate socially with Australian classmates.
- Extremely rigid, and almost blindly obedient, patriarchal family structures.
- Arranged marriages, whereby brides (and sometimes grooms - depending on which culture is involved) have no say in the choosing of their partner. Indian and Australian Aboriginal arranged marriages can involve girls as young as eleven to fourteen being married to middle-aged men.
- The notion of the duty to kill to preserve family or blood honour.
- Aborigines being speared in the leg by other Aborigines, as tribal punishment for crimes, in line with their customary law (other types of punishment also occur).
To try to encompass all cultures is blatantly ridiculous; but to try to change, or to try to ban, certain cultural traditions is to "discriminate", to act "culturally superior", and to be "racist". Of course, some cultural demands cannot coexist in the same country, for instance, some cultures demand that monogamy be the only legal marriage, while some want polygamy to be legal. It is a direct contradiction: You can't have it both ways.
Another reality of multiculturalism is the monetary cost to the Australian community, now estimated at more than $7.2 BILLION a year.
The great multicultural fraud
Multiculturalists often use two differing definitions of their ideology. First, that of Descriptive Multiculturalism, whereby a claim is made "about the pluralistic nature of society" (i.e. that Australia consists of many different cultures). Secondly, that of Prescriptive Multiculturalism, whereby an assertion is made "about an ideal type of society to be achieved at some time in the future". The way that many multiculturalists can so easily swap between these two differing definitions of their ideology can make their arguments "as slippery as an eel" to pin down. As has been noted by Anne Seitz, "The descriptive and prescriptive definitions of multiculturalism are seldom used consistently and accurately. Very often there is a confusion or a `sliding' between the two concepts. Frequently this `slippage' is deliberate -- a convenient tactic to confuse the issue under debate."
But to call Australia "multicultural" is actually a misnomer. To illustrate the point we can compare culture with language. Australia's language is English, both in the official sense and in the practical sense. There are, however, some people in Australia who speak another language as their "first" language, so in a pedantic sense the country could be termed "multilingual" (but which would infer that most Australians are everyday speakers of foreign languages). Yet, only an idiot would seriously describe Australia as "multilingual": it is an "English speaking country" which happens to have a small minority of people who speak other languages (with only an extremely small minority who can't speak English at all). So it is with culture: the vast majority of Australians adhere to the Australian culture (even fewer are those who adhere solely to another culture).
Don't be misled by statistics of "ethnic background": the vast majority of the Australian-born (second generation, third generation, or whatever) are Australians, who are part of the Australian culture; some may be raised in such a way as to be imbued with aspects of another culture, but that does not change the overall picture: we share (broadly) the same way of life; speak the same language; relate to the same national icons; operate under the same cultural mode of everyday behaviour; and we live in, and enjoy, the same country. Culturally, most Australians are just that: Australian.
Many migrants can be viewed in a similar light, that despite being statistically classified as being of "ethnic background", many have adopted the Australian culture as their own and often have become virtually indistinguishable from the native-born.
The fact is that Australia is not a multicultural country. To use an analogy, it can readily be seen that a white dog, with a pink tongue and black paws, would only seriously be described as "multicoloured" by an idiot, or someone with an ulterior motive; so it is with multiculturalism: there is an ulterior motive behind the push to call Australia "multicultural". The reasoning is that if Australia is called "multicultural" (which would imply that most Australians are everyday practitioners of foreign cultures), that the entire country will be perceived to be, as a whole, "multicultural" (no matter what the reality is); that, if this country is "multicultural", we therefore need "multicultural policies", that therefore we need "multiculturalism", which will then be used to turn Australia "on its head" to produce a multiculturalist, internationalist society.
The phase so often used by multiculturalists, that "Australia is a multicultural society" is a cleverly constructed political phrase. Despite its pretensions to moral grandeur; multiculturalism is simply a political ideology, pushed by internationalists and small `l' liberals, that is dangerous and destructive, and promises only one end for our country: the death of the Australian culture and our national identity.
Australia is not a "multicultural society", it is a monocultural society with some ethnic minority cultures at its edges, or to be more succinct, Australia is a "core-culture society". The term "multicultural society" implies that the entirety of our society is multicultural, which is far from the truth, and is a term used in support of a political ideology (multiculturalism). The term "core-cultural society" is a far more accurate and truthful description of the Australian nation.
As Brian Bullivant has warned, "We have become so accustomed to the regularly parroted assertion, 'Australia is a multicultural society', that there is a considerable risk of assuming that such a society exists."
