Try calling a non-Inuit ummm… inhabitant-of-those-shitty-cold-places-up-north an Inuit and you’ll get pretty short shrift too. Bummer that ‘Eskimo’ has become pejorative (simply by being used as such – who’da thunkit?), cos it was pretty convenient not to have to learn the names of the different groups.

Spose we could call em elves?

an Anarcho-Libertarian ferret stuffed down my trousers.

So you are one hell of an agitated grumpy old man?

Hell, we even let the Italians in and they generally turned out to be nothing like the Fascisti, the Mafia

No, by all appearances the ones that made it out here were far too incompetent!! The Grollos aside.

I’ve think I’ve made it fairly clear over the years of the Aus blogosphere that I’m basically a Whiggish centralist technocrat with high Tory tastes, a nice head of Social Democratic hair and an Anarcho-Libertarian ferret stuffed down my trousers.

“However this idea doesnt seem to be working in Europe very well. Its silly to ignore the problems going on there which I feel spring more from the economic side of things than anything else.”

Perhaps. Economically depressed localised circumstances do generate gangs of young men with spiteful and idle mayhem on their minds. But race, culture and ethnicity are not catalysts but additional stimulants. EG: Trying walking through a Glaswegian housing estate in the clockwork orange seventies.

And I certainly agree that the current massive of emigration into a porous EU is causing no end of friction. But when was it never the way? “New York for Nativists!”, “Kill the Huguenots!”, Lambing Flats, “No dogs, blacks or Irish.”

The quite remarkable thing about Australia is how we’ve absorbed so many waves of immigration without a tenth of the aggro of bigger, older and presumably more experienced countries.

Hell, we even let the Italians in and they generally turned out to be nothing like the Fascisti, the Mafia or the Borgias (OK, the latter were originally a Spanish dynasty – but still Latin basically – if you get my drift).

My basic point, as made earlier, is that the colour of money will always trimuph in the long run over the colour of skin.

And just try calling an Inuit an “icecube” and see how you get on.

And if the host culture is basically tolerant, free market and economically stable and growing, this kinda stuff just absorbed back in and eventually recycled as heritage.

However this idea doesn’t seem to be working in Europe very well. It’s silly to ignore the problems going on there which I feel spring more from the economic side of things than anything else. There is reportedly 30% unemployment rates in some areas of European immigratnt communities. Nothing breeds resentment like close to zero economic growth.

The other interesting thing is that most attacks and attempted attacks have really been European based since 911

I don’t even think the term multi-cultural is even used to any great extent in the US.

Last year some time the WSJ was praising US Muslims during the time of the French riots. US Muslims have twice over the US median income and are quite a successful immigrant “group”.

When I see hordes of skips throwing butts and wrappers on the ground at the station, it pisses me off, but I dont think youre in Australia, Madisun and Dazza, you should know and act better if you want to fit in.

The difference is that with one group you can say “they’re different to me”, and with the other it’s “they’re like me, but fuckwits”.

For the xenophobe, a fuckwit is easier to tolerate than someone with different values.

I would also say, that clearly the idea public spaces should be kept clean in Australia is _not_ widely accepted, if the people littering are Australian, regardless of how they look, who they worship, what they speak, etc.

When I see hordes of skips throwing butts and wrappers on the ground at the station, it pisses me off, but I don’t think “you’re in Australia, Madisun and Dazza, you should know and act better if you want to fit in”.

I assure you, you silly little man, that what I actually feel is mild and amused contempt for someone with such a small mind inside such a big head with such a large hole at the front.

and before JG starts going on about ‘luvvies’ again, my parents live near Blacktown, my sister teaches in a westie high school and my father is a journo for the metropolitan west community papers.

Also the charms of multiculti were quickly shown to have no clothes following Sep.11

WTF??? The S11 hijackers were Saudi nationals you dope. And US ‘multiculti’ is different from Australian or UK ‘multiculti’

In any case, this whole question of whether there are or aren’t ethnic gangs and violence in Western Sydney is a bit off topic. This was a post about Muslim schools. The gang business came up because swio was proposing multi-cultural public schools as a device for cohesion. I suppose your implicit position is that both scary sectarian schools and strife-prone public schools are manifestations of some underlying root problem (non-European immigration? Multiculcularism? Socialist public housing policies? All of the above?) created by mad leftists. If this is the case, perhaps you could outline the argument more explicitly, and provide a few facts and figures on the ethnic warfare that you’re evidently so knowledgable about.

* who, of course, actually come from a very wide range of racial and cultural backgrounds, making the word ‘racist’ problematic.

I would agree about NZ. They are just entering an ugly period with the New Zealand First Party Leader Winston Peters ‘doing a Pauline.’ Helen Clarke and Labour are pretty impotent largely, I would guess, having learnt the Australian lessons of what I call ‘Keating Blowback.’ Also the charms of multiculti were quickly shown to have no clothes following Sep.11.

The relative cases of Australia and Canada require an appreciation of the different histories and also acknowledgement that our Aborigines are relatively integrated across Australia’s urban centres particularly its large cities and particularly Sydney and Brisbane. OTOH, Canada’s eskimoes are much more sequestered among the reindeer in the northern tundra. Australia’s open immigration policy with New Zealand has imported a significant source of inter-racial conflict in western Sydney which is not met with any similar migratory flows the other way.

Nabakov

Wassup my brother? Why the long-face, snarky tone, and anger? Need a hug? Rather than projecting all your hostility onto straw Strocchi, Greenfield, and the reductive microcosms, why not take a deep breath and learn about western Sydney from those of us who actually know something about it from you know, like, er, actually like LIVING there and stuff?

Luvvie, I am sure that around Margaret, David and the gang your insights into 2008 western Sydney gleaned from West Side Story and My Fair Lady are met with rapturous applause and sharp intakes of breath at your insight, your wisdom, your experience, your perspicacity, and of course, your humanity. But outside the Luvviesphere there is a REAL western Sydney, whose reality has been raised by this posted by James Farrell. You would do well to read it.

In the meantime, always remember sweetie that Jesus loves you more than you will know, whoah, ho, ho!

I mean seriously, wtf, dude, I would be really offended if was Muslim and I read that – I’m not Muslim and I find it pretty offensive. If I felt like you were making a qualified comment about Muslim culture from the perspective of someone who knows it really well, I would be put off, but at least open. But it sounds like you don’t really know _anything_ about Muslim culture, and have equated the 50-odd people (presumably Muslim, though let’s face it, you haven’t stopped to ask) you see at the beach on some weekends with the entirety of Muslim culture in Australia.

That’s ridiculous, and you should know better. Would you go round saying that alcoholism is cultural trait of being aboriginal? That beating up Muslims is a cultural trait of being white?

I’m genuinely surprised no one else has commented on what I see as a pretty blithe racist statement. Am I being over-sensitive here?

People have a shocking tendency, in my opinion, to be arseholes regardless of which vaunted culture they come from. When the Indian students two floors above me are partying at 2:30am on a Tuesday night, as they have done for the last several months, I don’t think it’s a cultural trait of being Indian – our building is full of Indians – I think they’re thoughtless dipshits caught up on being young and able to get falling-down drunk on a weeknight.

I think you should really think more carefully before jumping to conclusions and making frankly bullshit comments about “our country” and “their” culture vs “our” culture.

You have no idea how long these people have been in Australia, for start. They could have been here for generations, and – even if they only got citizenship yesterday – it’s their country just as much as yours or mine, or your fictional “ours”.

But mainly, why would littering be a Muslim trait? That’s so weird, man. I’ve never heard that before.

This shit has going on like forever throughout big cities that attract lots of immigrants. You thought “Gangs of New York” was just imagined out of thin air?

Far more people were killed for racial, ethnic and cultural reasons during civil city breakdowns like the NYC Draft and Gordon Riots, suppressing the Paris Communards, Berlin in 1918 or the LA Watts and King riots than all Australia’s cities have ever seen in total during the same period.

And if the host culture is basically tolerant, free market and economically stable and growing, this kinda stuff just absorbed back in and eventually recycled as heritage.

The thing that gets me about about twits like Mini-J and Jack Strocchi is just how naive and unworldly they are – while constantly accusing their own straw-built bete noires of being unrealistic. They come across like maiden aunts shocked!, just shocked I tell you! that big cities can sometimes be rather volatile places.

Australia’s metropoli have had a dream run by global standards when it comes to ethnic, racial and cultural clashes. Perhaps only Canada and NZ have done better. But I don’t see Mini-J et al threatening to move there. On the other hand, offered an a sturdy opportunity to seek their fortune in Paris, London or New York…well OK, those cities are buyer’s markets and the Johns and Jacks ain’t even got nothing to sell in local markets.

So I guess they’d rather just be here in one of the world’s most comfortable and secure environments – titillated and occupied by constantly looking under their beds for the islamo-commie-lefties-wetties-luvvies coming to take their teddy bears away.

Y’know, the more I see of the blogosphere, the more I realise how much it is a reductive microcosm of unchanging elements of human nature. EG: If you’re monomaniacal whinger, unable to contribute anything except your pathological pissweak polemics to threads, then it seems clear you’re not having a good life yourself. Are you Greenfly?

On the other hand, someone who suddenly goes off OT with a link like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKESo2ofEcw
obviously doesn’t take anything seriously, especially his own comments.

I am not making any of those assumptions. I am talking about the very real and widespread existence of proper gangs of young men AND women, who identify explicitly as Maori, Islander, Aboriginal, White, African, Lebanese Muslim, etc. and actively seek out, plan, and initiate group violence against racial/ethnic gangs and often non-gangs. It is absolutely racially/ethnically focused.

gilmae

I am not familiar with Campbelltown, though I understand it has become quite a magnet for middle class “aspirationals” and McMansions so maybe it has improved since the old days of Miller.

If this ethnic/racial conflict/tension and violence is foreign to Campbelltown then well done! Perhaps community leaders and police from Mt. Druitt, Bidwill, Plumpton, Blacktown, Holroyd, Auburn, and Merrylands should look to you for advice.

But I am saying that just because violence involves people of different ethnicities doesnt always mean the violence is based on ethnicity.

Agree. But sometimes, just because violence doesn’t involve clear-cut ethnic divides doesn’t mean it isn’t ethnic.

Sometimes people are just bad people and we know how to deal with that.

Are you sure?

The children at the school had no doubt that most of the alleged attackers were of Pacific Islander background.

If that word “most” is correct then I should have put money on my guess the gang was multi-ethnic. See, even the gangs are successful examples of multiculturalism

Because such a large proportion of western Sydney has an overseas background its almost impossible for one person to hit another without it being an example of inter-ethnic violence. I punch my next door neighbour for absolutely no reason and, bingo, we have half a Tim Blair blog post. Now we could sit down and examine the cultural backgrounds of me and my neighbour and seek solutions from conflict resolution experts at the UN or the wisdom of Pauline Hanson on why Islanders/Chinese/Indians/(who was it again?) are always a problem. But when you get right down to it the problem is nothing more complicated than me being an asshole. And the solution is to stop me being an asshole, probably with a good kick up the bum. Of course if I was a skip and my neighbour was a skip all this would be obvious. We get all tied up in knots when its not that simple.

I’m not saying that ethnic based violence is not a problem. What some of the Leb gangs are up to really worries me. But I am saying that just because violence involves people of different ethnicities doesn’t always mean the violence is based on ethnicity. We should be careful to distinguish between the two as the solutions are different.(and again I’m not saying we don’t have problems with ethnic based violence in Sydney, but that’s another very long story). Sometimes people are just bad people and we know how to deal with that.

I think I have a much more menacing understanding of “conflict” than the mere turning of blind eyes. It invloves violence, verbal abuse, harrassment, and threats.