Is Australian multiculturalism failing?

The events described below are real but isolated. They do not well reflect everyday life in Australia. Let me tell another story: Most days I have my breakfast in a local suburban cafe that has a very good menu. And it is very popular and busy.

But as I sit there day after day I observe a minor miracle.  There are usually only one or two other people with my Celtic colouring (freckles!) but everybody behaves in a manner that I see as proper.  There are always some Chinese, some Indians and probably some people from Europe.  The cafe was formerly run by an Italian and is now run by a Vietnamese.  Both were superb managers

And there are no raised voices and no aggression of any sort.  Everybody there remains polite at all times.  I have not once seen an exception to that.  There are even some apparent Middle-Easterners of probably Muslim persuasion who make no waves at all.  They usually keep in their own groups but no harm comes of that.

So every day I sit in the middle of a very multicultural population and experience nothing that disturbs my Old Australian soul.  I have no doubt that in Australia I live in a brilliantly successful multicultural society

In March 2022, Declan Cutler, a working-class 16-year-old, died after being stabbed over 50 times by a ‘gang of teenagers’ in a random attack in North Melbourne.

Hours after the incident, one of the attackers allegedly went home and searched the question, ‘Is hell guaranteed for a Muslim who commits murder?’

Earlier this year, Jason Langhans, 17, was killed when he tried to stop a fight between gatecrashers and partygoers at a get-together in the small coastal town of Tooradin.

The attacker, a 17-year-old Afghan who has not been named, moved to Australia as a refugee, drove a screwdriver 8cm into Jason’s brain. The judge noted that he had a ‘traumatic upbringing’, leaving Afghanistan for Pakistan, Indonesia, and then Australia by boat.

Earlier this month, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Sydney Opera House and called for the death of an entire race of people … the Jewish people.

Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles says that Australia’s multicultural diversity is ‘a source of national strength’.

But these increasingly common events, along with a changing conversation abroad, might give us pause to reflect.

Suella Braverman, Home Secretary for the United Kingdom, recently stood in front of a crowd last month and announced that ‘multiculturalism in Great Britain had failed’.

Her analysis of Britain’s handling of immigration and diversity was scathing, and perfectly reflected the way the debate around multiculturalism is changing.

‘Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades.

‘We are living with the consequence of that failure today. You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe. From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester. It is 13 years since Merkel gave her speech, and I’m not sure that very much has changed since.’

Australia’s official policy of ‘Multiculturalism’ is celebrated in ministerial white papers and corporate boardrooms but its real-life consequences are starkly different.

In the streets of Melbourne’s CBD earlier this year, Sikh separatists attacked Hindu protesters with sticks while chanting ‘death to India’.

In Sydney, Hindu protesters were filmed allegedly menacing Muslim-run businesses in Harris Park, an area with a long history of ethnic-religious violence.

In Brisbane, during the Hong Kong independence protests at the University of Queensland, students were physically assaulted by a number of pro-Chinese students.

Fireworks and celebrations erupted in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba following the attack of Israel by Hamas.

The question has to be asked: How is the average Australian benefiting from this? And if we’re not benefiting, what are we doing to stop it?

Because as one British writer put it, the eruption of ethnic tensions in our cities doesn’t just reflect the complete failure of integration, it also reflects a complete repudiation of our systems, laws and way of life.

‘When you watch people have so little respect for British values and British laws they gleefully saunter around Britain’s streets saluting atrocities committed by ISIS-style terrorists then you know multiculturalism is failing.’

This has happened, he says, ‘Because of mass immigration into Britain, because of the total failure of our politicians to integrate old and new immigrants into British society, and because of their determination to continue to import more culturally and religiously distinctive migrants and tribal grievances from abroad.’

It isn’t just Britain changing their tune on multiculturalism.

Last year, the Sweden Prime Minister announced: ‘Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak.’

More than Sweden, the other paragon of Scandinavian progressive pragmatism, Denmark, instituted an abrupt turnaround on its previously generous immigration program, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen citing a multi-decade failure of its newcomers to integrate.

And just weeks ago, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview that ‘it was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different cultures, religions, and concepts’.

‘It creates a pressure group inside each country.’

Is it now time to admit that Australia also made a ‘grave mistake’? Do we have pressure groups inside our country, and if so, what are we going to do about it?

‘I think we are starting to realise there’s a difference between being an Australian and living in Australia,’ wrote one person in a viral tweet, following the Opera House incident.

Australian politicians like to claim we’re the ‘most successful multicultural nation on Earth’, but how much longer can they ignore the fraying edges that has become increasingly evident this month?

Opposition leader Peter Dutton is talking tough on the issue, saying that anyone on a visa at the protests who was breaking the law ‘should be deported’. But what of the hundreds of thousands of new arrivals coming in next year? What of the gangs roaming our streets, killing unsuspecting teenagers? There is simply no plan to deal with these multicultural clashes – governments are just throwing a Hail Mary and hoping it doesn’t explode on their watch.

With a record 450,000 migrants arriving in Australia this year alone – many of which not only from nations with which we share little culturally, but who are also adversaries to our allies – it can be assumed Labor isn’t heeding Braverman’s warning about ‘uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism’.

Moreover, with Australia’s legitimacy increasingly attacked by the political left, and with the country referred to as a ‘coloniser state’ that disenfranchised indigenous people, it’s hard to see what the large numbers of people coming here will integrate into.

Our country is heading down a strange path. The roots that once held us together are increasingly weakened, while the rapidly rising number of people coming from other countries have no dominant culture or way of life to integrate into.

Until a stronger discussion is had around multiculturalism and immigration, these cultures will inevitably clash again, with increasingly tragic circumstances.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/is-multiculturalism-failing/

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