Hi all.

I've decided to conduct a few online lessons of the ways the government, media and church groups attempt to 'trick' you into thinking that multiculturalism's 'great' and that monoculturalism (Ie. Australian/European culture) is bad.

The first lesson is entitled:

Multiculturalism propaganda news articles: 'How they fool you.'

All  pro-multiculturalism articles usually follow these rules:

1) Using 'food' as the central theme of article.  
2) Avoding all other benefits that Multiculturalism supposedly gives.
3) Sweeping all the negatives multiculturalism brings under the rug.
4) Make multiculturalism doubters feel 'stupid' or 'guilty.'  
5) DO NOT obtain opposing sources (Someone who is against it).


1) Using 'food' as the central theme of article.

Usually the central theme of multiculturalism propaganda articles are quite clearly the 'food.' It's probably the only benefit people can think of when thinking about multiculturalism. -This accounts for both anti-multiculturalists and pro-multiculturalists.

However, it becomes quite clear to both parties, that, after assessing multiculturalism, and having a deeper think about it, there aren't many benefits for it after all.


But, being bigoted pro-multiculturalist journalists, they try to cover it up by placing the entire article on 'food' as a benefit of multiculturalism... and milking it for all its worth.

Let's take this Canadian article as an example...

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=ef44de20-9b81-4630-bb37-930ebcf773ef&p=2


Here's the opening two paragraphs of the article:


Quote:

Surely we can now see that multiculturalism is a colossal mistake. This is the conclusion many Canadians seem to have reached, judging by what's in the air and my e-mail in-box. I think they're wrong. And the proof is in the curry.

So right from the word go, this article relates to food as a benefit of multiculturalism, as so-called 'proof' that it's working.


The article continues:


Quote:

Amartya Sen, the economist, Nobel laureate and social philosopher, has some wonderful things to say about curry in his wise book, Identity and Violence.

Again, another unnecessary mention of the word curry.

But the word (And the articles focus on 'food' as a defense) continues to be used throughout the article:


Quote:

Half a century later, no British landlady thinks brown skin will leave a ring around the tub. Britain is a bustling, diverse country, deeply infused with the culture of Sen's homeland and many others. The most obvious evidence is curry, which has been enshrined alongside boiled peas as an iconic national food. Sen doesn't mention it, unfortunately, but there's even a soccer song dedicated to it: "We all like vindaloo, we're England, we're gonna score one more than you!" The sight of pasty-white, drunken Englishmen bellowing their love of Indian cuisine is really something to see.

Again, they're relating to food as a benefit. Clearly wasting two or three paragraphs rambling. And unfairly stereotyping all Englishmans love of curry.



Quote:

This is multiculturalism as people -- supporters and critics alike -- too often think of it. Immigrants arrive. They bring their culture. The natives adopt some of the newcomers' ways. The newcomers continue to live as they did in the old country, dressing in "ethnic" costume, eating "ethnic" foods, and otherwise remaining quite detached and exotic. Those who like multiculturalism are delighted, those who fear the erasure of all they have known scowl.

You see this sentence here? The journalist has actually disguised the sentence to actually make it seem like he's making a 'looooong' list of benefits, when in fact... he only mentions one... yep... the food.



Quote:

As Sen notes, the foods we take to be "Indian" are themselves the product of many places and peoples. "India had no chili until the Portuguese brought it to India from America," he writes. Tandoori cooking originally came from West Asia. And curry powder "is a distinctively English invention, unknown in India before Lord Clive, and evolved, I imagine, in the British army mess." When English soccer fans roar for chicken vindaloo, they are cheering something their ancestors -- and many others -- helped create. This is the multiculturalism that Sen loves. People meet. They talk. They share food. They fall in love. And not only are elements of culture exchanged, whole new ways of living are created. This is the multiculturalism of dynamism, change and invention. This is the multiculturalism of riotous ferment.

-More emphasis on food. What is this? A cooking article?



Quote:

The conflicts are real enough, but remember that only the conflicts make the news. Curry multiculturalism will never lead off the evening news but it's real, it's all around us and it's working.

At last... the author rounds up with this 'wonderful' piece of journalism. Concluding that since people like curry... multiculturalism must be working.

2) Avoding all other benefits that Multiculturalism supposedly gives.

This brings me to my next point... that multiculturalism articles usually avoid so-called 'benefits of multiculturalism' at all costs... and disguise it to look like there's 'many' benefits, when in fact there's quite few mentioned.

Let's take a look at the same article:


Quote:

This is multiculturalism as people -- supporters and critics alike -- too often think of it. Immigrants arrive. They bring their culture. The natives adopt some of the newcomers' ways. The newcomers continue to live as they did in the old country, dressing in "ethnic" costume, eating "ethnic" foods, and otherwise remaining quite detached and exotic. Those who like multiculturalism are delighted, those who fear the erasure of all they have known scowl.

Notice how that sentence only has one benefit listed (Food) and makes it look like there's many mentioned?

We all know that dressing differently couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be beneficial to people. Unless you consider Burqas and the horribly bright coloured clothing Africans wear 'pleasant' looking.



Quote:

This is the multiculturalism that Sen loves. People meet. They talk. They share food. They fall in love. And not only are elements of culture exchanged, whole new ways of living are created. This is the multiculturalism of dynamism, change and invention. This is the multiculturalism of riotous ferment.

Another empty paragraph. The journalist is obviously struggling to think of reasons to back up his article. Mentioning 'people meet,' 'they talk,' 'they share food,' 'they fall in love' can apply to just about anything... both multiculturalism and monoculturalism.


Notice how he says that 'whole new ways are of living are created' and doesn't give any examples apart from the paragraph on 'food'  to back up his SWEEPING statement? -you'd think he'd have MANY examples to back up his claim if it CREATES WHOLE NEW WAYS OF LIVING.

And notice how he 'claims' that multiculturalism creates 'change,' 'dynamism' and 'invention' without giving his generalisations examples? -Thus making his statements useless.


Let's now move onto another article...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1575136.htm

Whoa!

This article is a tribute to bad multiculturalism propaganda stories.



Quote:

Multiculturalism needs better promotion: Democrats The Australian Democrats say politicians need to promote the benefits of multiculturalism to reduce community fears about Muslim extremists. Senator Andrew Bartlett is a speaker today at a multicultural symposium in Brisbane. He says it aims to look at the factors that caused the Cronulla riots in Sydney and the future of multiculturalism in Australia. "We need to learn, continually learn from situations, whether it's what happened in Cronulla or indeed learning why the overseas reactions to the cartoons in Denmark were stronger than what they were here, and the success Australia has had in rejecting extremism," he said. "There's always a risk of adding to community fears about extremism or about particular groups and Muslims are obviously the group where people have the fears at the moment. "I think we need to recognise that some of those fears are based on an understandable reaction, but also recognise we have had muslims in Australia for over 100 years." Meanwhile, an Islamic leader says Australia's politicians are not doing enough to embrace multiculturalism. Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Association, says the Federal Government needs to be more pro-active about multiculturalism. "What we need is for these leaders to get more serious about our position in the world community," he said. "Australia stands in a very, very leading position to show the world community the benefits of multiculturalism. "We are becoming more and more a global world."

Okay... WHERE in that article does it mention these so-called benefits?

The writer has totally avoided the topic.

3) Sweeping all the negatives multiculturalism brings under the rug.

It seems that one of the key strategies multiculturalism propaganda articles focus on doing... is stating the negatives of multiculturalism very quickly and tending not to address them.

They quickly brush the issues aside and dismiss them as nothing, whereas they shift their focus to feel-good stories about 'food' and change the entire article into a cooking catalogue.

Again... let's shift our focus back to the Canadian article:


Quote:

Aboriginals are blockading. Muslims are terrorizing. Blacks are shooting. Surely we can now see that multiculturalism is a colossal mistake. This is the conclusion many Canadians seem to have reached, judging by what's in the air and my e-mail in-box. I think they're wrong. And the proof is in the curry.

The article from its opening makes it clear that multiculturalism does indeed have its problems, but in the next paragraph dismisses it and 'claims' that the over-riding factor in all this is the so-called 'curry.'

Another example:


Quote:

So let me state clearly that when I say the critics are wrong, that multiculturalism is alive and kicking, I mean Amartya Sen's curry multiculturalism. Yes, there are worries and frictions and concerns. But take a walk along Queen Street in Toronto, whether to the east or west from Yonge, and you see a frenzy of cultural invention the like of which is close to unique in the world. There are no secluded boxes here. It's all jumbled together and thrown in the air -- a mighty tossed salad of humanity.

Look at how the journalist merely 'touches' on the subject and brushes it aside?

Next paragraph:


Quote:

Of course the fear is that too much diversity will so weaken cultural commonalities that we will not be able to live and work together. It's a serious concern, and my litmus test has always been the Toronto queue. Toronto has always been an orderly place, and unlike most people in most nations, Canadians do not push, shove and elbow their way onto buses, streetcars and subway trains. It's evidence of shared understandings. And if the queue went, I would worry. But it hasn't. The people on Toronto transit come in every shade and shape known to anthropology. And they don't push, shove and elbow.

Touches and then dismisses.. same pattern over and over again. Notice how he continues to avoid the topic and fails to go in depth?

4) Make multiculturalism doubters feel 'stupid' or 'guilty.'  

This is more commonly found in feature stories. Journalists sometimes use the 'guilt-trip' or try to make people opposed to multiculturalism look like imbeciles.

This automatically makes the reader think, "gosh, I'd better support multiculturalism. Otherwise... I'll be 'stupid.'"

Again... the Canadian article serves as an example:


Quote:

Amartya Sen, the economist, Nobel laureate and social philosopher, has some wonderful things to say about curry in his wise book, Identity and Violence. Sen -- Indian-born, British-educated, Harvard-based -- recalls coming to the United Kingdom in 1953. His landlady in Cambridge was worried that his brown skin colour might come off in the bath. "I had to assure her that my hue was agreeably sturdy and durable," he writes in typically gentle style. (I interviewed Sen in Ottawa some time ago. He is as kind and gentlemanly as his writing suggests.)

This example also implies that people ignorant of multiculturalism are in the same breath have 'wacist' elements to them. Which is simply not true.




5) DO NOT obtain opposing sources (Someone who is against it).

Notice that in both articles... (the ABC article and the Canadian article) that the only sources the journalist uses are ones that are strongly 'pro-multiculturalism.' Suggesting that the article is not balanced, well-researched nor unbiased.

For example, the ABC uses Keysar Trad and Andrew Bartlett.. both strong supporters of multiculturalism (Both for their own reasons).

And the Canadian article... which in contrast is much longer than the ABC article... uses only ONE source... which reeks of bad journalism.
-Why weren't critics of multiculturalism interviewed for this Canadian article? -Particularly when the story seemed to go nowhere.

Clearly the article is biased and purposely does not interview people opposed to multiculturalism because they want to 'push' their message and due to their own beetle-headed ideologies, they don't want to express the truth.


That concludes the lesson. If anyone would like to highlght any mistakes I have made... please indicate.

Thank-you for your attention.

did you come up with all of that yourself? (except the quotes of course)

Some very good points Donald.

Indeed multiculturalism should give more benefits than food.  Which is an obsession amongst many people, hence an easy lure. After all, everyone likes masticating.

Those opposed to multiculturalism are painted as bigots.
The oppposing points of view are not given an honest appraisal.

The media is VERY influential. It's best move is to just totally ignore topics.

ex-member DonaldTrump wrote on Jul 5^th, 2007 at 3:43am:

4) Make multiculturalism doubters feel 'stupid' or 'guilty.'   Quote: Amartya Sen, the economist, Nobel laureate and social philosopher, has some wonderful things to say about curry in his wise book, Identity and Violence. Sen -- Indian-born, British-educated, Harvard-based -- recalls coming to the United Kingdom in 1953. His landlady in Cambridge was worried that his brown skin colour might come off in the bath. "I had to assure her that my hue was agreeably sturdy and durable," he writes in typically gentle style. (I interviewed Sen in Ottawa some time ago. He is as kind and gentlemanly as his writing suggests.) This example also implies that people ignorant of multiculturalism are in the same breath have 'wacist' elements to them. Which is simply not true. Thank-you for your attention.

fast forward time to 2050 and everyone will be laughing at those multiculteralists, joking about their naivity and stupidity.

the young lady could not grasp why throwing 4 completly different conflicting cultures into the same small vicinity was not the smartest way to go about things. " I had to explain to her the obvious outcome of a situation like this, i mean remember syndey back in 2020?"

freediver wrote on Jul 5^th, 2007 at 10:07am:

did you come up with all of that yourself? (except the quotes of course)

Yep. It seems longer because of the quotes.



Quote:

Some very good points Donald.

Aw shucks.