SEPTEMBER 2013 ESSAYS
Christos Tsiolkas

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/september/1377957600/christos-tsiolkas/...


The reality is that there isn’t “one nation” that makes up Australia, only competing notions of “nationhood”. There is the cosmopolitan, educated nation of the inner cities and the parochial, anxious communities of the urban fringes and the bush. Asylum seeker rights are easily understood and supported by cosmopolitan Australians. We are well-travelled, we are not suspicious of multiculturalism and we are confident of processing and adjusting to change. At the same time, we rubbish their McMansions while gentrification makes the inner city unaffordable, and we castigate them for their cashed-up lack of generosity while it is in fact their kids mixing with the children of refugees. 

....

There needs to be some system to minimise boat arrivals, and a fair-minded and workable regional solution would indeed save lives. Indonesia cannot be let off the hook for catalysing such human tragedy. Our neighbour’s covert legitimation of people-smuggling shows we have competition in the race to the bottom when it comes to the treatment of asylum seekers.

There needs to be an alternative to settling people here that reaches beyond welfare and the ghetto. We are an island nation and we are not going to have open borders. That means there should be obligations and responsibilities that asylum seekers will have to take on if they arrive outside the auspices of the UN; that is, those who come here by boat. Might that be working to build infrastructure for five or seven years in remote areas, the way my father paid for his passage here? Is it being settled in rural Australia, to work in hospitals and on farms where there are labour shortages? I don’t know. I am not a politician or a social planner but I think those are precisely the conversations we should be having. In forgoing a humane and economically viable way of dealing with asylum seekers, we have squandered opportunities.

Oh, dearie,dearie, me.  Poor, poor, Soren.  Quoting an opinion from 2013?  As L.P. Hartley said, "the past is a different country, they do things differently there."   Opinions are always changing.   What a shame you don't have anything more recent which is close to how the Australians of today feel about Asylum Seekers.

Let me guess your problem is not with numbers in the immigration debate but where those numbers come from, where the immigrants originate from?  You don't like "tinted people" as Karnal likes to call them, or Muslims or Asians or non-Protestant Christians or Southern Europeans or well, basically anybody who isn't in your opinion WASP enough for your tastes.   Tsk, tsk, you really are a Racist, aren't you?  Now, please, settle back on the couch and tell us how much you hated the coloured people at school...   

Frank wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2017 at 5:40pm:


Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Tsk, tsk, your Racist beliefs are on show again, Soren.   I wonder how do you determine if a culture is superior or inferior?  Do you have a culture meter?  Does it have a green zone and a red zone on it, just to make things easier for you?

In reality, when Immigrants migrate to Australia, they undertake to become a part of the Australian Multicultural society.  They decide when and how much they will assimilate.  If that means they don't want to wear a pair of thongs and a singlet all day, every day, that is up to them, not you, Soren.  You have no ability to determine anything.  Remember, 85% of Australians are happy with Multiculturalism here.

All immigrants are welcome, if they fulfil the requirements of the Immigration Programme.  Doesn't matter what religion they believe in, even Christianity is welcome, Soren.   Doesn't matter what clothing they like to wear, doesn't matter what food they like to eat.   Doesn't matter as long as they agree to respect our laws.   All the rest really is just frippery and it appears that frippery is what upsets you.   Tough, Soren, tough.   Your Danish culture is accepted just as much as the culture of an Afghani Refugee...   

Brian Ross wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2017 at 6:05pm:



You sad, stupid bastard, as if your OWN culture was about thongs and singlet.  You are the worst kind of cat-piss soaked, desperately self-flaggelating  'progressive'.

Brian Ross wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2017 at 6:05pm:



It's not true.  The difference between Danish and Afghan culture is vast and stark. It is simply not true that Australians accept Afghan culture just as they accept Danish Culture. You would be hard pressed, you stupid fool, to actually identify any difference between Danish and Australian cultural outlook. Not so when it comes to Afghans. Even you, a completely ignorant fool, can easily identify vast differences between Australian and Afghan culture (without understanding either, of course, in your sad, cat piss soaked case, Bwian)



You are demonstrating your bottomless ignorance about your own and Danish and Afghan cultures and everything else, Bwian.  Your multicultural fetish IS indeed a cult of your limitless ignorance.

Bias_2012 wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2017 at 1:00pm:




Frank?

Got religion all of a sudden?

NO MUSLIMS, period.

Frank wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2017 at 6:20pm:

Frank wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2017 at 8:19pm:


Yes, old boy, but there needs to be a way to measure the worth of these hideous, stool-eating jetsetters who flood our labour markets with Balogney-trained Lacanians.

For heaven's sake, these people breed. They bring their Lutheran diseases. They refuse to assimilate.

No offence, dear boy. We mean it in the nicest possible way.