Multicultural-ism: past its use by date!

The word 'multiculturalism' seems to divide people rather than unite people.
For Christians, the feature that unites us is acknowledging the death and resurrection of Christ as a means of restoring our relationship to God that was broken because of sin.
It doesn't matter what our ethnic background or cultural heritage is!

Multiculturalism was first introduced to Australia during the era of the federal Labor government in the 1970s. Gough Whitlam and Al Grassby were key players in its establishment.
The notion of accepting all people as equal and welcoming them to our nation is indeed a noble one. However the word multicultural has had an ISM added to it to make 'multicultural-ism'. As Janet Albrechtsen recently said "once the 'ism' was added to multicultural, an accurate adjective morphed into a philosophy: although originally based on fine notions of tolerance [the right kind!] and inclusion, it ended up separating people according to culture and eschewing any criticism of minorities". [see article below].

Things are changing - Andrew Robb, then government parliamentary secretary for immigration and multicultural affairs, talked about 'forging a shared identity made up of core values that unite people from diverse cultures' during 2006.

Multiculturalism as an 'ism' has separated people into distinct groups. Janet Albrechtsen has written an insightful article showing that whilst 'multicultural' might have reflected the different cultural heritages, multicultural-ism has had negative effects on our community.
She highlights how the federal government is moving away from this term and focusing again on proper integration.

2007: Now the federal government has dumped the term 'multiculturalism' from its official Department name - renaming the 'Department of Immigration, Multiculturalism and Indigenous Affairs' as the 'Department of Immigration and Citizenship'!
Click here to visit the Department website.

Articles:

Multiculturalism In Australia
by Dr Mark Cooray
An excellent article looking at multiculturalism in Australia. Dr Cooray is originally from Sri Lanka and was a lecturer in law at a NSW University before he retired.
He begins: "Multiculturalism" is a convenient catchword borrowed from Canadian politics to represent a vague set of ideas which purportedly promotes the cultural and economic interests of certain non-Anglomorph sections of the Australian community. If proponents of multiculturalism are asked to describe the concept it is likely that there will be as many descriptions as there are proponents..."

The Tragedy of Multiculturalism
Augusto Zimmermann . June 2004
Excellent overview of the problems arising form the philosophy of 'multiculturalism'.
Augusto is from Brazil, where he is a professor of law and an expert on constitutional law. He has just completed his PhD at Monash University in Melbourne, on the rule of law.

Move over, multiculturalism, your time is past
Integration is back: the Howard Government is quietly ditching a word and an outdated mind-set, writes Janet Albrechtsen
The Australian, November 29, 2006