Jonar outlines his views about how multiculturalism is working in Australia. He believes that tension is good because it forces people to find solutions, much like accidents in technological spheres help technologists to find better solutions. To listen to an excerpt from the radio broadcast, please click on the green play button below. To listen to an excerpt from the radio broadcast, click on the green arrow below.
[audio:I_Multiculturalism_Paul.mp3]
Here is a transcript of the audio file.
Jonar Nader: Has Australia stuffed it up, or haven’t we? Well I would say that we haven’t. All these debates that we’ve had over the last many years since the white Australia policy, let’s look at what we have. We have a wonderful balance, yes we have crime and other things, but Australia has been, in the last 200 years, developing so rapidly, probably more rapidly than any other nation, to become a foremost and leading nation in many ways in its technology in its people, in its rules in its standards in its semblance of order. I think it is absolutely remarkable, and anybody who whinges about Australia ought to go and live in some of the other countries for a while on $10 dollars (which is what you get a month for working) and see what they think of it. I often say if you have a problem child send it to a third world country for a month, they’ll come back kissing the ground they are living on.
Host: Jonar let’s just draw the analogy together a bit, you are saying what we do with the Mars probes is we allow technological accidents to happen so that we can end up better for solving those accidents and in something like the immigration policies that we have or the multiculturalism here in Australia it leads us to accidents that might improve our social systems.
Jonar Nader: Correct. They have, and those accidents are opportunities, and those opportunities are businesses forming, new foods being exchanged, new cultures being tolerated and enjoyed. I mean look at the Indian restaurants that people frequent, and Thai food of course. They may go off them because they get sick of one flavour, and then they go the next. What we have had not only in food and culture but also in technology. To have people coming into this country is not such a bad thing. People say ‘yes but there are so many Asians coming’. This exact same debate took place when there were too many Mediterraneans and prior to that it was too many Irish. I mean are we going to continue with this debate every 10 years? Are we always going to say too many of one kind or another?
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