Most Australians think multiculturalism works well, with only occasional problems.

A Galaxy poll of 1000 people run exclusively for News Limited revealed people's attitudes in the run up to Australia Day to the sometimes divisive issue.

One in 10 said multiculturalism worked very well and made Australia what it is, while just over half said it worked generally quite well, causing only the occasional issue.

One quarter said multiculturalism generally did not work very well and seemed to create more problems than the benefits it brought. Thirteen per cent said it caused lots of cultural issues and problems.

Australian National University immigration expert Dr James Jupp, who worked with the late Jerzy Zubrzycki, the Polish-born sociologist often called the father of Australian multiculturalism, said the result was good news after the damage John Howard did when he abolished the position of minister for multicultural affairs as prime minister.

He said Australians' growing love of travel had helped open up minds to different cultures. People had always travelled to Bali, but were now expanding their appetites to places like China, Burma, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, Dr Jupp said.

"People are going to and coming from practically every country in Asia, except North Korea, and that's really very different from 15 years ago," he said. "And it's mostly young people."

Dr Jupp said racist elements existed in the community, but they were a minority.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister and Acting Multiculturism Minister Chris Bowen said migration had made an enormous contribution to Australia's culture, economy and social fabric. "Australians are overwhelmingly very tolerant and the majority of Australians appreciate the benefits of our diversity," she said.

Of Australia's 22 million people, about 44 per cent were either born overseas or one or both of their parents were born overseas.

News.com, 24 January 2013

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South Australian Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has linked violent scenes between Muslim protesters and police in Sydney to multiculturalism, just days ahead of a major speech by businessman and migrant Frank Lowy.

Mr Lowy is to deliver the inaugural Australian Multicultural Society lecture on the benefits of a multicultural society at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday.

"The naive cling to the romantic idealisation of the generations of migrants who have successfully settled in Australia, thinking things will continue just as they have in the past," Senator Bernardi said in a post on his website on Monday.

"They proclaim multiculturalism as a triumph of tolerance when in fact it undermines the cultural values and cohesiveness that brings a nation together."

Senator Bernardi said the events in Sydney should be a wake-up call and he had warned colleagues for years that the violence seen in Western Europe a decade ago could happen here.

"It should serve as a wake-up call to the naive and just plain foolish who are in denial that a significant problem is emerging in Australia," he wrote on his website.

"When are our political and community leaders going to wake up to the fact that what is going on here is exactly the same process that has caused such chaos in some comparable nations?"

Six police were injured, along with 17 others, during violent clashes on Saturday when a group of about 200 Muslims protested in Sydney over an anti-Islam film made in the US.

AAP, 17 September 2012

See also "Protests are a 'wake-up call' to Australians in denial: Bernardi", The Age, 17 September 2012

Media coverage of Saturday's clashes between Muslim protestors and police has unsurprisingly placed the blame exclusively on the protestors. For an alternative view see the eyewitness report from Green Left Weekly.

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Using taxpayers' money to fund projects run by religious or ethnic community groups is turning Britain into a divided society, the author of the report on the Oldham riots has warned.

Prof Ted Cantle said that the idea of multiculturalism in Britain is now "well past its sell-by date" and is often doing more harm than good.

He accused the Government of fuelling separation in communities rather than bringing people together by allowing small groups to claim "special status" – and with it funding – amounting to a form of state-sponsored segregation.

Councils and police are also giving undue legitimacy to "self-appointed leaders" in some areas by inviting them to endless meetings and consulting them on their views and allowing them to become "gatekeepers to their communities", he warned.

Meanwhile grants from government funding pots, councils and charities have allowed thousands of separate community groups to grow up representing their own interests and reinforcing separation, he said.

He accused David Cameron of failing to live up to a pledge to tackle "state multiculturalism".

Prof Cantle, the founder of the Institute of Community Cohesion at Coventry University, wrote a high profile review into he causes of the 2001 Oldham riots warning that some ethnic groups were leading "parallel lives".

But in a highly critical paper to be presented to a conference organised by the National Secular Society next week, he calls for a halt to all state funding for projects and services aimed at or run by religious groups or individual ethnic communities.

Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2012

Appearing along with Cantle at the NSS conference will be Richard ("Islam is the greatest man-made force for evil in the world today") Dawkins, the Islamophobic drunk Nick Cohen, and Maryam ("terrorism is justified and encouraged in Islam") Namazie. So he'll be in good company.

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