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>> I don't mind your angry-as-hell tone but can you defend the crude
>> generalisation inherent in the "religion of peace" reference? By all accounts
>> those cars were not choc full of violent African, Iranian, Bangladeshi or
>> Filipino muslims. Even the yobs on the beach at Cronulla were more nuanced in
>> identifying the problem. Hi Anon, I take you point about the risks of overgeneralizing about classifications of
people. Some generalizations have included 'Muslims', 'of Middle Eastern
appearance', and 'Lebanese'. All have an element of truth, and all are (in a
sense) misleading. However I maintain that Islam lies at the heart of much, if not most, of the
problem. Islam is the main factor which prevents (in some cases prohibits)
integration into the mainstream. I hesitate to use the word integration here
because it is much misused, and the libertarians on this forum will jump on me
for implying that I feel people have a responsibility to integrate, but it's
appropriate in this case. Many migrants have preached to their children that
'you could never marry an Australian', but it fell apart as soon as their kids
when to university. People married who the hell they felt like. This is not the
pattern with Islam. The best objective measure of integration is the
cross-marriage rate. Some people are concerned by Asian immigration ('they have
their own culture and don't assimilate'), but anyone who looks at the
cross-marriage rate in the second generation is probably pretty relaxed about
it. All around I see Christians marrying Jews, Buddhists marrying Christians,
Atheists and Agnostics marrying almost anyone, but Muslims only seem to marry
Muslims. I'm not saying that they have an obligation to marry outside their
religion - that's silly, but the fact that so few of them do is quite disturbing. >> Must do better. Man strives for improvement.
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