EDL: The View From Down Under

Below is an edition of the Australian TV program “60 Minutes” about Multiculturalism in Britain and Australia. The English Defence League is featured prominently in the British portion of the program. In addition to the EDL, the program looks at the infamous “British” firebrand Anjem Choudary as well as the Australian convert Ibrahim Siddiq-Conlon.

You’ll notice that Tommy Robinson gets a fairer hearing from these Aussies than he has from any other MSM outfit except CBN:



Hat tip: Aeneas.

10 thoughts on “EDL: The View From Down Under

  1. Great documentary! I am a migrant to Australia, and I don’t see any problem with ‘multiculturism’; it has been wonderful for improving quality of life because aussies have adopted the best of everyone’s cultures, ie southern European and Asian food is just one example of many. I work with a team of people from Asia, Africa, Ireland, Europe and America. I think politians are hiding behind this ‘multiculturism’ debate because they are too afraid to say that the REAL problem is ISLAM, not multiculturism.

    Secondly, the interviewer missed his chance of quoting violent Koranic verses to the young muslim woman and asking her if she agreed with them while she gushed about ‘loving everyone’ etc

    Thirdly, I always feel frustrated when naive westerners think that “white” has something to do with “non muslim”. The interviewer asked the British muslim what should happen to “white” Christians like him . This mythical black/white divide is holding back serious debate and needs to be openly debunked. The ideology of Islam has nothing to do with race, nor has Christianity.

  2. I also think it is wonderful that the EDL is reaching out to the middle classes as well. This is a very positive step forward!

  3. Blogger, Multiculturalism has nothing to do with being a country where you can find lots of yummy cuisines in your high street, nor is it about working with people from all over the world. That is more accurately described as “multi-ethnicity”. There is nothing wrong with this; in fact I agree with yo; from that perspective Australia – and a lot of other Western countries – are successfully “multi-ethnic” and I appreciate as much as the next person having friends and work colleagues from different parts of the world, and being able to have an authentic Malaysian curry or Italian “vitello tonnato” right in my own city.

    “Multiculturalism” is a weasel word. You have to be aware that it is an “ism”, which is always an ideology, and ideologies need careful examination before we embrace or discard them. “Multi-ethnicity” is a description of a state of affairs, not an “ism”.

    This particular “ism” (Multiculturalism)is the belief that we (the receiving nations) should encourage immigrants to maintain their differences and their cultural and religious practices, their language and their dress codes. Not only that, but the State (taxpayers) should subsidise their endeavours to stay apart from the main stream.

    This stems from the postmodern view now solidly ingrained in the West (at least in the political, academic chattering classes) that “all cultures are equal, and we should not expect anyone who comes here to embrace ours”.

    One problem with this view (and there are many others, too numerous to go into here) is that you will never build a cohesive society this way, and another is that surprisingly (not!) this only applies to certain foreign cultures.

    I am an immigrant to Australia myself. I was born in Denmark and migrated here with my family in my 30s. I have embraced the Aussie way of life and kept certain Danish customs in my private life: I still speak Danish, I taught my children Danish, I celebrate Christmas in a Danish way with Danish food, I read Danish books, and I am proud of my Danish origins.

    I do not try to push them on anyone else and I would never expect the Australian government to pay for my children’s Danish lessons, nor for the Danish community celebrating Danish cultural events or holidays. In fact, it sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? And yet, that’s exactly what “Multiculturalism” is and why it must go.

    I work for the State government in a local electoral office, and we have literature here offering migrants free translation services in over 50 languages! There is no statute of limitations on how long they qualify for this; in fact GoV carried a piece on the newsfeed recently that reported a case of a man who had been here for 10 years, who still needed an interpreter in court!

    I agree with you on your other points!

  4. And I too would have liked to ask that nice young Muslim Australian lady a few pertinent questions:

    If she truly loves the Australian way of life, democracy AND is not out to make Australia an Islamic state … then what makes her a Muslim? Why is she still a Muslim? Does she truly know what it means to be a Muslim? How is she a Muslim? How does she practice her faith? Which aspects of Islam does she embrace and which does she discard? And if she discards certain aspects of Islam, is she really a Muslim at all? Or is she just a MINO (Muslim in name only), like a lot of “Christians”? And not least, how do we deal with that? I don’t have any answers here ….

  5. It is most likely that the nice muslim lady is one of the 85% of muslims who have never read the Koran in a language they understand. Muslims actually shelter each other from a lot of things, ie reading the Koran in English. I can say this from personal experience.

  6. If I can add my own ideas on Australia (being native born myself), I’ll say this – Australians know, deep in their core, that multiculturalism is a bad idea. It encourages people not to pick an AFL or NRL team, and it means they withdraw from cricket too (ours is a sports-mad nation). Our blue collars don’t like people who hate our sport, and as Muslims really don’t like any sport (except one, as I recall), so we don’t like them. That’s the giveaway.

    Articulating it on a higher level than this, though, is generally something these people don’t bother, which is why much of the chatterers who fill our televisions and newspapers have such disdain for them (and thus why such people have such little respect from the plebs). They don’t have the time or the inclination.

    There lies the disconnect between the visible and the invisible – the Australian shame and the Australian pride. That woman gets much of the visible treatment, but she’s got a brain too – she acknowledges she can only speak of her own experience, of those she knows. Were she to be shown the Quran in all its ugly glory, and confronted with the dogma of its divine authorship, I suspect she’d give serious thought to apostising.

    However, even with all this said, Australia is still years, decades behind Europe and America. We haven’t suffered the cultural destruction they have, and I daresay that when the fighting starts in Europe, we will see it, and we will be proactive here. Whether it be to our benefit or detriment is another matter, but we will see, and we will act.

    The last word will come from those who wish Australia to be young and free instead of broken and enslaved. The chatterers have many ideas and nebulous concepts – a bill of rights (the High Court thinks it isn’t a good idea, if precedent is anything to go by), a republic (no word on direct election or pariamentary appointment), open border (you’d never win an election), and much else besides. But they have no respect for those they wish to lead, and so no respect with which to lead.

    Everywhere else, people respect the chatterers. Here, we’re far less deferential. Perhaps they should be thankful we walk around them rather than over them.

  7. It encourages people not to pick an AFL or NRL team, and it means they withdraw from cricket too

    Oh dear, that is pushing things way too far. LOL. There is far more to life here than sport! None of my family and friends can stand the footy or cricket, yet we lead enriched and involved lives here.

  8. Right on Anne-Kit. Good thinking. I believe that that muslim girl was just practicing the very best taqiyya she knew how. And the only reason the muslim males let her mix with, and talk with anybody-not-muslim, or not-male-family-member, is because right now she is just a tool for the muslim community—whether she knows it or not. Wish someone would make her spend a couple of years in sowdi-arabia.

  9. I am an Australian too, and I’ve long held the view that Australia is NOT a multicultural country. I agree with Anne that we are a multi-ethnic country, but not multicultural – but we seem to be heading that way.

    I suppose it’s fortunate for us that our government and our politicians don’t actually seem to understand what ‘multiculturalism’ is. They think it’s just people from different countries ‘being mates’ with each other – like the school children said. I saw multi-ethnicity among those school children, but I didn’t see multiculturalism. So the politicians content themselves with this multi-ethnicity rather than going for real multiculturalism.

    Although, even if parts of Sydney and Melbourne resemble multiculturalism, the rest of the country doesn’t. Perhaps it’d be fair to say that Sydney and Melbourne are multicultural societies (although I wouldn’t really know – I haven’t even been to Melbourne actually), but the country in general is not. My home town of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, has a fair few Asians (Chinese and Indians mostly), but they’re all as Aussie as the rest of us. And in all my life in Brisbane I’d estimate that I haven’t seen more than 6 Muslims.

  10. Oh dear, that is pushing things way too far. LOL. There is far more to life here than sport! None of my family and friends can stand the footy or cricket, yet we lead enriched and involved lives here.

    Sorry to alarm you Blogger. I didn’t quite say it right. What I meant basically was that those who are absolute killjoys get no respect from the community at large. In this case, it would be someone demanding that the channel be changed from the sport, and making a massive fuss about it being evil, or a distraction, or the occupation of a simpleton.

    It’s one example, and I’m sure that, with regards to the cricket, you might politely ask if there’s anything else on, or just chat away with your friends and leave it to background noise. And Australians respect that.

    It’s all about respect.

    And Gregory – she may be practicing taqqiya, but I still detect a hint of intelligence there. And as Australia has a less than 2% Islamic population, they just don’t have the numbers or demographics in order to enforce Sharia. But I dare say Lakemba will be the first no go area we in Sydney get – it’s already half-Muslim

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