[ExI] To Arms!

[BillK]

On 3/30/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Where I live the policy of assimilation was officially replaced by a
>  policy of multiculturalism in the 1970's (the record is not always so
>  good: look up "white Australia policy", "stolen generation", and
>  "mandatory detention"). It has worked very well, and I have never felt
>  unwelcome, let alone unsafe, in any part of Melbourne due to the
>  presence of a large ethnic minority (or in some cases, majority)
>  population: South-East Asian, Middle Eastern, East African, Southern
>  European. So at least with the Australian example, it has been shown
>  that assimilation is not the only way to build peaceful and harmonious
>  communities.
>

The trouble in France, of course, is that the foreign French-speaking
people were deliberately imported from former French colonies to do
low wage jobs that the resident French people didn't want to do
anymore. And the resident French people were delighted to accept the
cheap services provided.

But the foreign workers faced massive discrimination and prejudice
ever since they arrived. And now live in slum, no-hope housing estates
on the borders of the cities with no hope of ever assimilating.
Naturally they riot and protest from time to time.

BillK