Multiculturalism in Australia

Mohamad Assoum is devout Muslim and second-generation Lebanese-Australian. He's in his final year of a science degree at Sydney University and plans on becoming a cardio-thoracic surgeon. But he admits he's not typical of the young men in his community.

He's from Auburn in Sydney's west, the heartland of migrant Australia where education standards are poor and unemployment is high. Three years ago, Mohamad's brother Mustafa, a youth worker, was murdered in a drive-by shooting late at night, not an uncommon occurrence in Sydney these days, it's getting more like old Chicago every day.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen this week said that multiculturalism in Australia IS working. On Wednesday night he re-committed the Labor Party and the Gillard government to ethnic and cultural diversity and yesterday began trying to sell the idea. A cynical person might say it was designed to win back voter support in their ethnic heartland.

Mr Bowen said "If you respect the Australian values of democracy, rule of law, equality of the sexes, then we invite you to be full members of our society," he told Ray Hadley on Sydney radio 2GB yesterday.

I think Mr Bowen knows very well that Muslims refuse to integrate into our culture - they think we are immoral, drunkards and sexually depraved. We know this because they have told us time and time again. Their children don't go to Australian schools, so they will never become completely Aussified. I think it will take generations for our Muslim youth to catch up to the Egyptian way of thinking - their young are no longer obsessed with Islam, they've cut the chains of rigid religious domination and are moving on.