In his 2006 Australia Day speech, Prime Minister John Howard said, “all Australian’s have the right to express culture, beliefs and participate in National interests” 1. This essay raises the question about whether assimilation will create a tolerant Australia. Or is it a case of how long does a free society have to tolerate the intolerable?
Assimilation by definition, is “the acceptance of a minority population into a majority population on the condition that the minority takes on the values and norms of the dominant group”2. It encourages uniformity and harmony. This clearly was not demonstrated on Sunday, December 11, 2005, where “at least 5000 angry people converged on the beach after simmering anger and disputes”3 flared between racial groups. It is difficult to comprehend uniform tolerance by the Australian public with such under-lying racial tensions and misinterpretation of ethnicities.
A person’s educational level is also a factor in culture......
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