The dark side of multiculturalism

September 14, 2009

Opinion

Comments 14

Bilal Skaf

Seems Aussies are known as "Skips" among some young buckos of Greek extraction.

Or "bloody Skips," according to a Greek woman sitting next to me at dinner the other night.

"It's just stupid," she said. "These kids were born in Australia. Some of them from parents who also were born here so these kids are second-generation Australian."

But they see themselves as some sort of Greek splinter group even though -- who knows? -- some of them may never have been to the country they're now hailing as their motherland. It's cool to rediscover their roots, you see. A sense of belonging. But as part of the package, says the dinner guest, they see Anglo-originated Aussies – or anyone non-Greek -- as some sort of opposing team. Soccer hooligans transported to street life.

When the TV show 'Beyond the Darklands' returned for a new season the other night, there was another reminder of this ugly side of the multicultural coin. It focused on the sneering lout Bilal Skaf (pictured) and his Lebanese gang who roamed Sydney in 2000, raping white women. Said the father of one victim: "If she'd been a Muslim they wouldn't have touched her." What? Attacked because of her culture?

It's not the sort of thing you hear from Government in its blinkered propaganda about the mingling of race and creed here in the great southern Utopia. We have all sorts of laws to stamp out racial prejudice but most of that is aimed at prejudice against new arrivals. What about the prejudice of the new arrivals against the people already here?

You don't have to look far to find that the glorious mingling comes with a flip side. Here's a report last month about attacks on 12 people in Carrum, Highett and Parkdale. "One of the gang held a bottle to a girl's face and told her: 'You fucking slut, we're the Noble Park Bosnians. You'd better remember'." Bosnia? How far away is that sorry land? How many were killed in their damn-fool Bosnian war? A hundred thousand? Why on earth would someone who had left that scarred battleground want to start infecting their new host country with the same virus.

Yes, I know, brainless thugs like this would be brainless thugs no matter what - but the trend by louts to use race or culture in the cause of violence sounds a grim warning bell. In the Skaf case there were plenty of Lebanese outraged at the slur he and his gang had cast on their community. "They turned on the country they called home," said one Lebanese youth worker.

The Greek lady had an interesting slant on this. "It's not multi-culturalism that is growing in Australia," she said, "It is the separation of cultures." Maybe we should call it multi-separatism.

14 comments so far

A lot to be said about this one, but just for a start -aren't people whose parents were born here 3rd generation Australians?

(Lawrence: Parents born here -- first generation Australian. Their kids? Second generation.)

And complaining about uppity Greek kids calling Anglo-Aussies "bloody Skips" - I thought I was reading a piece from the archives.

(Lawrence: Better tell that to the new-generation Greek Aussies).

Commenter

sjh

Date and time

September 13, 2009, 1:31AM
connaust is dead right the term "skips" has been used for a couple of decades at least by those of greek origin.
Sure some young people form gangs based on their ethnic background as do others who get together because of their love of a certain type of music, while others gangs are formed due to the locality of where they live. The constant is that they want to be associated with other like minded people. Of course American culture has contributed to some people forming gangs that are based in films they have seen.
Many people from ethnic backgrounds living here whether they be 2nd or 3rd generation dont like certain values or traditions that are associated with Australia but that doesnt mean they are not proud of living here or dont consider themselves as Aussies.
It is still multiculturism, as there is nothing wrong with enjoying, partaking in and maintaining tradtitions and values of your ethnic background while at the same time living here. When we are overseas, we consider ourselves skips as we are seen as such when we visit the birthplaces of our parents or grandparents.
Unfortunately there are some people who do not know where they fit as they are taunted not only here but overseas when they return to the country of their ethnic origins.

Commenter

cvaitsas

Location

lakemba

Date and time

September 13, 2009, 10:28AM
I genuinely don't grasp the substance of this post. Perhaps, like others, I was unsettled by a first sentence that figured common knowledge as recent news. "Skip", in my corner of the earth, is the friendly rejoinder to the now inoffensive "wog". I have never heard it uttered unkindly and, given the term's TV kangaroo etymology, I imagine that its use as pejorative is entirely limited to Mr Money's own experience. Perhaps he lives in a decade where people still say things like, "Greek Extraction" or, perhaps, "Coloured Gentleman."
Slang confusion aside, really: what point is being made here? If there really is an emerging threat of ethnically led violence, surely a reference to that significant day in recent history at Cronulla was in order?
Perhaps the reference didn't suit a rant that purports to daring. As, presumably, Mr Money feels that raising the idea of skip-oppression is plucky. I'd like to see some real bravery here. Perhaps some research in the next post rather than barely drawn Greeks?
Or, do I have it completely wrong and is this a sort of Kingswood Country homage?

Commenter

HelenRazer

Date and time

September 15, 2009, 8:12AM
It is just mindless to go to the cost, both emotionally and dollar wise, of leaving one country and arriving in another just to start the hatred and hostilities again here. What was the point? Maybe over here the opposition don't carry guns, so it makes it easier and safer for the aggressors?

We are starting to be dictated to by some of our new arrivals too. They have: segregated into their own schools, demanded their times for swimming in public pools, tell us how they want to mix and changed how we celebrate our Christmas.

There's plenty of deserts around the world, including Australia. For once and for all let all those who harbour serious gripes, racial or general, who wish to harm or kill others because of them, go out there and let it all out and the last man standing is the winner and it's all done in one go. Hooray !!!! Then those of us who don't want to be involved in such can go about our lives in peace and enjoy our differences of culture, food and ways.

The Greek lady is correct about the separateness. It's not the Chips Rafferty type Australian versus Franco Cotso or Con the fruiterer either. It's the Italian v the Greek, Thai v Vietnamese, Vietnamese v Chinese etc., etc.,

Commenter

Gerry

Date and time

September 15, 2009, 9:41AM
Thank you for your reasoned and impartial response, Mr Money. I will endeavour to exit my "CLOISTERED LITTLE CORNER" and be sure to savour more dinner parties. As, clearly, I'm a cossetted pinko unable to grasp complexity or, indeed, read a blog post to its end: at what point in a dinner party does the callous reality of the war-on-skips will become apparent? Somewhere, perhaps, between the amuse bouche and sauterne?
In the likely event I may not soon experience the rigours of a dinner party in the 'hood, I asked my friend Debbie (note "of Greek extraction") to explain her understanding of the term "skip". I read her lips, and I'm afraid I saw no bile pouring from them at all.
I suggest that in proposing that ethically motivated violence is on the rise, you might wish to increase your ambit beyond dinner parties and cherry-picked news stories. On occasion, I have been employed to write about social issues. I generally find the PR department of a university is a good start to research.

Commenter

HelenRazer

Date and time

September 15, 2009, 5:33PM
I can't believe there is actually a forum to discuss this pressing issue. Any informed discussion about some of the actual problems of multi-separation are ruthlessly silenced by extreme liberal idealogues,as if any discussion is tantamount to racism. But culture and belief are not necessarily the same as race. So if there are cultural ghettoes hostile to liberal secular values, why cant this be identified rather than pretending that we live in a vanilla world of cultural harmony?

(Lawrence: No apparently it is all OK, Mark. Razer's Greek friend Debbie has just given the all-clear!)

If racial minorities are contemptuous of of Anglo Australians why cant this be identified as the ugly racism that it is?If racial minorities have been committing violence against other racial minorities why isnt this being widely acknowldged?

If religious groups of all stripes are hostile to liberal secular values, isolating themselves from them (while benefiting from their freedoms) then why cant this be identified?

Lift the cover of 'multiculturalism' and you will see strong pockets of racial and cultural hostility to the 'West'. The longer this is ignored, the longer any discussion about this is silenced, the more separate we will become.

Commenter

mark

Location

sydney

Date and time

September 16, 2009, 9:10AM
A reprehensible beat-up. Find better dinner guests.

Commenter

bazarov

Location

Sydney

Date and time

September 17, 2009, 8:32AM
Seems Aussies are known as "Skips".

Maybe Mr. Money should get out more? This term has been round since the 70s, or at least 80s?

(Lawrence: Repeat, better tell that to the new-generation Greek Aussies).

I am curious about the position being taken in arguments about culture, ethnicity etc. in Australia when the majority claim to be victims of (inverse) racism? Like the extreme danger Australia faces from (millions) of boat people from the north?

Last weekend in Budapest where a Hungarian right wing group which is anti jewish, foreigner, homosexual, communist, liberal, cosmopolitans etc. were protesting near Gay Pride Parade, while needing 1000+ riot police to protect them from all those nasty and aggressive gays....

Different examples but where has Australia's self esteem gone when we are made out to be victims of a minority?

Commenter

connaust

Location

Budapest, Hungary

Date and time

September 13, 2009, 1:54AM
@connaust - yes, i remember hearing it as a teenager in the 80s, and we thought of it as a dated term even then, as I recall. I did a quick google and found a few references that described it as dating from the 70s. As I said, when I saw the first paragraph, I thought that it was one of those "from our archives" pieces. And when another tribe is labelling you as a "wog" or whatever - well, you need some word to describe them, and "Skip" is pretty mild - pretty "bloody" mild. (I think Eliza Doolittle took the shock value out of "bloody", don't you?) I think it comes down to the idea that white people don't have ethnicity - it always astounds me when "Anglo-Australians", "Skips", whatever, will cheerfully label other people by ethnicity without seeing it as a racist gesture, but bristle at being reduced to their own ethnicity. Labels are only supposed to apply to the rest of us.
Tribalism doesn't have much too do with multiculturalism - as various writers pointed out after the Cronulla riots, western Sydney and Cronulla had always been different tribal areas, long before people started describe it in ethnic terms. I'd also remind Mr money that most sexual assault happens within tribal boundaries (often within families), not across them.

Commenter

sjh

Date and time

September 13, 2009, 9:28AM
Not only are anglo Aussies victims of racist attacks but also the racist attacks reported heavily in the media and in India regarding Aussies attacking Indians were also perpetrated mostly by non Anglo Australians and done with racist intent.

Commenter

Melanie

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

September 13, 2009, 9:11AM