There is nothing in multiculturalism that could cause any worry to any normal person.
He still supports high immigration but has had a change of heart on multiculturalism. Why? He explains as follows:
IN 1993, my family and I moved into Belmore in southwest Sydney. It is the next suburb to Lakemba. When I first moved there I loved it.
On the other side of Belmore, away from Lakemba, there were lots of Chinese, plenty of Koreans, growing numbers of Indians, and on the Lakemba side lots of Lebanese and other Arabs.
That was an attraction, too. I like Middle Eastern food. I like Middle Eastern people. The suburb still had the remnants of its once big Greek community and a commanding Greek Orthodox church.
But in the nearly 15 years we lived there the suburb changed, and much for the worse.
The multicultural suburbs he chose to live in developed a less appealing culture:
Three dynamics interacted in a noxious fashion: the growth of a macho, misogynist culture among young men that often found expression in extremely violent crime; a pervasive atmosphere of anti-social behaviour in the streets; and the simultaneous growth of Islamist extremism and jihadi culture.
The changes were felt directly by the Sheridan family:
The anti-social behaviour became more acute.
One son was playing cricket with friends when they were challenged by a group of teenagers, whom they presumed to be Lebanese but may have been of other Middle Eastern origin, who objected to white boys playing cricket. A full-scale, if brief, fist fight ensued.
One son was challenged by a boy with a gun. Lakemba police station was shot up. Crime increased on the railway line.
I was in the habit of taking an evening constitutional, walking a long route from the station to home. At some point it became unwise to walk on Canterbury Road. A white guy in a suit was a natural target for abuse or a can of beer or something else hurled from a passing car...
The worst thing I saw myself was two strong young men, of Middle Eastern appearance, waiting outside the train station.
A middle-aged white woman emerged from the station alone. She was rather oddly dressed, with a strange hair-do.
The two young men walked up beside her, began taunting her and then finished their effort by spitting in her face. They laughed riotously and walked away. She wiped the spittle off her face and hurried off home. It was all over in a few seconds.
According to Greg Sheridan, it is recognised amongst the Australian political elite that multiculturalism in Europe is a failure. But some Australian politicians claim that Australia is exceptional, and that multiculturalism will work out differently here.
Sheridan no longer believes this to be true and so suggests measures to discourage large-scale immigration from certain Muslim countries. He is still, though, a supporter of high immigration from elsewhere.
I find it interesting that Sheridan is so surprised by the way things have turned out. For instance, he writes:
No one in Europe, 25 years ago, thought they would be in the mess they're in today.
No one? I think this speaks more to the inability of those like Greg Sheridan to think through the consequences of the policies they champion. And I'm reminded here of the following idea of Lawrence Auster:
A reactionary (or shall we say a traditionalist?) is a person who sees a threat to his society the moment it appears. A conservative is a person who sees the threat to his society after it's already done a lot of damage. A liberal is a person who only sees sees the threat to his society after it's too late to do anything about it—or he never sees it at all.
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