peri peri and polkas not politics

I've just seen this quote by Mr Peter (Proletariat Eater) Costello saying multiculturalism was good if it meant "eating souvlaki and dancing the Zorba" but not if it meant non-assimilation”. In comparison DIMIAs website contains this positive but rather ineffectual spiel about government multicultural policy:

"Australia’s multicultural policy promotes acceptance of and respect for our cultural diversity. It embraces our Australian-grown customs and the heritage of Indigenous Australians, early settlers, and the diverse range of migrants now coming to this country. It supports the right of each Australian to maintain and celebrate, within the law, their culture, language or religion"

Multiculuralism is of course a government policy rather than just what happens when people from different cultural heritages hang out together. It has also been a way of ‘managing’ the twin ‘problems’ of culture and race and has had mixed success. Regardless of whether we subscribe to the cultural mosaic, fusion, melting pot or salad bowl (the decay of the english language continues) understandings of multiculturalism surely it is a warped sense of culture that only includes only food products and funny dancing. It’s quite amazing to see how every other culture can be reduced to these nice clean things; yummy exotic dishes that you can make at home thanks to Continental and dances that are included as the local ethnic component in street fairs or 3 day tour Asia package deals. If anyone suggested that Australian culture was only the meat pie and that peculiar dance people do when they hear Cold Chisel the government would be up in arms. Then again, if one included something about mateship it might cover most of it...

The whole assimilate thing is both too Star Trek (and what made the Borg the best TV villians since the Daleks) and too “I don’t care what you do in the bedroom as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses”. Cultural diversity should not be confined to take-away menus (though anyone living near Newtown might share my excitement at receiving anything other than Thai menus) and assimilation arguments come too close to mandating cultural and sexual closets for my liking. I'm not sure there's an upbeat hopeful ending here. As a friend said, i think that's the punchline.