Robotic Democrat idea #101 - Revolution Part 1 - Abolishment of cultural self segregation

Introduction
Interesting and provocative title. Why a revolution, well the idea is a collection of interlinking related ideas which flow one to the next. Each relatively meaningless and trivial when viewed independently but when connected form to create a paradigm shifting environment in the Australian political scene. For the best effect, each idea, with a few exceptions, would need to be actioned in line with the others. The order of the parts may need realignment, but the principals are what we need to focus on. This step partly depends on the abolishment of the states mentioned in a later part. I call it the abolishment of cultural self segregation. What does it mean?

Cultural Self Segregation
People in Australia live in a relatively egalitarian society. At least that's the perception, our law is universal, our access to healthcare welfare and education is universal, but the implementation of much of that is not. We permit communities to grow where racial diversity is abandoned. Cities like Melbourne and Sydney tend to be egalitarian hubs, but there are certain suburbs (to avoid stereotyping I'll avoid citing actual communities, but we all know where they are) which have become hubs for certain races. In a society that prides itself on its multiculturalism and diversity, that's bad. We shouldn't have any communities that actively cluster and self segregate. Its not just cultural background but religious background. Each religion to varying degrees tends to congregate in specific areas. They then get large enough to start their own schools and shops frequented only by their particular type of people. This is self segregation. Why oppose it? For the same reason we opposed imposed segregation (government sanctioned segregation). We are all the same and there is no reason to segregate others or segregate ourselves from the diversity of the Australian community.

Religious Schools
In Australia we permit the existence of religious themed primary and secondary schools (there are tertiary ones, but they are unpopular) to teach some of our more religious peoples. Why is this bad? Well there are three main reasons. First is self segregation, children growing up in these schools tend to live in segregated community areas, go to churches with people of only their faith and general background. They don't mix with the many varied cultures that make up Australia. This means that children brought up in this sheltered world are not experiencing the richness of the Australian culture. They end up as unequipped adults who's actions flow into the second point, Intolerance. While many religious schools do preach tolerance, understanding and all such virtuous traits, it tends not to be tolerance as defined by the Australian secular mass. They get taught to accept the ridiculousness of other races and religions. This is not the same egalitarian philosophy held by most Australians. Depending on the religion, acts against the secular and other religious masses inevitably ensue. Its a cycle that is easily broken by removing self segregation. Permitting children as they grow to view others as equals and not as unenlightened infidels that have to be tolerated until... is something we should strive towards. How do we do this, No more religious schools. We have a theoretical separation of church and state in Australia which suggests that religion be kept out of the schools.

The third point is indoctrination and violation of public mores. Religious schools push an addenda. We usually permit churches to fill this role, populating the masses heads full of impossible parables and mock meanings of life. Permitting religious schools cements religions control over our peoples minds. Indoctrination is something to be opposed, it removes the choice of religion and the choice to participate from children. Depending on the religion, apostasy comes with harsh biblical and social punishments (just ask Salmon Rushdie). Before permitting children to join an organisation that preaches that you should be killed if you leave, shouldn't we permit children to reach the age of reason to decide whether to join? Permitting religious schools robs children of this choice. They get their minds poisoned by shiny haired charlatans preaching soothing nonsense in exchange for their money at a later date. Once this indoctrination takes hold religions poison the minds of its participants against he public mores. One great example of this is homosexuality. Islam, Judaism and Christianity all preach, with varying opposition against the practice. The Australian social mass has decided that we are to tolerate homosexuality. Australia has decided that homosexuality should be regarded with the same value as heterosexuality (except in the case of marriage, which in itself is a religious thing). Catholicism will foster an intolerance to homosexuals describing such actions as a sin and refusing to give a homosexual communion. These underlying moral get taught to children attending schools run by these people, then spread their intolerance into the community. It should be stopped.


Cultural hubs
While there is some merit to having cultural (and for the sake of argument we'll include religion in this label) hubs for new migrants. They tend to travel and settle in these areas as the general human drive is to seek out people who are just like you. However the net result of forming cultural hubs is the formation of exclusionist splinter factions of culture. Such factions breed intolerance and generally separate themselves from the social mass. This acts in opposition to the principals of egalitarianism and diversity that the country is based on. We were never designed to be a country of cultural hubs, but a nation of many people, from many backgrounds all working together. Homogeneous white Australian communities foster intolerance of international peoples, refugees and indigenous Australians, while homogeneous Jewish and Asian communities foster a similar intolerance against others. Such ridiculous viewpoints are a result of continued multi-generational isolation.

Action
What needs to be done. Addressing the problem with religious schools is simple. We outlaw the preaching of religion outside the informational (non-indoctrinating) teachings in RE classes. We then remove all religious iconography from schools. Lastly we remove the capacity for schools to discriminate based on religion or identify themselves as a particular religion. We place forward plans to remove religious typing amongst students, fostering integration amongst students and discourage religious identification and self segregation. Lastly, we address the school curriculum, standardising it across the states. Permitting small proved areas for where teaches can add sections to align with community trends. The general idea of Australian education should be that no matter where in the country you go to school, be it in an outback school in the middle of central western Australia, or in scotch college in Melbourne, you should receive the same knowledge and opportunities. This is not the case at the moment. Australian state boarders are meaningless. A child taught in Broome needs to know the same info as a child taught in Sydney if only because both may end up living in the others city.
Addressing the problem of cultural hubs is much harder. But we do perform a similar function with the public housing system (at least in Victoria). Affluent suburbs are partly targeted by the housing commission as areas to place housing commission houses. People making use of these houses tend to be lower on the socio-economic scale. The result of this is that we don't end with ridiculously affluent areas and ridiculously poor areas. We ensure the egalitarian focus of Australia is maintained. So we do this for religious and cultural hubs. We recommend and perhaps even incentive people to choose to settle in areas that are not populated by people of their own religion or cultural background. Pointing more immigrants toward living in rural Australian areas is already on the political landscape as it will allow Australia to grow in population without clogging up the services of our major cities. We could discourage the display of foreign language signs on cultural hubs shops, perhaps enforcing a rule that in the cases where foreign language signs are needed, an English translation should be part of that sign. A rule similar tot his exists in Canada, although for the purposes of maintaining the French language in its cultural zeitgeist. We could star public education campaigns designed to get differencing cultures together to participate in community activities, officially designate English as out national language (only because having one language is conducive to coordination and English is by far the major language spoken in the country). Offer perpetual free English language courses for all people, to attempt to find the few non-English speaking victims of cultural hubs and encourage them to be able to integrate with the rest of the Australian community. A department of cultural affairs could be formed to oversee the uncoupling of Australia's religious and cultural hubs, and ensure that we all get to experience each other without receding into out own little cultural factions.

Result
While this is a rather difficult thing to do, its actions would only be able to see as a result of continued influence. There is no law that can be enacted that can magically remove religious schools and cultural hubs from the Australian community. Continued influence by the federal government can ensure that we don't fracture into subgroups and act in opposition to each other. It should ensure that the social mores of the people of Australia are not degraded (for want of a better term) by the residual mores of external cultures or by the dogmatic rantings of religions. We can foster the ("we are one but we are many") message that Bruce Woodly portrays in his iconic Australian song. Such actions (and the desire to take control of the health system from the state) will set the groundwork for the next phase. The abolishment of the self governing states.