I’ve got a couple of these stories to post, so I’ll split them up so you might read each without having to read an opus. This one from The Age includes suggestions that Australia offer scholarships for Somalis to study in Malaysia rather than accepting student visas for Australia. But later in the article the issue is raised of the orientation program refugees receive before entering Australia.
We hear over and over again that refugees coming to the US are not adequately prepared and educated about how they are expected to behave in the US. Here is a suggestion that Australia do it (orientation) in Australia and not abroad.
Mr Ferguson [Parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs Laurie Ferguson]also flagged adding to the orientation programs for refugees, which currently are run before arrival in Australia. He said there had been strong lobbying for onshore orientation to complement the existing AusCo offshore training.
“The view is that perhaps when people are getting on planes to come to Australia, they are not really listening,” he said.
“We are looking at whether we have got to refashion orientation courses here in Australia – perhaps it can be more effective with an onshore one.”
Two comments, first, in order for any orientation to work, the ‘teachers’ need to get rid of any notion of cultural relativism—if one is going to live in the West, then one must be prepared to accept our values (except maybe values promoted by South Park!) and the instructors must teach those values! And, secondly, the refugees must want to become good citizens of the US, or Australia or wherever. I contend that many Somalis do not want to assimilate.
And, here is a bit of evidence to make my point. I have had this article kicking around in my queue for a couple of weeks, it is from Finland. It seems that Somali parents (and other Muslim parents) are sending teens back to the home country to de-westernize them indicating to me that there isn’t any real interest in embracing their adopted country’s way of life no matter how well its taught.
Officials say they are learning of an increasing number of cases in which immigrant parents in Finland are forcibly sending teens back to their home countries to de-westernize them.
The Finnish Red Cross as well as social welfare offices say that every year dozens of parents who believe their children are becoming too westernized send their offspring back to African, Asian and Middle Eastern states.
If you are new today and don’t know about the Australian Somali terror bust, check out our Australia category for all the recent news from Down Under.