Debate Over Cultural Unity in Australia

On the face of it, it’s a minor bureaucratic alteration: Australia is changing the name of its Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

But that renaming, which takes effect Tuesday, represents a much deeper change in government policy: It is a shift of emphasis from celebrating the cultural diversity of its immigrant population to promoting an Australian cultural unity.

The move is taking place against a backdrop of intense debate about what it means to be Australian, with rising nationalism fueled by worries that the country is being torn apart by competing immigrant value systems. Click here.

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