I LOVE OUR LAND AUSTRALIA

21^st September 2012

I LOVE OUR LAND AUSTRALIA

I will start by this verse of Dorothea Mackellar’s poem

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me! 

This sums up our country beautifully for me. The latest unrest with a minority of Muslim people has urged me to tell you this tale.

This tale is of Australia, our magnificent beautiful country.

I think it is timely to remind everyone that apart from our wonderful indigenous people the rest of us are immigrants in one form or another, whether you and your family have been here 1 year or 200 years.

Our fine nation prides itself on the ability for people from all walks of life and ethnicity to co-exist in harmony and now is no different.

Please don’t get me wrong, what a minority of radical Muslims have perpetuated throughout the world and Australia over the past weeks is very very wrong. To see the figure of that poor American Ambassador was heart wrenching and disgusting. If these people think the Americans will let this go unchallenged then they are living in a dream land.

I live on the Murray River in a lovely rural town and we have had many Muslim people settle here over the past 20 years, we have a number of Muslim Doctors here in Cobram and they are very fine Doctors.

What is being said about the Muslim people has been said in the past about the Europeans, Asians, Africans etc, yet all of those people now live here happily. I think what is required is some more effort put in to been understanding of other cultures by all of us

Yours Faithfully,

Peter Gilmour