With the rioting occuring in my native town, and similar events nearer to my new home in Sydney, Cronella and Perth as an immigrant the point of this is not lost on my own position even though I became a naturalised citizen of Australia forty years ago. Rudyard Kipling puts it so well, but are we allowed to talk about it, publish it, think about it, in the 21st Century as he did in the early 20th Century. Do we lose the freedom of speech  that we had a hundred years ago, because the Stranger is at the gate and would be offended, or are we the Strangers offended to easily? 

Rudyard Kipling

The Stranger

    Canadian

The Stranger within my gate,

  He may be true or kind,

But he does not talk my talk--

  I cannot feel his mind.

I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,

  But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock,

   They may do ill or well,

But they tell the lies I am wanted to,

   They are used to the lies I tell;

And we do not need interpreters

   When we go to buy or sell.

The Stranger within my gates,

  He may be evil or good,

But I cannot tell what powers control--

  What reasons sway his mood;

Nor when the Gods of his far-off land

   Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,

   Bitter bad they may be,

But, at least, they hear the things I hear,

  And see the things I see;

And whatever I think of them and their likes

   They think of the likes of me.

This was my father's belief

  And this is also mine:

Let the corn be all one sheaf--

  And the grapes be all one vine,

Ere our children's teeth are set on edge

  By bitter bread and wine.