Veronika Wild

Poster made by children at the Mosman Library reflecting the great diversity in Australia -This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY March 21st was Harmony Day in Australia. In other parts of the world this day is celebrated as the International Day for the Elimination of Racism. I must say I like our title better, because there is less emphasis on race and more on coming together, or at least living together in peace. This is never more timely as the world enters a new era of xenophobia. [For students of English this means fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners]. Although I will be talking mainly about Australia here -considered until recently the most successful multicultural country in the world, I believe there are lessons here for other countries too as many face similar problems.  As I write we have some particularly shrill folks calling for Australia to be just for Australians and for  this day to be renamed Deportation Day, so my aim is to tell...

-Image generated by Microsoft Bing AI  [Apologies, too long -as usual, so have split this into two parts. Part (a) looks at countries which have had ageing populations much earlier - notably Germany and Japan, while Part (b) will look at how countries who have more recently entered the realms of negative population growth are preparing for the future when there are more older people than youngsters]. Age Redefined Expressions such as “ Silver   Tsunami” so popular with economists and the press, imply that having a growing number of older people in the population will be a bad thing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be so. Indeed, many countries are starting to see that as an asset, rather than a liability. Baby Boomers are notorious for defying established norms. Now, thanks to modern medicine   and research into exercise and nutrition they are doing it again with respect to established notions about ageing. For the most part they are living longer, health...