Multiculturalism has been an overwhelming success in Australia, and there is no evidence that its policies have created – as its conservative critics like to portray – a nation of divided ethnic ghettos and reverse racism.

So says Monash University lecturer and The Age columnist Tim Soutphommasane in his new book Don’t Go Back to Where You Came From. “I wrote it because in recent years we’ve seen something of a retreat from multiculturalism,” Dr Soutphommasane told Neos Kosmos.

“It’s been common to hear commentators diagnose an imminent crisis in Australia when it comes to immigration, namely that multiculturalism has failed in Europe, such as in France, Germany and the UK, – where governments have distanced themselves from the word – and that Australia is next in line to follow in such failure. “That’s fundamentally wrong,” says Soutphommasane.

“Australian multiculturalism is very different to what has been experienced Europe. In Australia it has been an exercise in nation building and that’s given it a very distinctive flavour. “In the UK it boiled down to being a community of communities. The idea was that you could live side by side and not have to worry about an over-arching sense of community, because you were essentially a federation. There wasn’t a unifying identity”.

Dr Soutphommasane who is from a Laotian background, hopes the book – a product of his research over a number of years – will help Australians recognise the success of multiculturalism and appreciate just why the Australian model has worked. He says that despite setbacks such as the 2005 Cronulla riots and the recent violent protest of Islamic extremists in Sydney, Australian multiculturalism has never been stronger.

Dr Soutphommasane argues the Cronulla riots were an example of extreme Australian nationalism rather than a failure of multiculturalism. “The fault there didn’t lie with Australia’s multicultural policies, it lay with ‘shock jocks’ like Alan Jones inciting racial hatred against Lebanese Australians,” he says, adding that a more recent example like the reaction to the violent Sydney protest last month showed how multiculturalism was working.

“Some commentators saw [the Sydney protest] as evidence of multiculturalism’s failure, but the response by Muslim communities to the violence, has, if anything, demonstrated its robust success,” said Dr Soutphommasane.

“It was a clear signal that extremism wasn’t the representative face of Australian multiculturalism. “There is nothing more important to those of immigrant background than to be able to participate fully in the life of the nation. On this measure, Australian multiculturalism has been a national success story.” Don’t Go Back to Where You Came From will be officially launched in Canberra on Monday, 12 November with Senator Penny Wong in attendance.