I grew up a very proud Australian. I learned Aussie slang terms that are becoming obsolete, I deliberately developed a broad Aussie accent and I became one of the very few who knows the 2nd verse to the national anthem.
I grew up under the Hawke-Keating Government. Although I’m old enough now to recognise the emptiness of some of their words, it was largely their example that made me proud. They spoke of reconciling our differences, of breaking down the barriers and tensions that exist between Aboriginal people and Australia’s more recent arrivals. We acknowledged the special history and culture of the most ancient surviving culture in the world. We also acknowledged that the land of Australia was not our ancestors’ to take for us and so we gave native title rights to those who should have inherited the land from their parents and grandparents. It wasn’t just that Hawke and Keating said all this, but that they regularly reinforced these messages as an important part of what it means to be an Australian. It was something we were proud of and it was something that was reinforced to me as a child. This was the example I wanted to follow.
Hawke and Keating also spoke of learning to value the knowledge offered to us by our people’s diverse backgrounds. They spoke of celebrating the many different cultural practices that exist in Australia.
I learned from this example. It made me proud to be an Australian. To me, being an Australian meant trying to put a few past mistakes right. It meant abandoning the mistake of the White Australia Policy and openly embracing a multicultural future. It meant celebrating our differences as something that makes us unique and interesting.
Unlike many other countries who force their citizens to adhere to specific cultural and religious practices, we valued our right to be different from each other. Unlike other countries who engage in a monoculture, we were a shining example to the world of how people of differing backgrounds could love living together.
Australia has a culture of its own. We aren’t dull, and we aren’t brash. We are an honest, fair-minded, hard-working people. That’s what we have in common. But within the geographical boundaries of this island, there is room not just for the cities, but also for Aboriginal camps and villages who adhere to a more communal lifestyle than the Anglo inhabitants. There is room not just for farming communities, but for foreign language speaking immigrants to speak a variety of languages. There is room for people of varying religions to practise and there is room for Chinatowns, where I love going. There is room for us all to learn about each other’s cultures and languages.
And that’s what I love about multicultural Australia. I love having friends who are Muslims, Trinidadian, Aboriginal, Italian etc. I love finding out about the special things they know because of their backgrounds, that I could never learn otherwise. I love walking the streets and hearing all sorts of interesting sounding languages. I love practising French when I meet French immigrants.
And that’s AustraliA. Australia IS Multicultural.If you don’t love it, LEAVE!
That includes you, John Howard!