The Multiculture and Me
NOTE: This post started life as a response to V's post on racism, but it just kept growing and stayed serious, and I thought it deserved its' own place, if only to preserve for me my own thoughts. Apologies for the rambling nature and lack of structure, I've not really written anything for 6 months.
I always find it interesting when you talk about race; my thoughts on it are so difficult to articulate. That probably has something to do with the whole white, middle-class, kind-of-leftist, male political correctness thing. I believe in the party line, I know for a fact that multiculturalism has given many good thing to Australia, reenforced by doing exchange in a country where over 95% of people were of a single race.
But I understand the fear many people feel. One's own culture and people are comforting, and there exist aspects of other cultures that are not positive influences on this country. There is also the particular attachment any group has with the land and country and community that was settled and built by their ancestors. This is one reason I have always hated it when people say "but ALL Australians are immigrants". My ancestors may not have been indigenous to this land before 1788, and yes the Aborigines were. But the country of Australia was built by the ancestors of many of the current Anglo-Saxon Australians; its' institutions, its' principles and its' fundamental premise were all created by those people. So my family may have migrated to the continent of Australia, but they did not migrate to the country of Australia. They built the country.
It may have been easier to maintain the White Australia Policy. Many proponents of multiculturalism often seem to forget that the monoculture that existed in Australia's past did in fact have many positive aspects: low crime and close community ties to name but two. I am not suggesting that multiculturalism is wholly to blame for all the negatives of modern life; certainly even without it many of society's current ills would still have come about. But I don't believe it is doubted that organised crime within Australia came from other countries, it is not home grown. And I do believe that communities are closer when they have shared beliefs and customs.
Multiculturalism is, however, here to stay. And I think it is a good thing. It has undoubtedly brought me many friends. It has encouraged progress at a wider social scale - Australia has made leaps and bounds on social issues since its introduction, again not wholly but still in large past attributable to the social changes wrought by multiculturalism. It has made Australia vibrant and lively, exciting and so much more interesting than it could have been.
The difficulty inevitably lies in culture clashes, and a particular issue raised by Anglo-Australians (used purely for simplicity, referring to people descended from the Builders generation and before): "if you don't like Australia, then why did you come here?". This is something I have always struggled with personally. Many people of different cultures seem to disprove of the way of life currently led by many Anglo-Australians. The issue that has been most striking to me, because it is probably the one I am most exposed to, is the freedom given to the children of immigrants. Most Anglo-Australians give great discretion to their grown children, which I believe is reflective of greater themes of freedom and choice in traditional Australian principles. I have also been led to believe that freedom and choice are great attractng factors to immigrants. If so, then why should immigrants not enact these principles in the lives they came to lead in Australia?
I (again) apologise for the rambling nature of this post. I am fully aware that the only people who could possibly read this post are immigrants, and I would actually like to hear some thoughts on the matter, please?
I always find it interesting when you talk about race; my thoughts on it are so difficult to articulate. That probably has something to do with the whole white, middle-class, kind-of-leftist, male political correctness thing. I believe in the party line, I know for a fact that multiculturalism has given many good thing to Australia, reenforced by doing exchange in a country where over 95% of people were of a single race.
But I understand the fear many people feel. One's own culture and people are comforting, and there exist aspects of other cultures that are not positive influences on this country. There is also the particular attachment any group has with the land and country and community that was settled and built by their ancestors. This is one reason I have always hated it when people say "but ALL Australians are immigrants". My ancestors may not have been indigenous to this land before 1788, and yes the Aborigines were. But the country of Australia was built by the ancestors of many of the current Anglo-Saxon Australians; its' institutions, its' principles and its' fundamental premise were all created by those people. So my family may have migrated to the continent of Australia, but they did not migrate to the country of Australia. They built the country.
It may have been easier to maintain the White Australia Policy. Many proponents of multiculturalism often seem to forget that the monoculture that existed in Australia's past did in fact have many positive aspects: low crime and close community ties to name but two. I am not suggesting that multiculturalism is wholly to blame for all the negatives of modern life; certainly even without it many of society's current ills would still have come about. But I don't believe it is doubted that organised crime within Australia came from other countries, it is not home grown. And I do believe that communities are closer when they have shared beliefs and customs.
Multiculturalism is, however, here to stay. And I think it is a good thing. It has undoubtedly brought me many friends. It has encouraged progress at a wider social scale - Australia has made leaps and bounds on social issues since its introduction, again not wholly but still in large past attributable to the social changes wrought by multiculturalism. It has made Australia vibrant and lively, exciting and so much more interesting than it could have been.
The difficulty inevitably lies in culture clashes, and a particular issue raised by Anglo-Australians (used purely for simplicity, referring to people descended from the Builders generation and before): "if you don't like Australia, then why did you come here?". This is something I have always struggled with personally. Many people of different cultures seem to disprove of the way of life currently led by many Anglo-Australians. The issue that has been most striking to me, because it is probably the one I am most exposed to, is the freedom given to the children of immigrants. Most Anglo-Australians give great discretion to their grown children, which I believe is reflective of greater themes of freedom and choice in traditional Australian principles. I have also been led to believe that freedom and choice are great attractng factors to immigrants. If so, then why should immigrants not enact these principles in the lives they came to lead in Australia?
I (again) apologise for the rambling nature of this post. I am fully aware that the only people who could possibly read this post are immigrants, and I would actually like to hear some thoughts on the matter, please?