:: One People, Many Cultures ::



::Living Together in Respect and Friendship::

Every year Australian filmmakers of all ages and experience compete in the short film festival Tropfest. We watched the 16 finalists a couple of nights ago and as usual, a couple stood out for me.

One, The Story of Ned, was a quirky animation where the characters are stories and the main character has some problems with its ending. Worth a look, but not much to say about Australia culturally so nothing to write here.

The other, Between the Flags, was set on the day of the Cronulla riots in 2005 and showed a white and a Lebanese Australian who turn up at the wrong beach and end up playing beach cricket and chatting about tastes in music, cars etc. We see as the mild animosity turns to respect rather than racial hatred. A clear winner.

I was having a conversation with my mate’s mum the other day about aboriginies. She talked about how poorly they fit into society (by which she means white society) and gave the example of one man in a settlement neighbouring their town west of Sydney who had to leave. Apparently he’d been doing his best to fit in, working a ‘real’ job and saving his money to look after his family rather than drinking and taking drugs. He got so much flak from his people, who said that he should just sit back like them and let the government pay them for past crimes, that he decided to move into town.

I can’t verify this story, but this opinion is common among the non-aboriginals – that they’re parasites, who are incapable of being ‘civilised’. I’m guilty of this line of thought at times, but the story itself highlights that they are capable if they put their mind to it. The question is whether they want to and whether they should.

Conversation also turned to a recent documentary that interviewed a number of the stolen generation that were grateful for being taken out of this society so they could have a better life. Without having seen this documentary, I’m prepared to believe that there were people among the victims who took this attitude. But then, isn’t it also likely that those are the people who would have moved out on their own, anyway? Wouldn’t they be the ones who have the strength to stand up against the actions of their peers and deny the escapism that alcohol allows?

Whatever we all believe, I don’t think that anyone denies that it was done poorly. The government swooped in and carried off any half aboriginal child to a camp for raising as orphans. The objective was to nurture their ‘civilised’ side while letting their ‘savage’ side die away. But the aborigines are a proud, accomplished and peaceful people. We may be modern, but I’d say they are the more civilised. There is so much that their culture can offer and the objective should have been to raise the halfbreeds as a bridge between the cultures. I don’t know how this would be accomplished, but it’s history anyway. There are a number of aborigines that work hard to bridge that gap now and I’m glad to see more more of them around town, drawing crowds with their music and stories.

I’m staying with a christian Lebanese Australian friend at the moment and am having trouble dealing with the anti-Muslim sentiment from his parents’ generation. The younger generation are very open-minded, but my friend’s mother and aunt are adamant that Muslims are breeding up to take over Australia. It’s not all Muslims, they concede, but the younger Muslims are being brainwashed by extremist shieks and that will be enough to destroy our country.

Their fear is understandable since they come from a generation that has seen their home country torn apart by religious wars. The challenge, then, is to ensure that our traditional Aussie open and relaxed attitude is enough to counter any brainwashing that may be happening. The fear shared by the older generation can’t help our fight.

A year ago, just before christmas, we had big racial riots in Sydney. It began when some Lebanese Australians beat up a life saver in Cronulla. I wasn’t here at the time, but I’m guessing it was a personal, spontaneous event having nothing to do with his status. But we’re proud of our life savers and a bunch of white Australians decided to stand up for their icon. The next week, a large group of them beat up a bunch of Lebanese Australians in retaliation. It was stupid. I wonder if it was even the same people or completely innocent bystanders. A week later, it culminated in a mass turnout on Cronulla beach with a thousand people taking sides – all over a single personal fight.

I hate to see my country demonstrating such racism, but then, Cronulla is meant to be the whitest area in Australia and not really representative of the rest. And now I see how much effect the incident has had on the rest of the city. Schools are being invited to attend a play reenacting it and to discuss the issues involved. And last week, about 30 Australians of various ethnic backgrounds were accepted into the ranks of bronzed Aussie icons. This is bound to be the start of a true multicultural mix on our beaches. And when people of all cultures are being saved by people of all cultures on a daily basis, it’s all good.

I rented a car and drove up to Port Macquarie to see my parents over the weekend. One advantage to renting a car is that the stereo is worth listening to, so I bought a few CDs to catch up on what I’ve missed while I’ve been away. One of them was Missy Higgins ‘The Sound of White’. A couple of years ago, friends sent me ‘Home and Hosed‘, a Triple J live album of Australian artists. Missy Higgins was the standout for me and the first album I looked for on returning. It didn’t disappoint – and not just for the sweet, husky vocals and gentle, upbeat tunes. Missy sings with an Australian accent.

When I left, there were very few pop/rock (in fact, none come to mind) bands that violated the Australian tradition of singing with American accents. Now, Missy is just one of the many. After a few weeks listening to JJJ, I think it’s fair to say that we’ve gained confidence in our accent and are proud to put it out there for the world to hear in song.