Australia is in a good space. We are in a post extreme-right
(white) government era and the extreme left is yet to fully recover from its
previous fiascoes. The society is in a lively debating mode triggered by the
previous extreme right cohort in power and it does not look like it is dying
down any time soon. Though on different individual subjects the theme of
debates are narrowed down to two major questions – “Who are we as Australian?”
and “What is modern Australia?”
As a migrant i.e. not born and bred in Australia, after all
these years I still got asked a typical question when meeting new people – “Where
did you come from?” Mind you I don’t have a Chinese accent and neither do I have
an Australian accent (yeah strangely I have an American accent although was
brought up in a British colony). That makes me an alien and I need to declare
my origins like a mutant. Do I mind that? Well yes and no as for me I do look
different – I am not blonde, blue eyed and do not easily get burnt into a piece
of crispy roast pork, but at the same time I do mind in the context of does my
look count that much because honestly I hold an Australian passport, paid off
my HECS (HELP) and pay taxes to the government every year. I basically finance
the lifestyle choices of our politicians and government.
This leads to the question of what is Australia Day – is it
a day to celebrate or is it a day of moaning? This is a huge debate in itself
as Australia Day commemorate the arrival of the British colonists, who then
carried out extensive plans to exterminate Indigenous Australians with their
supreme gun power and weapons (which strangely enough was first invented by
ancient China). For Indigenous Australians, it is the start of the doom period
and marks the dark ages to follow, especially for the Stolen Generation.
Fast forward to 2016, the society is still recovering from
the damage done by the extreme right government and finding its ground again.
However, despite its downfall the extreme right (white) sentiments has never
been louder. Thanks to what we called the Islamic States that is wrecking
havocs across the globe. Arguments of shutting the border, closing ties and “stopping
the boats (refuges)” are so loud that even the best noise cancelling headphones
cannot shut them out. I can’t speak for other countries, but the question I have
for all the extreme right parties in this country is – on this very day, aren’t
you guys actually celebrating your own terrorist acts performed 200 years ago? If
that is the case what makes you think you are the person to cast the first
stone or to quote the ex-government’s own words “turn back the first boat?”
I do not believe in lingering in the past but I am a strong
advocate of learning from the past. That is why we have history classes. I do
not condone the terrorist acts ISIS has been carrying out either but I do
believe in ISIS does not represent all Muslims around the world. I know a lot
of Muslims and have a lot of Muslim friends, none of them look like the
lunatics you saw on the ISIS channel. So along the same line, not all Australians
are racist too because I know a lot of them too and none of them talk or act
like our ex-extreme right (white) government. Branding people by the looks and
sound of a small subset is what is causing all the trouble. And most of the
time this was done in the interests of another subset of the society. Also at
the same time not acknowledging the past while acting you have every right to
condemn the present does not make you a better person or country.
I still remember the stories one of my Indigenous colleagues
told me when I first started working in Australia. I learn about the Indigenous
people through books and stuff but nothing prepared me to understand how much
they had suffered to live in this country and just to fight for an opportunity
to show people they are valuable to the society. The things her family went
through, the injustice thrown upon them, people’s bias against their culture –
you don’t even have to live it to understand it. Up to this date, I still tell
myself I want to tell her stories on TV when I got a chance one day so people
know what it is like and how much harder Indigenous Australians need to work to
get to where they want to be.
There is no doubt Australia Day has become a debatable day
for celebration, but if we truly want to build a great modern Australia and a
great Australian culture, acknowledgement of the past mistakes is vital.
Culture is a collective ideology that is unconsciously reflected by the
collective way of life exhibited by the constituents forming this ideology. Modern
Australia is definitely no long an “All White All Mighty” country that it was
decades ago. What made Australia great nowadays is the collective change the
new first, second and third generation migrants have brought to this country,
enriching it and moving it forward. Culture is never meant to be a static
entity. Whether you like it or not it will continue to evolve and the most
important thing during this evolution is don’t make the same mistakes your
predecessors did. And the only way to achieve this is, again by acknowledging
the wrongs in the past.
There is not point of living in the past but with this
acknowledgement we can build a greater future. If one day our government decides
to truly reconcile with Indigenous Australians and decides to truly embrace its
current ethnic and cultural diversity, then it is the beginning of a true
modern Australian culture – a culture that embodies the diversities among its
constituents and normalises what is considered as different and queer in the
past. Being different is no longer an issue as it will become the new normal –
in my humble opinion, this is the direction Australia need to move to if it
truly wants to become a great country.
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