Give People Reasons To Love Australia And They Will
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday January 26, 2007
In line with the paternalistic attitudes which Peter Debnam (and many other non-progressive "mainstreamers") seems to think necessary when dealing with migrants, a good example should be to first set the correct Australian way of living in Australia ("Debnam tests water in debate on citizenship", January 25).
Then the "non-mainstream" migrants may truly hope to be Australian through emulation. Given that the first settlers just took this land and tried to re-create their old country on it, subsequent migrants might also find balancing integration and segregation (and invasion) a hard and long process.Integration is not a one-way street. Integration is not selective. Demanding ethnic communities integrate into the larger Australian population is fundamentally unjustifiable if a demand for the larger Australian population to take the same interest, engagement and appreciation towards ethnic communities cannot be effectively made.And "integrating" parts of their culture, such as food, is not equitable to "integrating" parts of our culture, like values.Multiculturalism is an Australian value. Actually, it points to a few other very similar Australian values: openness, fairness, acceptance and mateship. It doesn't matter that other people appear not to share our values. Don't fear. Our values should be strong enough to withstand some apparent dissent, and not need us to demand that others adopt them if they are to be accepted in this country.Why do "non-mainstream" community members need to shout at every opportunity their appreciation of - no, their undying and overwhelming loyalty to - Australian society, norms, practices and aspirations? Who fears whom? Is this fear based on ignorance, opportunism and prejudice?Give people reasons to love Australia and they will and do. Let's listen and converse, rather than just talk at each other. Let's not do a Bush-America, where instead of genuinely asking why people want to harm us, we go out and convert every "other" to the highly self-evident superiority of "us". After all, this is Australia.Kali Yuan Rosebery
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald