cultural considerations

(From the Editors Desk)

Put your hand up if you are Australian?  Put your hand up in your are 'born' in Australia?  Put your hand up if you were 'not born' in Australia, but are an Australian citizen?  Would love to see the amount of hands that just went straight back down to the sides...  I know I am going to sound pretty feral here, but recent media articles from the Maori Embassy at Doonan, to the drop-kick cleric who subscribes to the theory that violence against women is not a problem, though of course I am sure we most likely took it all out of context as we normally do (yes that was sarcasm dripping there).

I actually found the Maori Embassy one pretty funny, until I read a lot of comments on the blogs, then I got concerned.  I know I will peeve a lot of Kiwis here, but hello?, how many of you guys live in this country for decades and never become Australians?  To make matters worse, (my husband is going to ban me from reading news blogs soon), if I saw one more comment that started with "It is better back in New Zealand...."  I was about to scream.  Obviously a lot of other people on the blogs felt the same as me judging by the disparaging anti-kiwi comments.  Now what is sad about all this is that we are supposed to be a multi-cultural society, but I have to admit, I am starting to feel like a minority in my own country?

Now, I am not trying to do a Pauline Hanson here, but, consider this...  As a boring old white Australian who has been here for generations I seem to have less rights then every other minority here?  For example, coming back from a game in Townsville, I wear my bronco's hat through the airport security, I have to take it off, the Sikh behind me, who has a turban that could fit a bus into it doesn't, security staff cite 'cultural considerations'...  (Personally I thought supporting the footy was pretty cultural LOL!).  Another one: If I walked up to a family on the beach, looked them up & down, then started abusing them for say, being tourists, ummm abusing the beach, ummm telling them to pee off back to their own country etc. (Not like I would ever say that of course!), the police would have me up for harassment so quickly that my head would spin.  Not to mention that any other Aussies around me who might have heard that would be mortified.  Yet, this happens quite often on beaches in Sydney, my friend has told me of her teenage girls coming home in tears after being frightened by abuse from Muslim youths.  Yet when a complaint is made, the police cited 'cultural considerations'...

Don't get me wrong, I think that you can come live in this country from another, and still keep your culture.  Generations of immigrants are what has made this country really unique.  I just don't believe that your 'old' culture or country should take precedence over your new one.  If everyone keeps 'belonging' somewhere else, then we will never have an 'Australia', and people like me are left in no-mans land.  A perfect example is: An Aboriginal has 'Land Rights'.  Don't get me wrong here, what has occurred in the past to the Aboriginals is reprehensible and you will not hear me condoning it, But, again, I can't go back to Waterford or Cork, and say, "Hey, I think my family lived there 200 years ago and the bloody poms unfairly tossed us out to Australia, so ummm, can I have that land back?", what do you reckon the response would be?  Particularly considering the most Irish thing about our family is the prolific use of 'Mary' as a middle name.  I would be looking as ridiculous as those Maori's with their Embassy scam...  

Though the serious point here is, there are millions of people like me, been here for countless generations, don't have a 'back-up culture' to subscribe to or a 'land connection' like the Aboriginals, so if we are not Australian, then we are 'nothing'...  We seem to feel this need to be 'politically correct' and 'culturally sensitive' to everyone else here, except ourselves. 

I am not suggesting that we become 'intolerant', that is actually my biggest worry!  Though I would like to ask our political masters to maybe take a bit of a leaf out of the Americans book, and ensure that immigrants here actually want to be here and want to become part of the Australian way of life, and, most importantly abide by our laws.  There should be no 'cultural sensitivity' when it comes to the law.  Abuse is Abuse, Violence is Violence etc. there should be no religious or cultural consideration here, if you came here, you should have known what to expect, so abide by it.  Another, is that we should not allow anyone to live here indefinitely without becoming a citizen, as we all know, if something has no value to it, then it is not appreciated.  My friend is originally from England, yet she is a proud Aussie, I grew up with a lot of Italians, Greeks and more who were also proud Aussies, albeit with an accent LOL!  It is the merging of all us which 'I think' makes us uniquely Australian. 

Getting back to my original point...  Reading the blogs on articles such as I have mentioned, is actually showing that as a nation we are becoming more intolerant over the years, and that is a real concern, but I wonder if a lot of this is not actually coming from 'the world getting scarier rubbish', that our esteemed ex-Prime Minister used to espouse, but is actually just the likes of Joe Bloggs, getting sick of the 'reverse-discrimination' that seems to be resulting from the importance of 'cultural consideration' and 'religious tolerance'.  The pendulum just seems to have swung too far, tolerance does not mean abuse? 

So this Australia Day, if you are a foreign-born, don't really like our rules etc here, maybe you should have a big hard think about whether Australia is the place for you?  Alternatively, if you love this country, enjoy your barbie or whatever celebration you may have, and don't forget to toss that 'Greek' salad, cook those 'Italian' sausages well, turn the 'Lebanese' kebabs, mixing that 'Asian' dipping source (you get my point, we have all this wonderful food to celebrate with, due to all the immigrants in the past who have become part of this country and 'shared' their culture with us), thank you to all the generations of immigrants, regardless of where they come from, who have made this country the wonderful, unique place we are, by sharing their 'culture' and becoming Australian :)

Have a great Australia Day!
cheers
Noely