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Necessity of University Reform in Australia

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Article/Blessing CALD Editorial;Photo/Internet

13 mins audio

 

For a long time, Australia has been described as the “Country of Luck” and the “Land of Opportunity”, promising “a better life for every generation.” However, this narrative is gradually fading away from the speeches of Australian politicians.

More and more young people are realizing that this promise cannot withstand the test of time, and they find it difficult to benefit from it. Particularly with the increasing annual university tuition fees, the pressure on Australian youth to pursue higher education is growing. Recently, Duncan Maskell, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, joined forces with the Greens Party and student association to advocate for free higher education, which triggered a lively discussion.

/ Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne called for free university education

/ Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne called for free university education

 

Missed Benefits

In the 1950s, the Commonwealth of Nations initiated the Colombo Plan, aiming to cultivate professionals in underdeveloped countries in the Asia-Pacific region through international cooperation in the form of financial and technical assistance, education, and training programs. It was one of the world’s pioneering aid programs. Under this plan, a large number of Asian countries, including Hong Kong, sent students to study in Australia, and at that time, these students did not have to bear the burden of tuition fees. In 1974, the Australian Federal Government, led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, announced the implementation of free higher education policy and introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), which eliminated economic barriers for children from low-income families, greatly promoting educational equity. President Maskell himself attested to being a beneficiary of free university education, as coming from a working-class background, it would have been highly likely for him to be unable to attend university if he had been required to take out a loan.

In 1979, the Australian government implemented a fee plan for international students, and starting from January 1986, full tuition fees were charged to overseas students. At that time, Australia’s study abroad industry officially transitioned from an aid program to a profit-generating industry. However, due to the affordable tuition fees at the time and the government’s welcoming attitude towards internationally educated students for immigration, it sparked an early wave of self-funded study abroad in Australia. It was also during that era that the number of international students in Australia began to rapidly increase. As for domestic students, in 1998, Prime Minister John Howard introduced the Youth Allowance, providing financial support to young people for studying and seeking employment. The allowance simplified the assistance process and reduced the financial pressure on young people. This system was popular at the time. By 2003, over one-third of university students in the country had received the Youth Allowance. However, the increase in the allowance was very low and did not keep up with the rising costs of tuition and living expenses.

In summary, the Australian government previously provided relatively lenient policies, allowing Australian residents to enjoy lower university tuition fees. However, over time, the policies have become increasingly restrictive, and the benefits enjoyed by Australian residents have diminished. Currently, the government has tightened the funding subsidy requirements for universities, and tuition fees for most universities are continuously rising. In this situation, the cost of university education for Australian residents has also increased significantly compared to the past. Additionally, many Australian universities have reduced the tuition fees for international students in order to attract more international and study abroad students, resulting in a significant proportion of international students occupying university enrollment quotas. In this situation, Australian residents need to compete with more study abroad students, which further increases their burden in pursuing higher education.

 

Why studying at University?

Education, especially higher education, is one of the pathways for us to acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities for career success and independence. Fair distribution of education contributes to creating an inclusive and equitable society. After a period of offering free university education in Australia in the last century, the introduction of university fees and HECS student loans in the late 1980s did not address the issue of enabling more students from disadvantaged and underprivileged backgrounds to access university education. The current Australian Minister for Education, Jason Clare, has explicitly stated that one of the main goals in the current review of higher education is to address the issue of underrepresentation of students from disadvantaged backgrounds in degree attainment.

The primary purpose of university is to produce qualified graduates who can contribute to valuable work in society. However, the job market in Australia has become highly competitive, with businesses increasingly preferring experienced employees. This poses a significant challenge for new graduates. In this context, Australian residents need higher qualifications to enhance their employment opportunities, which also increases the burden of attending university. In addition to tuition fees, Australian residents have to bear accommodation costs, food expenses, textbook expenses, and other daily expenses, all of which contribute to a greater financial burden. However, if we can take a long-term perspective and view the higher education industry not only as a revenue-generating sector but also as a long-term investment in cultivating talent for the future, we would have a different understanding.

Australia is a high-tax country. Even if someone earns a pre-tax income of 100,000 AUD, they may end up with only 70,000 AUD after taxes. The more you earn, the more taxes you pay. Therefore, for graduates burdened with high student loans, even if they choose a high-paying job, their disposable income after tax and repayment is significantly reduced. It may be more advantageous to opt for a vocational education program with lower or even no fees, without the enormous pressure of repayment after entering the workforce. Once the government implements free university education, students can freely choose the subjects they are interested in without being deterred by the prospect of significant future debt. In the short term, the government would need to increase investment and reallocate fiscal expenditures. However, in the long run, the positive impact of having a larger number of university-educated individuals in the country on future income is likely to outweigh the costs, as human capital is often priceless.

 

Reform is Imperative

Making undergraduate education free once again may sound like a radical idea, but it is not a radical concept globally, and Australia has fallen far behind many other countries. An analysis conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) last year revealed that the average annual cost for Australian university students is around 5,000 USD, while in France, Belgium, and Germany, the annual average cost is less than 250 USD. Countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Chile, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Turkey offer free education to their residents. Even Australia’s neighbor, New Zealand, offers free education for the first year. It is evident that the tuition pressure faced by Australian students places them in the “first tier” among developed countries. Considering the inflation factor, it’s no wonder that the National Union of Students is advocating for the implementation of free education.

Of course, attending university is not the choice for all Australian residents. Some professions do not require higher degrees but practical experience and skills. Therefore, for these Australian residents, whether university education is free or not is not crucial to their livelihoods. The Australian government has gradually realized this issue and is beginning to allocate more funds and resources to vocational skills training to meet the demands of the future job market. This year, Australia will offer 180,000 free spots for  Technical and Further Education (TAFE). These free courses are part of a joint effort by state and federal governments, with priority areas including nursing, technical fields, hospitality, and construction. However, vocational education is different from higher education. The education level of the population is an important aspect in measuring a country’s human capital stock, as well as a significant indicator of social development and civilization. Investing in human capital through education and technological advancement is an inevitable path for any responsible government.

Data shows that in the fiscal year 2018-19, Australia’s expenditure on university education accounted for only 0.65% of GDP, a figure significantly lower than the OECD average expenditure of 0.9% among 38 countries. The past three years, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, have had a tremendous impact on Australian universities. Since the moment Australian universities closed their borders to international students in 2020, they have faced the biggest crisis in their history. Higher education funding is severely lacking, with the industry heavily reliant on revenue generated by international students. This is undoubtedly unsustainable. Today, with the rapid rise in living costs, the increased cost of university education may mean that more and more Australians are unable to obtain a university degree due to exorbitant tuition fees. Recent government estimates indicate that by 2025, 52% of jobs will require a degree. The worst-case scenario is that the cost of obtaining a degree becomes a barrier to acquiring one, further widening the wealth gap in society. If the government wants to prevent this scenario from unfolding, it must take effective measures now to curb the worsening situation.

 

Changes of the social positioning of University education

University reform needs to start from the social positioning of university education, which clearly requires social consensus. Therefore, political parties need to present a set of appropriate views for today’s society. The recent provision of free 3-year-old preschool education by the Victoria State Government, aimed at assisting dual-income families, has received social recognition because the high cost of early childhood education significantly reduces the willingness of low-income female workers to work. Similarly, when introducing university fees, society expects higher income returns from university graduates, which seems to lack persuasiveness in today’s Australia.

Due to the relatively low initial incomes of university graduates in the first few years after graduation, the debt owed to the government for attending university cannot be repaid within those initial years. For women, entering the stage of marriage and child-rearing is already a setback to their career development. By the time their children grow up and they return to work, many of them lack competitiveness. Meanwhile, their government student debt continues to increase due to inflation, making them unable to feel the advantages brought by university education. In addition, with the advancement of technology and society, many people have to pursue another degree around 10 years after graduation to maintain their advantage in the workforce or change their career development. In other words, they have to invest again to increase their value. Many people have begun to understand that studying at a university is a continuous investment rather than a personal asset.

When society changes its expectations for university education, the willingness of individuals to make such investments will be considered based on real benefits. If the government fails to keep up with the changing social attitudes, university education will become a high-input, low-output endeavor, resulting in a majority unwilling to invest or many individuals obtaining government loans for education without intending to repay the debt. In the end, there will be a large number of bad debts in university loans, with the government bearing the losses.

Today, this has become a problem in the system. A significant portion of university loans is believed to be unrecoverable. If this continues, Australia’s university education system will fall into chaos and inefficiency. It is believed that now is the time for society to undertake reforms.

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Monocultural, Multicultural, and Intercultural Society

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Liberal Party fails to recognize multiculturalism

The Liberal Party suffered a massive defeat in the federal election, with Leader Dutton losing the Dickson seat he held for 24 years. The Liberal Party elected Sussan Ley as leader and Ted O’Brien as deputy. Ted O’Brien, who has lived in Taiwan for many years to learn Chinese and managed his family’s business in China, is one of the few Liberal leaders who is familiar with Chinese culture. After his election, Ted said that the Liberal Party needed to renew itself and propose policies that would meet the needs of modern Australia, including rethinking its policies on youth, women, migrants and the environment, or else the Liberal Party would be unable to build a relationship with the Australian electorate and its survival would be in doubt.

The Labor Party, which aims to reform the society, regards migrants, especially those from poor countries, as a disadvantaged group. Therefore, the Labor Party’s policies occasionally help migrants to adapt, and most of the leaders of the Labor Party have a more open attitude towards supporting migrants. The Liberal Party has always emphasized on small government and fairness of the system, and its leadership has little experience with immigrant communities, and basically has little understanding of the difficulties migrants encounter in adapting and integrating into the society, and therefore is not enthusiastic in supporting migrants in its policies.

Over the past two decades, Australia has absorbed more than 200,000 immigrants every year. These new migrants have found that the Labor Party has more policies that benefit migrants, and this has been reflected in the fact that migrants have been more supportive of the Labor Party’s governing in the past elections. In this year’s federal election, the Liberal Party’s Dutton blamed migrants for Australia’s economic pressures and housing shortages, and demanded a drastic reduction in the number of migrants, and senior Senator Jane Hume called Chinese Australians “spies”, which made many migrants detest the Liberal Party. If the Liberal Party still fails to recognize and respond to the reality that Australia has become a multicultural society, we can foresee that the Liberal Party is likely to disappear from the Australian political scene.

 

Lack of multicultural experience among societal and political leaders

Before the abolition of the White Australia Policy in the 1970s, Australia was a white society, and even the Aboriginal people, who were the owners of the land, were denied and ignored. The Chinese used to make up more than 15% of Australia’s population during the Gold Rush era, but under the White Australia Policy, less than 1% of Chinese Australians remained in the 1970s. In terms of today’s universal values, the Australian government had implemented a “non-violent” policy of genocide. In fact, the Stolen Generation’s policy of handing over Aboriginal babies to white people for upbringing and education was similar. The Racial Discrimination Act of the 1970s officially ended this phase of Australia’s history, but it did not mean that Australia immediately entered a multicultural society.

Australians born before the 1990s grew up with very little contact with people of other ethnicities in their communities and lives, so racial discrimination was rampant at that time. Nowadays, most of the Australian leaders in their 40s and 50s were born in the 1980s or before. Although they accept the diversity of the Australian society today, they have never had much personal experiences with multicultural communities or migrants, and therefore seldom consider things from the perspective of a multicultural society in their policy implementation or management. For example, many managers of mainstream organizations or enterprises deeply understand that they need to enter the multicultural community in order to continue their current market or organizational goals, but they do not know how to intertct with hese communities. In Australian society, the Australian Football League (AFL) have demonstrated a determination and experience to become multicultural, as many of the AFL’s past leaders have come from multicultural backgrounds.

Similar scenarios are reflected in politics and social management, that is, when the government implements a policy, it often fails to get a response from the whole society. For example, the NDIS, which was legislated in 2013, still has less than 9% of participants from multicultural backgrounds, which is less than 40% of the original expectation. Obviously, a policy that aims to benefit people with disabilities across the country has failed to reach out to ethnic minority communities, and has resulted in many cases of abuse and misuse. It  is totally unacceptable but little complaints has been made by neither mainstream Australians nor ethnic communities. Other example is services to help families troubled by gambling, which have not been used by many migrants for a long time. For many years, the organizations concerned thought that the problem was that migrants were reluctant to use their counseling services, but the truth is that these services are provided according to the Western individualistic medical model, rather than seeing gambling as a social problem that brings difficulties to the family members, let alone dealing with the problem by promoting it to the multicultural community. During the Covid pandemic, the Victorian government’s publicity of anti-epidemic measures neglected the role of multicultural media, which initially led to a situation where the infection and death rates of overseas-born people were twice as high as those of local-born people in the.early days.

 

Diversity in Australian Society

The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently announced that the proportion of overseas-born Australians in the population has increased to 31.5%, in response to the large number of migrants to Australia over the last 20 years. Until the early 1990s, the proportion of foreign-born people was not as high as this, and most of these people came from the United Kingdom, which was close to their cultural background, so the Australian society was not pluralistic, and it could be said that Australia was a monocultural British society at that time. At the time of the founding of the Liberal Party, Robert Menzies was confronted with such a monocultural society. Nowadays, Australia is the most multicultural society in the world. Obviously, the design and implementation of policies must take this factor into consideration.

The Labor Party’s support for multiculturalism basically allows immigrants to continue to retain their native customs, festivals and celebrations, and to tolerate each other in order to maintain respect and peace among communities. Such a society does not mean that there is communication or integration between communities. In fact, a society with no communication or integration will easily be segregated nto competing and opposing groups. It is not easy to maintain harmony and cohesion in such a society.

Last year, the Labor Party released the Multicultural Framework Review report, which was the Australian government’s first attempt to explore what kind of multicultural society Australia could become. The Commonwealth Government has so far indicated that it is also willing to provide funding support to take forward the report’s recommendations to further the realization of the framework. The report’s emphasis on the creation of a multicultural society in Australia, beginning with the recognition that Australian society started from Aboriginals, rather than solely a colonial society created by the British, is a progressive perspective in which migrants of different cultures are welcomed and accepted as part of the Australian society and culture. This means that Australia should not be a society divided by different cultural communities, but rather a modern Australia that integrates and embraces cultures from different places.

 

Integration into Intercultural

In order to build an integrated and inclusive society, the government has a responsibility to help migrants from all sides of the world, especially those from authoritarian societies, to experience Australian values that are different from their own, including freedom, equality, the rule of law, and human rights. Of course, migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds need to learn English and try to engage with the wider community, rather than being isolated in a culturally homogeneous migrant community.

For young migrants, this is not too difficult. Through the work environment, through life contacts, through community involvement, we see that the new generation is integrating without great difficulty. But for first generation immigrants, it is the government’s responsibility to create opportunities for them to gain exposure and experience in integration. This does not mean that the government is giving resources to migrants as a form of welfare, but rather as an investment by the community in migrants to integrate them into Australian society in the short term, so that they can contribute to Australian society as soon as possible. Such a policy would bring positive returns to the community, and would enable the migration program to maximize the social contribution of the elite settling in Australia.

Another group that has been neglected for a long time is those who were born and raised in the mainstream society. The government should also provide opportunities for them to develop through exposure to multiculturalism. For example, many traditional churches in Australia have been unable to absorb multicultural Christians and have eventually shrunk or even closed down. This is the result of not being able to keep up with the societal changes.

The unwritten expectation of Australian society has always been that newcomers will become mainstream Australians. I believe this is impossible. The challenge for Australia today is for all Australians, immigrants and native Australians (including Aboriginal Australians), to transform and integrate into modern Australians.

 

Mr. Raymond Chow

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Chinese Aboriginals – A History that may Precede Captain Cook

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Last Friday, a book launch at the University of Melbourne’s AsiaLink Sidney Myer Centre brought out a powerful message. The Aboriginal people who have lived in Australia for more than 60,000 years are not just modern-day ‘living fossils’. Throughout their history, they have had contact with islanders from the South Pacific and explorers from Japan and East Asia in search of a better life, and they have been a part of Aboriginal culture. Mr. Zhou Xiaoping, an artist living amongst the Aboriginal people, compiled “Our Story: Aboriginal Chinese People in Australit” to introduce Aboriginal Chinese to Australians. Mr. Zhou’s research is now on display at the National Museum in Canberra, and through the book, “Our Stories”, some of the voices of Aboriginal Chinese are being presented to the Australian community.

 

Forgotten Chinese

In recent years, the voices of the Chinese community have started to be heard in Australia’s multicultural society. Concerns have been raised about the welfare of first-generation Chinese elders, as well as the education of their children and their lives. However, there is a group of Chinese who have long been forgotten, not only by the Chinese or the mainstream community, but also by themselves who have had little contact with other Chinese immigrants: they are the Chinese Aboriginal people, whose identity was often forgotten by the society until recently.

It is only in recent years, with the efforts of scholars, artists and community workers, that this hidden part of history has begun to emerge. One such artist is Chinese-Australian artist Zhou Xiaoping. Recently, he and his team have interviewed this group of mixed-race descendants of Chinese and Aboriginal people who are living among the Aboriginal community to tell their own stories through an exhibition and a book, “Our Stories”, to bring the existence of Aboriginal Chinese into the public eye again.

For Chinese immigrants who have settled in Australia in recent years, or who have been living in the mainstream Australian society since the Gold Rush era, it may never have occurred to us that some of the Aboriginal people, who have a history of 60,000 years and are regarded as the “living fossils” of the modern age, have Chinese cultural heritage since the Gold Rush era. Some Aboriginal leaders even believe that the contact between Chinese and Aboriginal people predates the British declaration of Australia as an uninhabited land. If contact between the Chinese and the Aborigines had been established earlier, then the Aborigines would not be the “living fossils” that the British claimed they were.

 

Who are the Aboriginal Chinese?

For many newcomers, the first impression of Australia is of a white-dominated, English-speaking society with a colonial past. But the cultural roots of this land are much more complex than that. Aboriginal communities have lived here for tens of thousands of years, and these communities are widely dispersed, with more than 250 language groups, each with their own unique language, culture and lifestyle. They have a deep connection to the land. Aboriginal people do not have the concept of private property, nor do they settle along rivers like other ancient peoples. Instead, they lived in groups, roamed the same area, and made their living by picking natural plants or simply growing them. They believed that people did not own the land, but belonged to it, and were “custodians of the land”, representing it and welcoming others to share its produce. This is why Aboriginal people are often invited to lead welcoming ceremonies at major events in Australia today.

Before the Gold Rush, as early as the 1840s, contract laborers from Xiamen, China, arrived in Australia to work as sheepherders to fill the demand for labor. They did not live in the big cities, even Melbourne was not yet developed. These Chinese sheep herders were scattered around the countryside on farms. Later, the gold rush that swept through Australia, and the establishment of New Gold Mountain in Victoria, attracted more Chinese immigrants to settle in places like Ballarat to participate in gold mining.

Initially, Aboriginal attitudes towards Asian immigrants were the same as those towards European colonizers – they were all foreigners, strangers entering a traditional territory. Interaction was limited by language and cultural differences. However, under colonial expansion and the White Australia Policy, both Aboriginal and Chinese were discriminated against and ostracized, and this common situation unexpectedly brought them closer together.

As the Aboriginal system of closed marriages was destroyed, some Chinese began to intermarry with Aboriginal people to form families, resulting in the birth of Aboriginal descendants of Chinese descent. Their stories are testimonies of how they have crossed cultural boundaries and traumatized by history.

 

Journey to the Roots: From Confusion to Recognition

In Our Stories, a book curated by Zhou Xiaoping, a number of Aboriginal Chinese descendants are interviewed. In Our Stories, Zhou interviewed a number of Aboriginal Chinese descendants who have pieced together their roots through the memories of their grandparents, family legends and historical archives. Some grew up wondering why they looked different from other Aboriginal people, until one day they asked, “Why do I look different? This began the journey of finding their roots.

“I don’t know how to explain who I am because I don’t know myself,” said one respondent.  It was only through oral family narratives and self-study that he slowly came to understand his cultural and historical origins.

Broome, a small town of 14,000 people in the far north of Western Australia, has been a center of multiculturalism since the 19th century. Chinatown, in the heart of the city, is a symbol of this multiculturalism. Its history dates back to the end of the 19th century, when Broome quickly became the center of the pearl industry due to the abundance of shells, attracting migrants from China and Japan to work in the pearl mining industry. In today’s cemetery in Broome, there are more than 900 graves of settlers from Japan. Not only Chinese and Japanese, Broome was also a place where Malays, Pacific Islanders, Filipinos and others came to settle. Broome was not affected by the “White Australia Policy” of the time, as its bead mining industry relied heavily on the skills of Asian divers.

These Asian immigrants lived mainly in what came to be known as ‘Chinatown’, alongside the local Aboriginal Yawuru community. The architecture of Chinatown at the time was unique, blending Asian architectural features with the local climate, resulting in sturdy corrugated iron buildings with reddish-green beams and columns, a fusion of East and West.

One respondent said, “Broome is a place where people know that we can live together from different countries”. These words are a testament to the reality of the history of the Broome.

 

Chinese immigrants and ‘custodians of the land’

Aboriginal Australians do not see themselves as ‘landowners’, but as custodians of the land. Their culture is so closely tied to the land that even today, when most of them live in modern cities, they continue to carry on their traditions in different ways.

In various public settings, “Welcome to Country” or “Acknowledgement of Country” have become commonplace. These ceremonies remind us that this land belongs first and foremost to the Aboriginal people, and that this recognition is not only a ritual, but also a form of revision and respect for history.

However, on this year’s ANZAC Day, when former Opposition Leader Dutton openly objected to the ‘welcoming ceremony’, it once again triggered a discussion on historical memory and respect. What is the minimum respect for the past? Who is qualified to define “Australian”?

Since the end of the White Australia Policy in 1973, Australia has re-admitted migrants from different countries, but there are still many Australians who have yet to embrace multiculturalism. There has been a rapid growth in Chinese migrants from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. In practice, however, many migrant families face the tensions of cultural identity: first-generation immigrants struggling to establish themselves in a foreign land, with language and cultural barriers, but still wanting to pass on their culture to the next generation. Their children, on the other hand, have grown up in a Western educational system and are often caught between two values: being seen as outsiders and being expected to be a ‘model minority’. How can outsiders be accepted and integrated by the indigenous people?

Against this backdrop, the stories of the indigenous Chinese provide a different perspective. Their experience is even more complex: they are both Chinese and Aboriginal, but often not fully accepted by either. They are not only the absentees of history, but also the victims of institutionalized forgetfulness. In Our Story, however, they speak of the complexity, or rather the diversity, of their identities, but also of the protection of their land, and perhaps this is one of the things that immigrants need to learn. Perhaps this is the point that immigrants need to learn.

 

Earlier than Captain Cook

The keynote speaker at the book launch of Our Story was Melbourne University anthropologist and geographer Professor Marcia Langton. Langton, 74, is not only a distinguished scholar, but also a renowned author and Aboriginal rights advocate, a Queenslander of Yiman and Bidjara Aboriginal descent, who traveled around Australia as a schoolboy, worked hard to become a scholar, and has been a longtime campaigner for Aboriginal rights. Langton said that Australians have always thought that Aboriginal culture is old and outdated and cannot keep up with modern society, but they have never thought that Aboriginal people have had contact with other ethnic groups in the past tens of thousands of years before the white people came to Australia.

Langton believes that a deeper study of Aboriginal culture can reveal Australia’s most multicultural traditions, and that Aboriginal culture is the starting point of a multicultural Australia.

 

Multiculturalism is more than superficial

Australia has been a multicultural nation since the 1970s. From the implementation of multiculturalism policies since the 1970s, to the release of the Multiculturalism Framework Review report in late July 2024, it has been emphasized that multiculturalism is at the heart of the nation’s social structure, and that the freedom of language, religion and cultural practices of different ethnic groups must be guaranteed in law. However, this kind of pluralism sometimes remains on the surface. Every year during the Lunar New Year, dragon and lion dances and Chinese art are used to decorate public institutions. This kind of ritual becomes a symbol of political correctness, but it does not help to truly understand and respect cultural differences. The structural problems of poverty, lack of education and health resources for Aboriginals, and the discrimination and misunderstanding of the Chinese community in the mainstream media are still deeply rooted in the non-European white community, resulting in the phenomenon of so-called ‘depoliticized multiculturalism’.

Such multiculturalism maintains a consumerist cultural identity, but does not truly deconstruct the white-centered social structure. The existence of Aboriginal Chinese is a challenge to this institutionalized forgetfulness. Excluded from the mainstream Chinese narrative and not included in Aboriginal or colonial history, they are ghosts of history. If we do not face up to this past, contemporary multiculturalism will only remain superficial and will not be able to promote real social integration.

Therefore, true cultural integration does not only require minority groups to give up their ego to cater to the mainstream, but also allows each identity to be seen, understood and respected. Just as Zhou Xiaoping has brought Aboriginal culture to Chinese communities in China and Australia through his art, he has also brought Chinese culture into the Aboriginal world. His action is not just an art exhibition, but a starting point for cross-cultural dialogues.

Listening to one more story and recognizing one more piece of history is the first step to dismantle prejudices and gaps.

For many Chinese, their knowledge of Aboriginal people is still limited, even in the form of travel guides or media stereotypes. But when we begin to understand that those who are Chinese, but not like us, are also a mix of Aboriginal people, and how they live with people of different nationalities in their communities, we realize that multiculturalism in Australia is not a product of policy, but a reality that has existed for a long time in the depths of history.

As one of the interviewees in Our Stories says, “My ancestors came here a hundred years ago, and although we’ve been unspoken of for a long time, we’ve never forgotten who we are”. Such voices remind us that identity is not a single lineage or language, but a weave of histories, memories and experiences.

These are the stories that will help us understand what it means to be ‘Australian’ again, and that will open up more possibilities for imagining Australia’s future.

 

Article/Editorial Department, Sameway Magazine

Photo/Internet

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Investing in an integrating InterCultural Society

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently released data showing that 31.5% of Australia’s population are immigrants born outside of Australia. Excluding about 6% who came from the UK and New Zealand, this means that over 25% are from countries not governed by democratic regimes. In the recent Australian federal election, the combined vote share of the Liberal and Labor parties continued to decline. In many marginal seats, the affiliation of multicultural communities with political parties determined the election outcome. This shows that immigrants who were not born in Australia now play an important role in Australian politics.

Research from both major parties shows that immigrant communities tend to support the Labor Party. The reason is clear: Labor’s policies lean toward promoting multicultural development and establishing closer relationships with leaders of immigrant communities, these had made strong impacts. Labor is more accepting of the fact that immigrants need assistance when starting a new life in Australia, and immigrant communities are also more proactive in seeking support from Labor. If the Liberal Party ignores this reality and does not make adjustments, it will find it increasingly difficult to promote its ideals within immigrant communities in the future—losing ground is almost inevitable.

Objectively speaking, not many immigrants pay close attention to party ideologies or political platforms. In fact, these 25% of immigrants often had little political power or opportunities for political participation in their countries of origin. After becoming Australian citizens, they know they are required to vote as part of their civic duties and rights, but Australian society has never taught them how to choose or how to cast their sacred vote.

We must understand that today’s world has become a knowledge-based society. When students enter the university or new members join a company, orientation and workplace cultural integration are important. If new immigrants—many of whom grew up in authoritarian countries—are not given exposures in democratic processes, it is extremely dangerous and could even increase the risk of societal disintegration. Without promoting democratic engagement and integration into Australian society through ethnic minority media, and allowing immigrants to remain under the influence of their original homeland’s media, the outcome is to slow down their integration into Australia, which is extremely detrimental to Australia’s long-term social development.

Today’s immigrants, especially Chinese immigrants, are generally highly educated. When they come to Australia, they have the potential to quickly become a driving force for Australia’s social and economic development. If Australia promotes integrating interculturalism—actively leveraging the international visions and homeland connections of new immigrants as to develop its service industries and to enhance global export—it can further stimulate economic growth.

It is time for Australian society to “modernize”: not only by attracting talented individuals from around the world who can contribute to society, but also by providing more support to immigrants so they can become pillars of societal development. This support is not about giving special welfare benefits (honestly, the proportion of such immigrants who rely on social welfare is not high), but rather an instant investment in their social integration—one that no political party can afford to ignore.

 

Mr. Raymond Chow, the Publisher of Sameway Magazine

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