Australia’s Multicultural Future

The National Multicultural Festival, organised by the Australian Capital Territory Government, was held in Canberra from 16 to 18 last month. Next Monday also marks the start of Australia’s Harmony Week. In Victoria, the government’s campaign focuses on Cultural Diversity Week to celebrate Australia’s multiculturalism, while Australia’s Harmony Day coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which falls on 21 March every year. More and more people are realising that Australia has a long way to go to achieve its goal of creating a society where everyone feels included, respected and has a sense of belonging.

With different names and priorities reflecting the different approaches of different governments, and with newcomers often not understanding the differences, it’s time to think about the festivals that affect our lives.

We are one family

Australia’s National Harmony Day, celebrated annually on 21 March, began in 1999, when South African police shot and killed 69 unarmed blacks on 21 March 1960 at a rally against the passing of anti-black laws. Six years later, the United Nations designated this day as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and different countries around the world remembered this disastrous day in South Africa.

In 1998 the Department of Immigration and Citizenship commissioned Eureka Strategic Research to conduct the first national survey of racial attitudes among Australians. The resulting report recommended that the government mould the belief that Australian society is fundamentally harmonious and that this harmony should be celebrated. The purpose of Harmony Day is to strengthen the cohesion and inclusiveness of all peoples in order to promote tolerance and multiculturalism, and in particular to increase understanding and respect for each other’s races, cultures and religions. The whole week from Monday to Sunday, which includes Harmony Day, is known as Harmony Week. In Victoria, this week is known as Culturual Diversity Week. Every year, the Victorian Government supports a variety of multicultural activities with funding from the Victorian Multicultural Commission.

Today, Australia is probably one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world. This multicultural integration was not achieved in a single day, and it has been a difficult journey. Since the 19th century, the vast majority of immigrants to Australia have come from the United Kingdom, and the establishment of Australia as a white society has been a driving force behind the country’s development. Until World War II, Australia was a racially and culturally homogenous society based on British values and institutions. The Second World War was a turning point in Australia’s immigration history, forcing Australia to implement a large-scale immigration programme that recruited immigrants from a wide range of non-English speaking countries and regions. The influx of immigrants from an increasingly diverse range of sources resulted in an increasingly ethnically diverse population.

Australia’s history of multiculturalism is different from that of any other country in the world. Until the government legislated to abolish the White Australia policy 51 years ago, very few non-white immigrants came to Australia, and only a small number of non-English speaking European immigrants were able to settle in Australia. It can be said that the first non-English speaking immigrants were all European immigrants mainly from Italy, Greece and Germany, which made Australia maintain the European culture, and it was only in the 1980s and 1990s that Asian and African immigrants settled in Australia. It can be said that Australians in their fifties and sixties rarely have the opportunity to meet non-whites in schools, and it is only in the past 30 years or so that multiculturalism has been promoted. The promotion of Harmony Day and Harmony Week was the government’s attempt 25 years ago to educate the community about Australia’s entry into a multicultural society. If the government does not do its best to promote these changes, I believe it will be very difficult for Australians over the age of 50 or 60 to embrace multiculturalism.

From Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander beginnings, through to the establishment of the British system, and on to new chapters written by people from far and wide – successive governments have set out a vision of an Australian society that embraces diversity and emphasises the importance of our unique national identity and of cohesion and unity among our people. According to the 2021 Census released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than half (51.5 per cent) of Australians across Australia were born overseas themselves or to at least one parent. Overseas-born first-generation migrants make up more than 30 per cent of the total population. Apart from English, the five most spoken languages are Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Punjabi.

Whilst the White Australia Policy may be history, Australia still has a long way to go on the issue of race. Racialisation is a “disturbing fact” in Australia, as evidenced by the ethnocultural composition of parliamentarians, and it remains an undeniable reality of society that some groups are racially privileged while others are racially marginalised. It is not easy to realise diversity, and it is even harder to maintain it. It is only when communities come together and engage in genuine dialogue on an equal footing that the vision of ‘we are one family’ can be truly realised.

Society still fails to understand the meaning of cultural diversity

Despite the efforts of Harmony Day and Harmony Week, we must not lose sight of the fact that the governing class of Australian society, the 50 and 60 year olds, have very little contact with multicultural immigrants, and furthmore this contact is superficial, except for very senior managers, who seldom have any in-depth contact with multicultural immigrants. As a result, it is not easy for them to effectively implement multicultural governance in their work and systems.

Let me cite an example that has had a far-reaching impact in recent years. In the early days of the pandemic, the government disseminated information on a daily basis about the spread of the pandemic and the need to reduce the speed and magnitude of the spread of the virus. Officials such as the Minister of Immigration, the Prime Minister, and the Premiers all claimed to have done their best to get the message out to the multicultural community. However, they were only referring to information that had been translated into different languages and posted on the Ministry of Health’s English-language website for people to download. The ethnic media pointed out at the time that most of the information had been translated and posted on the website a week later, and that many of the translations were wrong, which was incomprehensible. The officials in charge of the project just said that they had not ignored multiculturalism, but they did not even consider how many people in the multicultural community had received the information.

The result was that six months later, studies showed that overseas-born Australians had more than double the infection and death rates of their native-born counterparts. And the number of immigrants fined for breaching the isolation order, particularly those from African and Arab countries, was several times that of English speakers. In the face of this overwhelming evidence, state governments have recognised the importance of communicating information about the epidemic to multicultural communities, and have established effective channels for the dissemination of information.

Victoria’s Premier Andrews had told this magazine that the state’s spending on outreach to multicultural communities has risen dramatically from 5 per cent of the total to over 12 per cent of the total in order to cope with the past. In the 2022 election, he has pledged to increase this to 15 per cent. On the other hand, Matthew Guy of the Liberal-National Coalition only promised to provide 10%, clearly ignoring the needs of the multicultural community. The fact that all immigrants abandoned the Liberal-National Coalition in the Victorian parliamentary election shows that when leaders neglect the management and operation of a multicultural society, they are unable to formulate effective governance policies, and at the same time, they lose the opportunity to do so.

The need for an up-to-date framework review

Australian Harmony Week is a time to celebrate Australia’s multiculturalism and the successful integration of new migrants into the Australian community. It is an opportunity for all Australians to embrace their cultural diversity and to share the values that are common to all of our people, regardless of their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, united by Australia’s core values. A united, multicultural Australian society is an important part of Australia’s history and identity.

The intention is good, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have unintended consequences.

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD) was an opportunity to recognise Australia’s deep-rooted problems of race and racism in a meaningful way, to challenge the ways in which racism affects our society, and to increase our commitment to the fight against racism. Since 1999, however, Australia has rebranded the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination from a day of solidarity with those fighting racial discrimination to a festival of celebration and the focus of ‘Harmony Week’. Within this framework, the systemic racism suffered by so many people in Australia over so long a period of time was effectively hidden. The fact that there are still people in Australia today who deny the existence of racism is a major contributing factor.

The promotion of harmony has been a feature of Australian policy and politics for more than two decades. Whilst the concept of ‘harmony’ can be a positive message, there are many problems with overriding the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, one of which is that it can discourage people from speaking out against racism, as it may be seen as contrary to a harmonious Australian society. Turning the other cheek and ignoring it is a self-defeating approach that does more harm than good to building a truly fair and equal society that recognises the fundamental rights and freedoms of all people.

In 1973, the Whitlam government released A Multi-cultural Society for the Future, signalling the birth of contemporary multicultural Australia. Last year, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the federal government launched the Multicultural Framework Review to encourage public participation. After all, Australia’s multiculturalism policy has been in place for nearly 50 years, and the national and international social landscape has changed dramatically. Only by truly listening to the voices of the people can we continue to support a cohesive and inclusive multicultural society under the new circumstances, and achieve our goal of utilising the talents of all Australians.

Getting it right is the real thing

In recent years, ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ has become a buzzword for companies and organisations across the globe, reportedly spending around A$7.5 billion on Diversity-Equity-Inclusion (DEI)-related programs in 2020 alone, a figure that is expected to double by 2046. In reality, the more important question is whether these ‘diversity-equality-inclusion’ programmes are being implemented on the ground, rather than just sitting on the shelf as lofty rhetoric. In Australia, some diversity programmes have made progress in addressing gender inequality, but not so much in other areas, such as race.

Although racism has been consigned to the dustbin of history at the political and legal levels, the rise of the anti-Asian, anti-Indigenous and anti-immigrant ‘One Nation Party’ at the end of the twentieth century, the repeated attacks on Chinese students in Melbourne and Sydney in recent years, and the fact that the ‘Miss Australia 2017’ claimed to be a Muslim, which has often led to her being given the cold shoulder, are all indicative of the hatred of minorities. …… This is a sign of the fact that Australia is not only a place where people who are not Muslims can live in the world. This is a sign that the ghost of hatred against ethnic minorities has not yet dissipated. Whenever there is a disease, plague or economic crisis, ethnic minorities are targeted, and the new crown epidemic has accelerated the spread of the racist virus.

It is not difficult to see that white supremacy is still deeply rooted in some people. They believe that Western culture is superior to other cultures, that human history and development revolve around the West, that white people are superior to other coloured people, and that they try every means to protect the superiority of the white people in the political, economic, social, and cultural fields, and that they often show arrogance and prejudice when they face coloured people. This shows that Australia still has a long way to go to realise the core of multiculturalism, which is ‘equality’. Prejudice and xenophobia are the public enemies of modern civilisation, creating divisions between communities, breeding hatred, crime and conflict, and only hurting each other, with no ultimate winners.

In order to safeguard Australia’s cultural diversity, which is the most important aspect of Australian identity, the general public and social elites should not look on with a cold eye at white arrogance and prejudice, nor should they merely state their position. Instead, they should start from their daily lives and become the supportive force against racial discrimination. The upcoming ‘Harmony Week’ also provides an excellent opportunity for ethnic minorities in Australia to take the initiative to speak out for their rights through the media, the press and rallies, as well as to gain more voice through active participation in politics on a regular basis.

Author/ Editorial Department, Sameway Magazine

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