Photographer : Moris Wind |
Right now it seems like our politicians are obsessed with Australian values. Kim Beazley wants everyone entering the country to sign a form declaring their support for Australian values which he defines as ‘respect for each other, mateship, fairness, freedom and respect for our laws.’ John Howard includes the English language and ‘equality of men and women.’ Talking about Australian values is becoming a bit like playing the scratchies—list enough values and maybe you’ll uncover the heart of Australia with one of them.
I remember how, growing up in Wollongong as one of maybe three Asian kids in the entire grade, I too was obsessed with Australian values. Or more specifically, I was obsessed with what it meant to be Australian. It was a question I constantly pondered because every time I met someone they would expect a difference which I didn’t have. People wanted me to say something in Chinese—I didn’t speak a word of it. People wanted me to know where I was born—it was in the same hospital as them. People wanted me to teach them about another culture—I didn’t know what that other culture was. I wanted to find that mysterious key which would somehow qualify me as a ‘real’ Australian. Above all, I wanted people to stop asking me where I came from because, to a five-year-old, that was still one of the big mysteries of the world yet to be solved. I didn’t know where I came from, but I knew that I lived down the road.
What I find most baffling about this concept of Australian values is how they are specifically Australian rather than human values. It took me many years to realise that I didn’t need to qualify myself as an Australian—I was one, plain and simple. The Chinese have been in Australia as long as the English have; the ships of the First Fleet even stopped by Canton on their way back to England. I put my roots down in this country and I belong to it as much as it belongs to me. What makes me Australian is not my value system but the fact that this is my home.
There is a difference between values and the Australian culture. Values are universal; culture is dynamic and always changing. Wollongong itself has changed considerably since when I lived there. It has remade itself from a steel town into a university town. When I was a child, Asian culture was still considered exotic and rare. Now, judging by the proliferation of Thai restaurants on Corrimal Street, it seems to have been absorbed happily into people’s everyday lives. The attempt by our politicians to reduce Australia’s identity to a handful of generic human values is insulting. As a nation of immigrants, we should be celebrating our cultural diversity and asserting our right to individuality. Trying to isolate and simplify Australian culture is oppressive and restricting. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s un-Australian.
How do I know this?
Grattan, M 2006, 'Beazley proposes visitors, migrants agree to values',
The Age, September 12
Kerbaj, R 2006, 'Howard stands by Muslim integration',
The Australian, September 1
