HOW DIFFERING CULTURES HELPED MAKE AUSTRALIA WHAT IT IS TODAY

Multiculturalism is a fact of life in the Australia of today. Some are happy with it , some are not. Multiculturalism means not only people living together of differing cultures but differing religions. The majority of the population of Australia is still of Anglo-Celtic origin and Christian.

In the last twenty to thirty years many immigrants have come from Asia, the Middle-East, Africa and other countries after the abolition of the White Australia Policy. The aborigines were believed to be a dying race who would disappear and those of mixed race would be absorbed into the white population. Only white Europeans were to be allowed to migrate here, so that this would be strictly a whiteman's civilisation.

After the second world war there was a great influx of immigrants from Europe, many of them displaced persons. Shops selling the foods from these countries sprang up and ethnic churches began to appear in the suburbs of the large cities where these people settled. They started after school and Saturday morning language schools so that their children would not lose their native languages and cultures.

Multiculturalism is actually nothing new. Right from the first days of white settlement this has a multicultural nation. Those on the First Fleet were from many European nations and Captain Arthur Philip, the leader of the First Fleet and the first Governor of the colony of New South Wales was himself the son of a German father and English mother.

The biggest clash of cultures was between the assorted Europeans on the first fleet and the native Aborigines. The traditional animosity between the Catholic Irish and the Protestant English was an ongoing source of conflict between convicts, Irish free settlers, miners and the authorities.

The clash of cultures between the Aborigines and white settlers is a long and not always happy story that will be dealt with in a separate article.

When gold was discovered people came from all parts of the world and large numbers of Chinese came to the goldfields, bringing with them their customs, food and religion. The Afghan camel drivers brought here to help in the barren dry outback also brought their customs and religion.

Culture is not just food, dress and language, but most of all religion. All culture is based on the dominant religion of a place or country. Just as the people on the First Fleet brought the customs of Catholicism and Protestantism, so other Europeans brought their customs around the major Christian festivals. The climate, geography and resources of their countries helped determine what they ate and how they dressed.

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