Bookends

The federal government’s proposal for a multicultural television network has sparked off once more a row about the nature of the Australian national identity. The opponents of the network seem to fear that it will cause all kinds of divisions in our community by emphasising the different places and cultures to which we owe our origins. They would like to restore the myth of a single nation, bounded and defended by a single shoreline (plus, of course, Tasmania), giving allegiance to a single flag and monarch and united by a single tongue. The myth is glorious in its simplicity, and marred only by the fact that it corresponds to no historical truth. This country has had a multicultural population at least since the arrival of the first white settlers. Even among those Europeans there was little in common between the Celtic convicts and soldiers, offspring of a dying peasantry, and their Anglo-Saxon masters, representatives of the class that was assuming rule of the world. Similarly, the gold-rushes brought to the continent people from classes and nations throughout Europe, Asia and North America, united only in their eagerness for gain. Yet the common interest in pelf did enable these differing peoples to develop a common materialistic culture from their different origins, and to expel those, such as the Chinese and the Kanakas, whose skin colour proclaimed too dramatically their different racial origins. The differences that remained alive were those of class and religion, but these generated struggles for power rather than differences of ambition and so produced few lasting cultural distinctions. Eventually, the antagonisms of the one were softened by the impact of the mass media, and of the other by a generally increasing prosperity, so that we could bask in the warmth of a dream fulfilled untroubled by any rude confrontation with those who had been excluded from the fulfilment. Yet it is precisely those who have been excluded who have provided the basis on which the rest of us have achieved prosperity. The first capital of the country was amassed as a consequence of acquiring exclusive land rights at the cost of the original inhabitants. Later prosperity bas been generated by a continuing influx of migrants who have been prepared to sacrifice their immediate comforts in the hope that their children will become part of the dream. But now that expansion has come to a halt the individual dream has been indefinitely postponed, and consequently the differences in our culture have become evident. There is no reason for us to regard this occurrence with gloom. The homogeneous culture to which we have previously aspired has been both precarious, dependent on an economic expansion which has been intermittent and which had eventually to reach a limit, and sterile, depending on avoiding rather than confronting the deeper truths of life. We have not overcome the problems of living so much as avoided them, and now that they have forced themselves back on our attention we may count ourselves fortunate that we can call on more than the Anglo-Saxon culture to provide ways of dealing with them. Yet this leaves us with the fact that all of the cultures we derive from Europe are inadequate to the circumstances of life in the Antipodes. The extended family of Mediterranean cultures may provide support to its members in time of trouble, but it can also generate its own troubles in normal times. Questions of work and play, freedom and responsibility, the relationships of children and adults, men and women, may all have to be refashioned to take account of the new realities of an urban, southern, post-industrial civilization. The individual cast adrift in this civilisation takes his first landmarks from his family. It is therefore vitally important that the traditional cultures that families have brought with them from their various origins be kept alive, not as some kind of ethnic museum but as a living continuity of meanings and values. Otherwise the resulting generational conflict is likely to leave the old generation locked away in isolation from their new society and the new generation alienated from the past and lost in the present. There is plenty of evidence that both these phenomena are occurring too often today. Yet it is equally important that the older traditions be brought into relationship with each other and with the wider society of which they form a part. The opponents of multi-culturalism fear that this will not happen, and that we will be left with a society divided into mutually hostile communities. This is most likely to happen, however, when the separate cultures are forced back on themselves and become suspicious of others and defensive of their own peculiarities. Where they can be confident of their place in society they can afford to give to that society. This has happened with both the Jewish and the Irish communities in Australia as the various causes of antagonism have broken down, and no one would want to deny the part these communities have played in shaping the contemporary Australian ethos. Multicultural television can play an enormous part both in strengthening the various ethnic cultures in our country and in blending them into a wider culture. It will not however do this if it is centrally controlled imposing on the awkward life of individual; the uniform blandness of a bureaucracy that fears connect and diversity. Unfortunately, the portents at the birth of the new system suggest that, rather than adding to our cultural life, it will take from it, replacing local life with the drab similitude of the commercial media. These forebodings are heightened by the determination to endow the new service with advertising, a move which threatens to exterminate the ethnic press and replace it with a single electronic big brother. The advent of a new television network devoted to multicultural broadcasting is potentially the most exciting development in the Australia of the eighties. It is not just a matter of interest to members of minority cultures, but one of central concern to everyone interested in the future of this country. Yet none of the voices which have been raised on other occasions in opposition to centralism has been heard alerting us to the dangers of this threat to destroy a great measure of the variety at present extant in our society, or to use the new opportunity, as it should be used, to give power to individuals rather than to take it from them. We have failed to make use of any of our previous opportunities to exploit the electronic media to enhance our national life – we cannot afford to fail again.

John McLaren

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