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Multicultural Australia? You Must Be Dreaming!!
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Thompson, Kian |
| Copyright Year | 2012 |
| Abstract | The canvas that has become modern Australia is one that is painted by a population defined by its broad cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversities. Considering Australia’s colonial history, the face of Australia has changed greatly beyond what one would presume to be the nation that was first envisioned by its English colonial invaders. Australia’s short and somewhat dark history, is mired by a social and cultural amnesia that fails to go beyond euphemistic and romantic popular misconceptions of nation building. Within this cultural amnesia we find rhetoric. That is to say the rhetoric of officials, politicians and writers of history, who wish to define the successes of a nation by its social cohesion and multicultural landscape. Here lies a danger. For history is not so much a truth, as it is a story. One that is written and told by the ink of its victors and cast into the minds of future generations so that they know not of the blood on our hands. The story of Australia is no exception to this notion. As John Pilger (1989) cited in his seminal work ‘A Secret Country’, ‘Official truths are often powerful illusions’. It is ‘official truths’ which have shaped the nations story. None so much as the ‘official truths’ articulated in the rhetoric that is multiculturalism as a nation building policy, ideology and form of identity. While this paper seeks to answer the question - is multiculturalism a form of identity in Australia? It also seeks to approach this question by addressing the social realities that formulate this false |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://blacfoundation.org/pdf/Multi_Australia.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
