Australia: A Successful Multicultural Nation

Multiculturism in Australia

Discuss about the Australian Multicultural Policy.

The word “multiculturism” has been often used to define the minority or the ‘ethnic’ groups and their various colourful customs. The word ‘multicultural’ has huge potential to show diverse associations, not just about a policy but also the problems of the communities. Multiculture is generally formed because of the intermingling of the gender, class and ethnicity. This easy illustrates how the Australians have always taken pride in the fact that they had a multicultural identify in the global scenario (Clyne and Jupp 2013). The cultural and linguistic diversity that prevails in the Australian population has been majorly due to Australia’s unique history. The population was approximately seven million at the end of World War II, of whom 10% were overseas-born. With the end of the Second World War the proportion of overseas-born had gradually increased to about 24% (Arthur 2017). The post-war surge of migration consisted mainly of new arrivals from European continent. Over a period of ten years after that, the overseas-born population has increased by a significant number. Various factors have been discussed in this essay like the demographic factors, religious factors and the socio-cultural factors which clearly provides evidential support to the fact that standing in the 21^st century, Australia is a successful multicultural nation.

Australia has been a multicultural society which has emerged in a way where diversities in cultures had been tolerated and respected in a significant manner. The government policies have also helped to keep up the multicultural nature of the country. The Australian multicultural policy has been spontaneously insistent on respecting the traditional Australian values. This consisted of liberal democratic values like freedom of individualism, sex equality, tolerance towards the rule of law and the democracy of the parliament. Additionally to promote multicultural attitude, English language was considered as the national language (Larsen 2017). In order to highlight the fact that Australia is a multicultural success, focus can be given on Australia’s “citizen-based model” and how it helped in bringing about multicultural diversity.  Due to the policy, full rights and benefits were awarded to the individuals who are citizens. This was also the same for the migrants who pledge to take up citizenship of Australia. The multiculturism, which prevails in Australia, promotes the integration of new arrivals and see to the fact that hindrances towards the integration among them is removed. Additionally, the success of Australia’s multiclturism was also credited to the bipartisan support (Pakulski 2014).

Government Policies and Multicultural Attitudes

Studies based on various recent literature survey has shown that Australia was able to become an example of multicultural success. Various factors helped to achieve this success. Firstly, the policies and realities related to multiculturism has wide popular acceptance. National surveys conducted at a length, from the year 2007 to 2014 which revealed that about 88% of Australian population  consider multiculturalism as to be a ‘benefit to Australia’ (Arthur 2017). Another national survey reported that there was an elevated acceptance of wide religious communities. According to (Ho 2013), it is considered that by accepting the process of immigration and multiculturalism,  Australia has emerged with the highest level of positive feeling regarding immigration in the world’. Secondly, inspite of the occasional protests going on regarding the building of various religious shrines, these are not violent and are usually resolved in ways that enable widely different groups. In this way, Australia has moved toward ‘deep equality’ beyond mere tolerance and adjustment, including a high level of acceptance of Muslims (Banting and Kymlicka 2013). This does not mean all groups are seen as equally wanted. Many people and religions from around the world coming from different origins have considered Australia  their homeland and have been a part into its socio-economic life (Harris 2013).

Several demographic factors have led to Australia becoming a society of the immigrants, who mainly bring about the multicultural diversity in the continent. According to the census reports retrieved, 25% of the Australian population consists of individuals who were born over-seas and 50 % of the population hail from parents, among whom either one of the parent has an overseas origin (Larsen 2017).  Australia can be clearly marked as a settler society and besides the Indigenous people, the situation has been so since 1788. In the 1920s and through the 1940s, Australia was a settled ‘British’ society, mostly as a result of the White Australia immigration policy, which only permitted and enabled British migrants and excluded others (Forrest, Lean and Dunn 2017). Stories related to the migration and the struggles of settling are cast as living memories in most families. The actual scenario that most of the native Australians have also gone through similar experiences as that of the immigrants. This demographical foundation and the wide range of diversity and migration as such is not shared by many other countries.

Religious diversity, which remains in the Australian continent, plays an important role in maintaining the multicultural nature. According to the census examinations, there were more number of Muslims (2.2%) were more than the Lutherans (1.2%), the Buddhists (2.5%) were larger than Baptists (1.6%). There were more Hindus (1.3%) than Jews (0.4%). The number of Sikhs (0.3%) had increased from 0.1% in 2006 and there were numerous Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Latter Day Saints and the Salvation Army (Williams 2017). The ethnic diversity, which exists in Australia, had made its religious diversity more complex, as most migrant religious groups are quite internally diverse in terms of national origins. For example, the Australian Muslim population come from over 65 different countries with no single origin comprising more than 30%. In addition to the Muslims, Buddhists are also ethnically diverse, combining those from western origins with several Asian countries.  The Lebanese in Australia are also nearly divided between Islam and Christian (Larsen 2017). In fact, both the diversity of other multilingual minority communities in Australia and their native diversity makes it quite hard to develop a diversified orientation. The population is too vast in variety to promote a single division. Apart from these factors, the fact that the Australian native and religious diversities have been living together in mixed urban environment, which are characterised by churning housing markets (Johns, Mansouri and Lobo 2015). The sole focus of religious groups occur around religiously specific institutions and religion-specific services, such as the the availability of their native foods like halal or kosher foods.

Factors Contributing to Australia’s Multicultural Success

In addition to the differences in demography, there are various social and cultural differences persistent which has contributed in Australian multicultural success. First, Australia has little amount of unemployment in comparison to others and has been in need of more and more workers particularly after the Second World War ended (Clyne and Jupp 2013). The industrial growth in Australia has welcomed high rates of immigration. There were programs designed to bring in migrants from around the globe to Australia (Banting and Kymlicka 2013). While these programs started with attempts to attract the British manpower, many northern European refugees were aloso welcomed immediately after the end of the war. After this, migration programs went a long way  to southern Europe and other nations, including Turkey and Egypt. In most of the cases of migration, the migrants has not been viewed as taking away the jobs of those who are already here, henceforth reducing the pressure on the new arriving migrants (Johns, Mansouri and Lobo 2015). Secondly, it can be put forward that most times the migrants have been welcomed. It can be sated that it had been a smooth sailing, but no group has been given the feeling of rejection or unwelcome. In fact on the other hand, each surge of migration has had their quota of hardship stories and reports of success, which gradually led to the path of finding acceptance (Ozdowski 2013). Australia’s gesture of making these migrants feel welcome consisted of the fact that migrants have been granted several social services and health benefits shortly after they have arrived and citizenship one year until recently when it was raised to two years. Thirdly, the cultural support received for mutual respect towards multiculturism. Australians have a basic allergy to intense, high-demanding religion or politics (Hassan and Martin 2015). Apart from these, there are various ways in which people from different religious communities are brought together to interact. There are many organisations present in Australia, which promote healthy inter-religious relations environment such as the Council for Christians and Jews, Religions for Peace, the Jewish Christian Muslim Association and the Inter-faith Youth Corps (Louis, Esses and Lalonde 2013). Lastly, there has been no proof from history regarding occurrence of any sort of violent conflict between groups except the wars against Indigenous populations like the ones which took place in the European countries between the French catholic and the English Protestants (Forrest, Lean and Dunn 2017).

Demographic and Religious Diversity

However recently, the faith they had in the multicultural attitude had been severely degraded due to the attacks which took place coming from their foes and the crisis felt coming from their friends. A number of recent studies has shown that apart from being an example of multicultural success, Australia has a disadvantage of growing cultural subpopulation with regards to Muslim population (Pakulski 2014). There has been a focus on the perceptions of Muslims with reference to Islamophobia and the social distance occurring due to it. The term Islamophobia illustrates a negative attitude held towards the individuals who prevail from Islamic or Muslim background. This had paved way to the feelings of hostility, discrimination, suspicion and anxiety among the Australian population, which is directed, to the Muslim sub-population (Schuurman and Eijkman 2013). Although they are very much part of Australia’s religious and ethnic diversity, there have been incidents where intolerance have been shown towards them majorly due to the events of terrorism occurring in various parts of the world. Even the Australian media have come up with stories revealing fear of terrorism and islamophobia. This has influenced the attitudes of the Australians to transform towards the existing peaceful multiculturism. The terrorist attacks taken place in Paris spearheaded the debate as to whether the Muslims should be an integral part of the Australian society or not (Louis, Esses and Lalonde 2013). Some have even put forward notions like the Muslim community do not assimilate in the Australian society and that their religion is incompatible. Based on such notions, asylum is being refused to the individuals hailing from Muslim background and are now alienated (Ozdowski 2013). The Australian Muslims are being held responsible for the acts of terrorism going on across the world, resulting in the decline of Australia’ religious tolerance and ethnic diversity, the characteristic of the nation in which the Australian’s took pride (Markus 2014).

To conclude it can be stated that immigration and the concept of ethnic, religious and cultural heterogeneity are the major fundamentals of the modern Australian society of the 21^st century. The democratic political system of Australia has been able to provide the vital framework for the development of a prospering and a politically inclusive society which projects a leading face in the global scenario with respect to social development. The democratic system followed by the Australian government stays committed to the freedom of membership of religious, ethnic and cultural groups. The concept of cross-national comparison within the religiously diverse groups has shown the roles of demographical differences and of socio-cultural factors in producing successful diverse societies. Australia has been thriving hard for a very long tenure trying to implement its multicultural policy. The particular demographic was not casually planned. The reason behind Australia’s successful implementation of multicultural polices is partly the result of demographic and socio-cultural factors particular to Australia. Due to all of these factors individuals hailing from various different backgrounds living together in a peaceful and harmonious way.

References

Arthur, P.L. ed., 2017. Migrant Nation: Australian Culture, Society and Identity. Anthem Press.

Banting, K. and Kymlicka, W., 2013. Is there really a retreat from multiculturalism policies? New evidence from the multiculturalism policy index. Comparative European Politics, 11(5), pp.577-598.

Clyne, M. and Jupp, J., 2013. Multiculturalism and integration: A harmonious relationship (p. 228). ANU Press.

Forrest, J., Lean, G. and Dunn, K., 2017. Attitudes of classroom teachers to cultural diversity and multicultural education in country New South Wales, Australia. Australian Journal of Teacher Education (Online), 42(5), p.17.

Harris, A., 2013. Young people and everyday multiculturalism (Vol. 13). Routledge.

Hassan, R. and Martin, B., 2015. Islamophobia, social distance and fear of terrorism in Australia: a preliminary report.

Ho, C., 2013. From social justice to social cohesion: a history of Australian multicultural policy. ‘For those who’ve come across the seas’: Australian multicultural theory, policy and practice.

Johns, A., Mansouri, F. and Lobo, M., 2015. Religiosity, citizenship and belonging: The everyday experiences of young Australian Muslims. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 35(2), pp.171-190.

Larsen, S.E., 2017. Australia between white Australia and multiculturalism: a world literature perspective. Comparative Literature: East & West, 1(1), pp.74-95.

Louis, W.R., Esses, V.M. and Lalonde, R.N., 2013. National identification, perceived threat, and dehumanization as antecedents of negative attitudes toward immigrants in Australia and Canada. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(S2).

Markus, A., 2014. Attitudes to immigration and cultural diversity in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 50(1), pp.10-22.

Ozdowski, S., 2013. Australian multiculturalism. The roots of its success. Promoting changes in times of transition and crisis: Reflections on human rights education. Krakow: Ksiegarnia Akademicka. Retrieved from: https://www. akademicka. pl.

Pakulski, J. and Markowski, S., 2014. Globalisation, immigration and multiculturalism–the European and Australian experiences.

Pakulski, J., 2014. Confusions about multiculturalism. Journal of Sociology, 50(1), pp.23-36.

Schuurman, B. and Eijkman, Q., 2013. Moving terrorism research forward: The crucial role of primary sources. ICCT Background Note, pp.1-11.

Williams, K.K., 2017. Between utopia and autobiography: migrant narratives in australia. Migrant Nation: Australian Culture, Society and Identity, 21, p.177