Being Un-Australian
I want you to imagine you’re at the beach. It’s a beautiful day. You are with family and friends. The sun is shining. The snags are sizzling and you are having a great game of beach cricket. It doesn’t get more Australian than this. Suddenly, this bloke comes up, starts yelling at you, throws the ball into the water and kicks sand on your sausages. How un-Australian is that? It’s just not the Aussie spirit. But what is the Aussie spirit, and more importantly, what does it mean to be Un-Australian? I was born in Australia, and I live in Australia. I am an Australian citizen.
But does that mean that if my next-door neighbour was born in another country, then they aren’t Australian? I don’t think it does. You see, to me being Australian is not about where you were born, or what language you speak, the type of clothes you wear or what religion you follow. It’s about the way you act. It’s about having pride in our country, and helping it be the best place to live in the world.
Australia is a country which has been populated over the last 200 years by immigrants. People coming to live here from other countries. The Aboriginals were the first people to live here, and have been here for around 40,000 years, but in 1788, the first Europeans came to set up a colony and start living here. During that time, the Government encouraged people from other countries to come and live here, and before long, people from every country in the world were living here, bringing with them their culture, religion, accents, and best of all, their food.
Can you imagine not being introduced to spaghetti, tacos, kebabs, fried rice or butter chicken? All these people from other countries and cultures have come together to form Australia as we know it today. Australia was a very different place when my Grandparents were kids. Back then, it would be far more uncommon to see someone living here from a country such as China, India or Lebanon, for example. Back then, people were teased and mocked for having unusual names, strange accents or different looks. I think to tease someone because they are different to you is Un-Australian.
I would like to think that here in Australia in the 21st century, we celebrate people’s differences because we know that this place would be very dull and boring without all the colour and life that migrants can bring to our country. Being Un-Australian has nothing to do with where you are from, but it has everything to do with how you act!
A few years ago there were some riots at Cronulla, between a bunch of Anglo Australians, a bunch of Lebanese Australians and probably a bunch of other people from a variety of different backgrounds. The fight was about who was the most Australian and who had the right to use Cronulla beach. It all became very violent and lots of people got hurt, including many innocent people who were just minding their own business. Do you know that some of these innocent people got attacked because of their race? I think that the people involved in those riots acted in an Un-Australian way.
As you can see, both of these groups are Australians but the way they acted was not what we would expect from a group of Australians. They were not accepting of other cultures, they used violence to resolve their differences, they were intolerant of different beliefs and they were not willing to share an area harmoniously. Their behaviour was truly Un-Australian.
To me being Un-Australian does not mean that you come from another country. To me it simply means that you are selfish and intolerant of others, that you don’t value people that may be a little bit different from you and that you don’t see the great gifts that every person, no matter where they are from, has to offer.
This guest editorial was written as a speech by Scarlett Moyes, grand-daughter of Dr Gordon Moyes. Scarlett competed in the finals of the Public Speaking competition for Public School students. She lives with her parents in Kurrajong Heights. She is twelve years of age and a school captain.