Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage.

WHAT IS MEANT BY ETHNICITY?

When you ask most people what they are, they generally reply that they are generically what the country of their birth happens to be. Given this type of answer, I have often wondered in this multi-cultural world what exactly such a response means. How do we define who we are? To what degree does an individual’s  cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds play in defining who they are. This may seem to be a rather academic question, but with the  greatest historic migration of people all over the world taking place the question needs to be asked.

Australia has developed a fairly successful multi-cultural society over the last fifty years. There have been hiccups, but by most standards we have developed for the most part a tolerant society. Anyone living in the country for the required number of years is entitled to apply for citizenship. You may think this is normal, but there are European counties were new comers who have lived for several generations are denied such a privilege, the Turkish population in Germany comes to mind.

In this country there are people from every corner of the world who have lived in Australia for one to two hundred years, many decedents of Chinese miners from the 19^th cent .are still referred to as Chinese by some Australians. Afghan camel drivers from the last century are another case in point, but are these people still Chinese or Afghans, I think not, they would describe themselves as Australians.

What we need to look at is not physical appearances, or religion or what  other gauge we like to use, but rather how they see themselves as a part of this country. There is no doubt that various nationalities look back to their cultural roots and background to define who they are. This presupposes that people don’t evolve into something else when resettling into a new environment. Is a Malay Indian, Indian or Malay? At what point does a person stop belonging to one ethnic group and takes on the ethnicity of another. In reality every national group is a mixture of different cultures created over thousands of years.

In the end it is cultural practice that determines one’s ethnicity, how you see yourself. The original indigenous inhabitants of Australia are a good example, the vast majority are of mixed blood, some no more than one quarter indigenous, yet many disregard such genic material. This would suggest that majority genic background as far as they are concerned does not play a defining role. Religion can likewise be dismisses as most religions are all embracing no matter what your origins. Countries that like to see themselves  “racially pure” are no more than the result of migrations over the millennium. People who still like to think in such fixed terms need to take a cold shower. We should all be alarmed at the rise of groups who for whatever reason view multi-culturalism as something to be abandoned and distained. All societies are multi-cultural whether we like it or not. The formation in Australia of a political party recently advocating assimilation and the abandonment of the multi-cultural nature of the country need a serious rethink. Everyone has the right to see themselves in their own terms, and providing they live by the countries laws no harm is done. Eventually all will all become one.