I just had the “The People of Australia: Australia’s Multicultural Policy” pass across my desktop and a quick read tells me there is a lot of misguided information forming policy in Australia today.

The People of Australia: Australia’s Multicultural Policy, states:

The Australian Government is unwavering in its commitment to a multicultural Australia. Australia’s multicultural composition is at the heart of our national identity and is intrinsic to our history and character…. Australia is a multicultural nation. In all, since 1945, seven million people have migrated to Australia. Today, one in four of Australia’s 22 million people were born overseas, 44 per cent were born overseas or have a parent who was and four million speak a language other than English. We speak over 260 languages and identify with more than 270 ancestries. Australia is and will remain a multicultural society (p. 2).

In a  letter to Mr Andrew Demetriou, Chair Australian Multicultural Advisory Council (AMAC), Chris Bowen Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, and Kate Lundy Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs express having:

…an ongoing commitment based on a shared vision for the future prosperity of our nation. Australia’s bipartisan support for the principles of multiculturalism is a core aspect of Australia’s cultural diversity. The People of Australia, Australia’s Multicultural Policy is part of that effort and has drawn significantly on the advice your Council provided to government. The Australian Government’s response to the recommendations of the Council is the next step in progressing multicultural Australia.

What seems to have been overlooked in this bipartisan support for multiculturalism is 60 thousand years of indigenous cultural traditions and history.

The Australian federal government is yet to recognise indigenous dreamtime cultural traditions both ancient and contemporary as the foundation culture of this great nation.

A Multicultural policy is a short sighted vision that has no future planning or adaptability built in. Certainly the first and to a lesser degree second generation of migrant Australians recognise as coming from a different culture, but come third generation the children of migrants are actively investigating what it means to be an Australian. Research indicates that inter- generational assimilation is influenced to some degree by language, we can see results of that through the experience of post war immigration.

In the two hundred years prior to the end of World War 2 Australia’s migrant population had been predominately of British or Irish (English speaking) origin. After the Department of Immigration was formed in 1945, Australia’s immigration program post World War 2 changed to involve nearly 171,000 migrants from non-English speaking European countries. These migrants where given the label displaced persons and agreed to a two year work assignment on projects in different parts of Australia. They where given basic accommodation and food and where put to work in dangerous isolated jobs that involved heavy industry, mining etc. The Snowy Mountains work scheme employed many thousands and is a good example of conditions for non-English speaking post war migrants. The official government policy of the time was that the multicultural migrants should learn to assimilate into the Anglo-Celtic culture, speak the English language and adopt all of the values associated with Australia during that post war period. The reality of the experience was that many migrants created their own cultural groups and associations. They imported their preferred food types, their music and their cultural beliefs, they became bi lingual and their influence helped redefine elements of the established Australian social system.

The children of those migrants are now Australian born English speaking citizens striving to help create a culture of genuine meaning and purpose in a country that refuses to recognise its need to endorse and promote Australian tradition and culture.

The Migration Heritage Centre NSW explains that;

In 1973, declaring Australia a ‘multicultural’ society, Al Grassby [the then federal minister for immigration] announced that every relic of past ethnic or racial discrimination had been abolished. The Australian Citizenship Act of that year declared that all migrants were to be accorded equal treatment.

Australians have no trouble recognising the values of patriotism, community pride and honesty. But they have a lot of trouble making it a part of their life.

In a  Monash University study by Zevallos (2005) it was recognised that the lack of distinction in Australian culture creates some difficulty for immigrants trying to assimilate. Without a defined cultural focus the study indicated that the second generation Australian women surveyed believed that a real Australian culture was almost non-existent and the only culture they perceived in Australia is about being a multicultural nation. This is a shamefully unacceptable outcome of assimilation from the perspective of Australia’s indigenous cultural history extending back for over 60 thousand years.

This lack of truthful recognition is a genuine problem for Australian cultural and social development because research carried out over the last 50 years by experts in the field of Positive Psychology reports that people with a more defined understanding of their personal connection to the community and the role personal responsibility plays in family, community and career development – Are healthier, happier and more productive. Positive Psychology states that people who possess a balanced understanding of the Mind-Body-Spirit connection are much more productive and far less likely to become involved in harmful behaviour patterns that will lead to long term health problems, intensive medical interventions or mental health issues like anxiety or depression.

In third generation Australians and beyond research  shows that Australia’s preeminent focus on needing to have a politically correct multicultural identity creates confusion, disassociation and disconnection for 100′s of thousands of Australian born citizens. In “Closing The Gap In Indigenous Thinking: The Story of The Dreamtime Alphabet”, I explain that Multiculturalism is by far the most destructive force in the creation of an Australian cultural identity.

Multi-culture is a term that has achieved a level of popular political correctness due to uncontrolled growth and global human expansion. Multi-culture is a term that by its nature defies leadership. A multi-cultural society has multiple focused end goals. It can be observed in a vast majority of multicultural exchanges, that one set of goals negates the energy of another. In and of itself, multicultural thinking is expertly counterproductive, dysfunctional and damaging. It is not directed in one way or another and a great deal of creative personal energy is wasted by individuals in their efforts to select a single cultural identity from the multicultural milieu…. Singular cultural focus provides the framework to structure a system of spiritually philosophical programs that will help alleviate the confusion, separation and disassociation that is the ultimate psychological legacy of long term exposure to multi-cultural belief systems.

The Australian Governments current cultural disassociation with Australia’s long term past will end in short term solutions and national dissatisfaction. No matter what language you speak or the culture you believe you come from, a multicultural policy for all Australians will continue to mean that we do not know where to call home.

For more on Closing The Gap In Indigenous Thinking…  follow this link.

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The Need to Acknowledge Our Country 

It’s a rainy Sunday morning at the Hawkesbury River inlet March 20^th 2011 and Macca on ABC radio has just told me that the Darling River at Wilcannia is almost at its peak of 10 metres. I lost count of the number of times I drove the Barrier Highway, across the Darling River flood plain and over the Wilcannia Bridge without seeing a single drop of water anywhere.  This really is a magical time for the spirit of our land and our country.

Australia is a land of vast extremes from the tropical rain forests to the deserts and into the snow and grassy plains, Australia holds many different realities for all of its citizens. Depending on where you are you may see signs that tell of Crocodiles in the water, Kangaroos on the road ahead or Koala’s in the trees above. Australia is many different things to many different people but most of all Australia is a vibrant, living, creation of natural forces that not all of us will ever experience, truly know, or in-deed, ever learn to understand.

Because of the large variety of differences we all experience in our daily life it is sometimes difficult for us to imagine the things that we all share and we all experience as one group of people living, loving and surviving on this land that we call Australia. That is why when we gather as group for any reason; be it to celebrate, organise or participate we are encouraged to “Acknowledge Country” before we begin the group activity.

“Country” refers to the area around which you are facilitating the gathering. Country in Broome, far North West Western Australia is completely different than the Country of the Mornington peninsula in Victoria. Not everyone is trained or experienced enough to recognise the difference in Country but by acknowledging that Australian culture grows from the experience of all that is around us we can share the common respect that has come to be known as Acknowledgement of Country.      

For thousand of years the spiritual traditions of Australian culture recognised many hundreds of different landholdings, clans/groups, languages and beliefs. As the modern world has grown to become an Earth Centric Global Village for all humans these old traditions and languages have become cumbersome and restrict the genuine spiritual growth of all Australians.  

The Earth Centric spiritual experience has progressed through change over the last 50 years to be capable of letting go of genetic and religious association of spirit, to recognise the genuine co-dependency all human life has on the natural spiritual environment that surrounds us. And so this movement of spiritual truth frees all people from all lands and all cultures to embrace the Australian tradition of “Acknowledging Country” whenever and wherever people gather to celebrate, organise or participate as a kind, loving and sharing community.  

During an Acknowledgement of Country, you can recognise the custodians of the natural spirit of the land (Appendix 1) ;  this is recommended as a respectful practice for people who are guests in Australia. Or you can acknowledge the spirit of the country you are gathering on (Appendix 2). In doing so it is respectful to acknowledge Australian Spiritual Elders past, present and future. This second example is a recommended acknowledgment for Australians.

Please remember an Acknowledgement of Country is shared from the heart with passion and genuine purpose. For those who have chosen to live a spiritual life and express your devotion through your natural spiritual practice an Acknowledgment of Country is a binding commitment to the conscious nature of our Father, Time, and the nurturing love of our Mother, Earth, that will flow naturally from within.   

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This is a unification document dedicated to a non-racist point of view in Australia.

Appendix 1: 

Acknowledgment of Country: I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land upon which we have gathered today. It is with great respect I acknowledge the role all custodians of traditional Australian spiritual practice have played in preserving the Dreamtime culture of this land for the future generations of all Australians.

Appendix 2: 

Acknowledgment of Country: I feel privileged to be given this opportunity to acknowledge the spirit of the earth, our land and its people. I would like to pay my deepest respect to the Custodians of our traditional Australian Dreamtime culture and thank them for giving their time and energy to share the wisdom and stories that help us grow as a community. To our Dreamtime Custodians past, present, and future, I extend this acknowledgement and respect on behalf of all Australians.

Read Pathways to Despair for more By Professor John MacDonald UWS

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The current Australian social, spiritual and cultural identity is primarily founded on the philosophical premise that prior to British colonial settlement Australia did not have a significant spiritual, cultural or social identity of any pertinent value or worth.

Recent international adjustments in the ethical standards of communicating human rights and responsibilities along with increased levels of equitable standards and education have reduced this philosophy to an unmitigated lie that holds no future tenure or validity. This leaves Australia without a recognised valid ethical or philosophically defendable social, spiritual and/or cultural identity.

On every level of social cultural and spiritual interaction this is situation that requires strong leadership, focused direction and immediate attention.

On a national level, any appearance of anger, guilt or shame will ordain ignorance, and the lack of Australian national validity will lead to further social dissociation and dysfunction. This will add to the current endemic social apathy and fuel the concurrent social malaise.

On a fiscal level, sustained ignorance of Australia’s untenable situation can be expected to result in a measurable negative impact on the Australian economy.

Most importantly, on an individual level, ignorance ordained by anger, guilt or shame will not promote positive community growth, strength or unity, and this will impact negatively on all Australians long into the future.

Over the last 50 years a series of official reconciliatory steps have been heading toward reinforcing the vibrant foundations and constantly evolving framework of Australian natural spiritual culture. I use the term natural spiritual culture because the 60,000 year history of Australia’s social culture is extensively created from a purely indigenous spiritual connection to the natural environment.

At this moment in time the concept of supporting the growth of Australia’s national indigenous spiritual culture is not popularly recognised as the most viable alternative to the currently indefensible situation, nonetheless, it is the strongest, most focused and directly responsible action that can be taken by leaders at all levels of the Australian social structure if they are going to address this current problematic position.  

Every spiritual culture on earth has evolved from an indeterminable number of events in the surrounding atmospheric conditions that unfolded within the human experience to help alleviate root causes of fear, confusion, suffering, anxiety and despair. This observation will not ever change and throughout the entirety of the human experience on earth it can be expected that natural spiritual evolution and growth will be a regular component of the experience. What can not ever be gauged accurately is when this will occur.

Spiritual evolution is a natural occurrence that ultimately results in a perception of change. However, spiritual evolution is not so much the occurrence of change, as it is a resulting outcome of a series of collaborating events. All human reaction, and the responses to spiritual evolution, depends on the capacity of each individual, to understanding the potential for organised order, in their momentary association with the collaborating events.

The process of spiritual growth has extended from primary human spiritual evolution. The Australian Dreamtime Alphabet is the result of the long term process of human spiritual development that involves key aspects of primary spiritual evolution as its core.

From the outset human spiritual growth [enlightened consciousness] was destined to culminate in the conscious unification of the most ancient spiritual wisdom with the youngest spiritual wisdom on earth. The Dreamtime Alphabet symbolically represents the steps taken through this historical journey of human growth and spiritual evolution.

In the post-newage era, conscious spiritual enlightenment embraces the whole of the human experience as one active spiritual experience in the cosmological landscape of a natural infinite reality.

“Closing The Gap In Indigenous Thinking: The Story Of Australia’s Dreamtime Alphabet” Celebrates the whole journey of human spiritual evolution; all quadrants, all lines, all levels, all stages and all states.

This excerpt is taken from the executive summary of “Closing The Gap In Indigenous Thinking: The Story Of Australia’s Dreamtime Alphabet” available online at www.dreamtimealphabet.com

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“ONS is developing new measures of national well-being. The aim is that these new measures will cover the quality of life of people in the UK, environmental and sustainability issues, as well as the economic performance of the country. To develop better measures of the nation’s well-being we want to consult with people, organisations and business across the UK, as well as central and local government, to ask what matters most in people’s lives and what is important for measuring the nation’s well-being”. (From http://www.ons.gov.uk/well-being 27/2/2010)

To facilitate this, the ONS is running a public consultation, asking about the most important thing in people’s lives and what they believe is most important for measuring the nation’s well-being.

            The UK Government is using a lot of resources to ask these questions that in part can be expected to extract a scale of opinions based on current trends and influences. However, if that is the limitation of the research the UK Government is destined to circumvent the role cultural identity, unity and social development plays in authentic happiness.

            The role cultural development plays can best be described as the subjective foundation to an objective relationship. Well-being cannot be gauged singularly on economic or environmental issues. Though it can be argued that a nation’s well-being is observed through materialist objectivism it does not begin there.

            All cultural development evolves from a spiritual connection to moral value and worth. When a person feels as if they are valued and that their life contributes worth to their community they experience a greater feeling of well-being that if their life is not valued and worthless.     

To find a genuine measure of national well-being the UK Government might best be encouraged to develop a value and worth scale helpful. For example UK nationals could be asked to rate what they believe their individual value and worth to their nation is on a scale of 1-10 (1 lowest). It would then be practical to have a list of five interventions the UK Government could take that would help individuals feel a higher degree of attribution for value adding to their nation’s well-being.  

Those interventions might include areas interest like pay rates, working conditions or hours of employment, education, medicine or health, price fixing for essential items or a low cost housing guarantee. This would give the UK Government a foundation of genuine collaboration on which to build a comparative measurable national well-being scale.

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