NOT JUST AUSTRALIANS’ VALUES
By Ghassan Hage

On Line opinion, Australia
Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate
Monday, 18 September 2006

I came to Australia from Lebanon in 1976. I was 19.

Yet, I had no problems adjusting to Australian culture or to Australian
values.

First of all, the sacrosanct trio: democracy, tolerance, freedom
of speech. Despite some people’s ignorance of it, Lebanese society
had, and still has, a very vibrant "democracy-tolerance-freedom of
speech" sort of atmosphere. So, I never, ever, had a problem with this
wonderful side of Australian life. When it came time to vote, I never
asked: "How do you do this?" I just did it. Unbelievable, but true.

I never had a problem having civilised arguments with people –
respecting their views even when I disagreed with them (OK, maybe
not always, but most of the time). That’s because I did this kind of
"respect the other" thing in my youth. And when I didn’t, the adults
told me that I should.

Likewise, I had no problem with another apparently Australian value:
easy going-ness. I’ve always been pretty easy going – Mah te’tal himm
mah fee Mashkal, as the Lebs say, which translates as "no worries, no
problem". Furthermore, when I came to Australia I immediately mixed
with people who were not from "my cultural background". It was Mah
te’tal himm mah fee Mashkal here, too. I didn’t need an induction in
"Australian values" to do it – because, in Lebanon, I was already
quite used to mixing with a variety of people. My school friends back
there were not only Lebanese, they were European, Iranian, Armenian,
American, Syrian and so on.

Many of my friends from my early days in Oz were quintessential
Aussies (with what then appeared to be frightening accents), and yet we
remain friends to this day. This shows that I had no problems building
deep on-going friendships (or mateships as they are known here). None
whatsoever. It just came naturally to me because … I was doing it all
my life. And, yes, I know that mateship is more than "just friendship".

True I had to sit in front of the mirror and practise saying, "G’day
mate!" until I kind of got used to it.

Nonetheless, I easily got the essence. Some might say: "But not
all Lebanese migrants are like this." Fair enough. But not all
"Australians" are like this either. There are lots of differences
among Lebanese and among non-Lebanese – according to a variety of
sociological variables.

In Lebanon. I was a fan of the guitarists Frank Zappa and John
McLaughlin and of the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. At the age of 19
I thought musical taste defined the person and I wouldn’t have
been caught dead with people who didn’t understand "what Zappa was
about". So naturally enough, once in Australia, I became friends
with people who liked Zappa, McLaughlin and Ponty. They were pretty
much the same as my Lebanese friends – same dark sense of humour,
same disdain towards society.

So here again: I didn’t need to learn anything to take on board these
seemingly very Australian values (conveyed, appropriately enough,
by American jazz rock).

In much the same way – and I know some people will find this incredibly
hard to believe – the truth is I had no problem treating Australian
women the way they more or less expected to be treated. Indeed,
I think I did quite well.

My partner for the last 20 years is from Tasmania. I don’t think I’ve
had a problem relating to her in an Australian kind of way. (I had
more problem adjusting to her "Tasmanian" kind of way.) Actually,
relating to her was no different from the way I used to relate to
women in Beirut. That was even the case with my first wife who was
an Australian from Irish stock – and from Wagga Wagga, to boot.

I never had to stop and ask: "Well, I wonder how I should treat this
woman in a respectful Australian kind of way." Of course, I’ve been
called sexist on a number of occasions, in Lebanon and here. But
no more and no less than any of my quintessential Aussie mates get
called sexist by their girlfriends, partners or wives.

My ex-wife and I are as open-minded as the next cosmopolitan
couple. We’re still friends. Again, I didn’t have to take on board any
specific "Australian" values to do this. My teenage years in Lebanon –
moving between girlfriends, getting upset with one girl, she getting
upset with me, moving on, becoming friends again – prepared me well
for my Australian experience.

So, throughout my years in Australia – and please let me brag:
that’s 30 years now – I really have had no serious problems with any
Australian values or aspects of Australian culture. None whatsoever
… well, except one.

Let me state it clearly: my problem with Australian culture is those
painful people who insist that, regardless of what I think, I do have
a problem with Australian culture.

They are the prejudiced and very ugly Australian assimilationists.

Even though, on the whole, they are not the best specimen of what our
nation has to offer, the ugly Australian assimilationists like to think
that, unlike others, they have a unique access to what being Australian
means, and that it is up to them to provide anyone they think is
different with instructions on how to become better Australians.

I met them the very first year I came here and I’ve been meeting them
regularly ever since. I’ve even made an academic career studying them.

I used to think the ugly Australian assimilationists have this
simplistic, psychologically naïve belief that if you harass people into
becoming something for long enough, then, people just become it. Like,
if you see someone who doesn’t know how to play cricket or doesn’t
like it, you just shout at them: "Go ahead, play cricket! Come on,
love cricket! Adopt cricketing values, now!" and, if you persist,
before you know it they’re aspiring to become Bradmans.

Likewise, if someone is sitting around our nation – not looking or
acting Australian – it is enough to just keep telling them: "Become
Australian … go on …

adopt Australian values!" This is supposed to work and make people
want to become Australian.

I used to think that these great national assimilationists actually
believed this. But they are not so naïve. They know very well that
harassing people into becoming Australian doesn’t work. They also
knew that if you tell someone: "Go ahead! Become Australian!" you
achieve two things simultaneously.

You make yourself feel as if you are supremely, obviously and
wonderfully Australian. And you make those you are harassing feel
that they are much less Australian than they really are.

This is the underlying, dirty secret of all those who like to scream
at the top of their voices about the need to adopt Australian values
and assimilate. The last thing they want is for the people they are
screaming at to actually assimilate. What assimilationists revel in
is that very moment when they are nagging people to assimilate.

In fact, they hate it when someone points out that people assimilate
quite naturally according to how long they’ve been in a place,
according to their socio-economic background, according to their
level of education. And the assimilationists certainly don’t want to
hear about the very obvious fact that if there’s one thing that is
guaranteed not to have any influence on people assimilating it is being
screamed at about their need to assimilate and adopt Australian values.

Assimilationists are the real exclusionists of Australian history. They
actually stop people from assimilating.

And this is, paradoxically, what they desire – deep down. They scare
people off. They drive them away.

They make them hide. They force them to live outside mainstream
society. And having done that, they then start telling the very people
whom they’ve excluded that they are living in ghettos and that their
problem is that they are not assimilated enough.

These assimilationists are ugly. They are nasty and malicious towards
the people they are addressing. I have never heard an assimilationist
showing love or respect for the people they are haranguing to
assimilate. They always do it either aggressively or with contempt.

Assimilationists are very caring towards their own mob – wanting
nothing but their relaxation and comfort.

But, at the same time, they are mean spirited, cruel and uncaring
towards those who don’t fit their cultural norms. They do not wish
them well. They want to hurt them. They openly call on such people to
integrate, while they secretly work to see them disintegrate. That’s
the most important feature that makes assimilationists ugly.

And for the last 10 years we’ve had a Prime Minister who is one.

First published in New Matilda on September 6, 2006.

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