Keynote Speech

Speech given by Chrisanthi Giotis

Wednesday 21 June 2005

First of all I need to say thank you to the organisers of today from the Community Relations Commission for giving me the opportunity to make this address. It’s not often someone as young as myself has the opportunity to speak in this position and I am well aware that I am very fortunate to be able to share my views with you.

I’m actually going to start out by doing something which I often criticise older generation Greeks in my neighbourhood for doing – I’m going to look to the past. Not to impose 1950s social mores in 2005 as the lovely gossipy women in Dulwich Hill and Marrickville love to do but simply because I believe in a saying that was written on the wall of my History classroom in highschool. To “prepare for the future study the past.”

I absolutely believe we can learn a lot from the work that has been done over the last half-century and longer by ethnic communities to build up our communities and to introduce the consciousness of a multicultural Australian identity to us all. In spite of the local gossips – the bane of every teenager’s life- I know that I am very lucky to live in and to have grown up in an old established multicultural community. I live in a beautiful world, in a world where my ethnic identity is not only acknowledged it is celebrated – a fact which made and makes my personal development in this country where I am officially ‘in the minority’ so much easier.

The presence of strong and visible ethnic organisations, places like the Cyprus Club on Stanmore Road have a wonderful effect on the psyche of a person who lives in the minority. You don’t even need to go inside, just the knowledge that, that place is yours, that, that place was built by your people and shows the strength of your community is enough.

I know that people from many communities have worked extremely hard to create these places and I thank them. By creating a strong visible presence and backing that up with political action the people of my parents generation created the concept of multicultural Australia which the people of my generation have benefited so much from.

Let me give you and example from my own life. When I was born my Dad was studying to become a technician for Telstra so he tried to speak English as much as possible, even at home. After two years my brother was born and my Mum was working full-time at home – she had her hands full so I spent most of my time with my elderly Anglo-Saxon next door neighbour. The only grandma I knew in my early life. The result of all this was a young Greek- Australian who could not speak any Greek and whose parents could not speak much English. I could understand a fair bit of Greek but I couldn’t get my tongue around a single word. Not one – well except for ‘mama’ but even there I don’t think I managed to say it with the proper Greek accent.

Interesting situation right? It was interesting, it was a bit of a neighbourhood curiosity, but to tell you the truth it didn’t really pose that many problems, not with the limited vocabulary of a four year old. However, given all that we know about the problems of intergenerational communication and how they are heightened by problems in cross-cultural communication and even simple mistakes caused by mis-translation can you imagine what a troublesome youth I would have had?

Luckily, and I say luckily with all my heart, something happened to change the course of my life. I started school at Dulwich Primary and that school was taking part in a revolutionary trial, a trial that meant all students of Greek background had to do lessons in their native tongue. Under the wonderful tutelage of Ms Kirkis I learnt to love and appreciate my culture, I was able to better understand my parents both literally and figuratively and I learnt to better communicate in both languages.

All this because strong local actions made politicians pay attention to our communities and that eventually turned into good government policies, policies that make lives better. The policy that I benefited from is still going strong and today at Dulwich Primary it’s not only young Greek children that take lessons in their native language, with the program continually expanding to include more languages.

Now before you get too comfortable with that warm fuzzy feeling I should say that I haven’t brought up this past and continuing success story to encourage us to feel good about ourselves and rest on our laurels. While this primary school program is a great thing it isn’t universally applied.

We still have a lot of work to do and there’s another point; I actually think if we are going to get serious about having Australians with a multicultural identity the really crucial stage we have to focus on is the teenage years.

In her groundbreaking work Television Ethnicity and Change British sociologist Marie Gillespie argued adolescence is a “crucial interstitial point [in life] when question of identity are subject to particularly intense negotiation – and this allows for the emergence of ‘new ethnicities’” (1995:2).

For many of you who work with young people you will see that identity formation and negotiation every day; like fobs like Lebo boys like proud wogs. Every day young people in Australia are starting emotional journeys to try find themselves through a better understanding of their culture. Often there is a catalyst. For me it was a trip to Greece to meet my grandparents. For someone else it was the decision to put on the hijab and for many teenagers studying the new HSC topic of Society and Culture what’s called a personal interest project turns out to be the catalyst for their journey.

The work to get multiculturalism in the syllabus has taken a very long time and should be applauded. The fact that there is some support for that journey of self-discovery in the school curriculum is great, because that journey is so important and such a source of strength. But what about the young people that don’t take Society and Culture as a subject. What about the ones who are more inclined to Mathematics and Science are they less in need of that journey?

I said earlier we had a lot of work to do and I meant it. For my money we are not serious about multiculturalism in this country until we have something in the curriculum that will be studied by all students. Maybe a year 10 English module that will ask them to look at what makes up their identity, whether they’re a fourth generation white Australian, Irish, Icelandic or half Indian half Iranian.

In the mean time if organisations embrace the concept of adolescence as this crucial stage in a young persons life they can get the ball rolling by finding ways within the frameworks of their own organisations that could be used to encourage young people investigate their identity. And of course this would help young people to become leaders because it encourages their growth as a whole person.

It’s not only the young people who would benefit. The organisation would benefit by bringing young people into these organisations. In general that is something that isn’t done often enough and something which could prove to be an Achilles heel for any organisation wanting to lobby on behalf of young people for the criticism could be too easilly made – ‘how do you know what young people need? Where are they represented in your organisation?’

Now I want to make the point this isn’t just a problem with ethnic organisations. I actually think it’s a legacy f the baby boomers phenomenon and the imbalance of older people to younger people in our society. I know of Anglo-Saxon organisations that are facing exactly the same problem of not being able to get young blood coming through, these organisations also have a lot to offer and it will be a crying shame if their resources simply disappear in a few years time.

But with Ethnic communities it’s not just a shame in terms of lost resources – if the older organisations disappear there goes a whole lot of our political clout. Clout which they worked very hard to get and clout which can be used in the example of pushing for a compulsory identity subject in the curriculum – a change I believe will make a difference t a whole generation.

Furthermore if we go back to the argument that the concept of multicultural Australia grew on the back of these ethnic organisation then by losing them we risking the loss of multiculturalism itself. The survival of these older communities is intrinsic to the notion of multiculturalism and the litmus test of whether it has actually ever existed in Australia.

Are we only ever talking about issues of best practice for new-migrant integration – that will eventually lead to assimilation or are we truly talking about multiculturalism?

Are we talking about young Sudanese refugees simply learning English and having access to resources that help them settle in to Australia (both very important points) or are we talking about higher order needs also? Things like friendship and respect for difference, things offered by programs underpinned by notions of multiculturalism and cross cultural learning.

Last year I was extremely privileged to witness one such program it was the links to learning program at the Blacktown Youth Services Association that brought together new migrants from the Intensive English Centre and troubled youngsters from the local highschools. It was a great program and the absolute highlight of these young people’s week for the term they took part in it.

Therefor the question of survival of the older multicultural communities is the question of the survival of multiculturalism itself and the question of how well we integrate our new communities. Will one day people put the argument – it’s not worth having multicultural policies because look what happens – people end up assimilating anyway, so why delay the inevitable?

It’s a depressing scenario isn’t it? But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just think of all the passion that young people have when they are first discovering their ethnic identity and creating their own new ethnicities. Look at the passion of the young people here today! That passion and that power can be channeled to make sure these organisations continue to be as dynamic and as relevant as ever.

All that needs to happen is the removal of a few of the barriers that have stopped young people in the past from getting involved – that have stopped people like me and many of you.

I know that the CRC has discussed these problems before so I’m not going to dwell on most of them like the lack of respect, the need to join many young people at a time so they don’t feel overwhelmed and out of place, the need to be more than tokenistic and the need to give young people real power – including money – to be able to run with their own projects, projects that are relevant for these constantly changing ‘new ethnicities’, I’m also sure many of you know the fantastic success stories that have happened when young people have been given money and the chance to run their own projects like happened with the Pacific Islander Youth.

What I will highlight is the fact young people’s sense of identity will not be the same as an older persons even though they may be from the same cultural background.

As I’ve said earlier young people create ‘new ethnicities’. The projects that are important to them may not be the projects that were and are important to older people – projects like maintaining language, festivals, food and dance. I know for example the young people of the Arabic Youth Partnership (a project that began by focusing specifically on the issues of Arabic young people) have decided the most important project they can complete currently is to get in touch with other young people from other backgrounds – to find the similarities and differences between them.

A project that I think ties in really well with the theme of today – promoting cultural harmony.

Now I know I may be preaching to the converted here but if you could all take back the message to your communities that the older generation members of our community shouldn’t be afraid of these new projects and of these new ethnicities, ethnicities that might highlight the universal appeal of hip-hop for example. There are still plenty of youth groups looking to keep their own specific culture and you can especially see this in university groups. There is room for both.

Bu either way, whether the projects are easily palatable or not CRUNCH TIME has come. If older ethnic organisations want their meeting halls to be full in a few years time, not just their restaurants, they need to embrace all the new projects of young people.

Looking at the work of the Spectrum Cultural Ideas Youth Festival at the University of Sydney earlier this year it’s obvious young people themselves see more to the future of multicultural Australia than songs and night clubs and are willing to work hard to address all the issues – I can’t imagine any ethnic organisation wouldn’t want to be part of that.

I can’t imagine it yet I know it happens and we are risking wasting all the valuable political presence that has already been built up, with all the possible ramifications for multicultural Australia if we do.

This challenge of getting young people into organisations is not insurmountable the tools are there on both sides of the current generation gap and when these bridges are built we could see our multicultural Australia go forward in leaps and bounds. We could even see that identity subject in the syllabus I think is so important.

All it takes is a few of the old guard willing to embrace the fact that issues have changed and young people have their own ideas of what to do and need to be allowed to run with them.

As I hinted at the beginning young people in Dulwich Hill and Marrickville are often driven away from their own cultural networks because of the 1950s cultural mores that are imposed upon them today.

Let’s not make the same mistakes with our organisations; let’s not drive young people away by imposing the politics of another generation.