Australia’s youngest member of federal parliament Wyatt Roy delivered an opening message from Prime Minister Tony Abbott at this weekend’s NEMBC Conference in Briabane, telling ethnic broadcasters: “your work is essential for building successful and stronger communities.”
ALP Member of Parliament Clair Moore congratulated Australia’s multicultural stations which were born from “the passion of local people.”
“We know that for many people radio is the chosen form of information sharing. That voice beside them is their connection to society and the role of radio and especially ethnic radio, will continue to be important in our community.”
The NEMBC Conference is being held in Brisbane.
In his keynote address, Professor Roly Sussex began on a political point, making the observation that there is no minister for multiculturalism in the current government, yet Australia is a very multicultural place these days.
Sussex, a professor of Linguistics, said “Australia’s progress has been astonishing in the growth of languages and multiculturalism.” His talk was centered on how people can use language for advantage or disadvantage.
“Ethnic as an adjective is not problematic, but as a noun it can seem confrontational. He used the metaphors of a melting pot versus a salad bowl. In a melting pot the dominant flavour prevails. In a salad bowl all the flavours are mixed for your enjoyment and appreciation,” he said, contrasting the old policies of assimilation and integration with Australia’s current approach of multi-culturalism.
He explored the words used when reporting asylum seekers, particularly the idea that they were processed before a decision is made on how to treat them.
“Saying that you process people is dehumanizing. You process numbers or papers but not people. A really scary example of this was in Nazi Germany with what was called the Jewish Question. This dehumanized the Jews and look what happened. Jews were portrayed as sub human and non-people. The Germans now have expressed their revulsion for what happened and now reject this approach, but we have to be careful that words are not used in that way now.”
Before Captain Cook came, Australia was a very multicultural place, said Sussex. “There were 250 Aboriginal languages here. So we have a multicultural and multilingual tradition in this country.” Last century, the policy of integration changed this, but multiculturalism from the 1970s was responsible for reversing the trend, according to Sussex. “We have made multiculturalism work better than in most countries. We have worked very hard to bring multiculturalism about and we should be firm in keeping it.”
Unfortunately, the idea of multiculturalism has been caught up with political correctness, according to Sussex, who says political correctness has got caught up with the American right wing agenda and the word became pejorative. He suggested that words such as ‘ethnicity’ could be used instead of ‘multiculturalism’ if that term is criticised for being too politically correct.
“The good outcomes of political correctness have been manipulated by ill meaning forces who have tried to hijack the debate.”
In advising broadcasters how to deal with the changing approach to language and multiculturalism, he advised broadcasters to “avoid discriminatory language and help build an inclusionist society.”