Australia: Breaking the boundaries of culture

Creative writing

Australia: breaking the boundaries of culture

BY HANNA CHEUNG, YEAR 10, 2021

I remembered seeing ‘The Balcony’ by Brett Whitley in an art gallery. The large canvas was spread with ultramarine blue, with a few casual boats resting like quills on the water that undulated with the wind. I thought, is this us? In Australia, more than 7.5 million more yachts travelled from abroad, floating mindlessly on the ocean, pretending that we have found our harbour of rest, when really, we are lost.

Everything in sight has become a synecdoche of Australia, a mix, a conglomeration of no definition. Looking on the surface, Australia’s multiculturalism is flourishing more abundantly than ever, but how do we define culture, when the passing of a second can instantaneously change the shape of the water?

It has always been accepted that culture can only be created under the presence of time. New York Times’ Australia Bureau Chief, Damien Cave expresses: “What I experienced there suggests that this [Australia] is a country where the demand for culture is greater than the supply.”

When culture becomes a commodity, a quantifiable object, Australia is considered inferior compared to the other nations. The equation of history told us that culture can only be formed under traditions, rituals, and a social structure firmly consolidated and imprinted into the local populations. So, is Australia too “young”?

“Authenticity”, “independence” and “completion” seemed to be the essence of every culture. As Harari referred to in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: “cultures left to their own devices and did not change”. Indeed, during the past centuries, culture developed and blossomed, and the vast difference between isolated different regions is what made them identifiable and distinctly unique.

And where does Australia stand? Out of the boundaries of what culture should be.

The history of civilisation is too long, and our nation is too “young” for a culture to be manifested.

Yet Australia is different. Australia is an embodiment, a microcosm of globalisation in the 21st century. Change, as it appears, has always been inevitable. We arrived at an unprecedented era where technology and communication can re-write how culture should be depicted.

Why do we have to be confined by the restriction, that culture must be singular? Eventually mankind will have to accept that globalisation will force us all to view humanity as one entity. Regardless of what perspective, globalisation is inevitable, and perhaps it is time for the world to learn from our country. Australian economist Dr Henry Ken argues, “Throughout…history, Australia has benefited greatly from its generally internationalist orientation across economic, financial, social and inter-governmental dimensions… we will continue to benefit from being an open economy.”

We should no longer be confined by the restriction that culture is singular; that we must fit into a certain shape to be defined as “someone”.

Australia’s political interactions and economic vitality is evidence of their active global engagement. Its success to attract immigrants and multinational corporations displays that it is not impossible to encapsulate multiple cultures.

So, what caused the polarised opinions on Australia’s cultural diversity?

Perhaps it is Australia’s diversity that made it difficult for individuals to relate to the collective multiculturalism. Scattered across the sky, our culture is yet to find an astronomer to connect the stars to plot the true constellation of Australia.

In isolation I float in Australia’s water, made of molecules too complex and diverse for me to combine with. As we proceed to become an increasingly diverse community, we question the necessity of moulding “culture” into the shape that it must be.

Culture is a dynamic concept, that respond to changes in through its interaction with the external environment and can transition internally from developments and revolutions. The acceptance and concept of culture will never stay still. Instead, it is determined by a range of factors, that will amalgamate all traditions as one. We are all yachts that travel on the Earth’s ocean, finding our directions through the journey of time.