Letter to The West, 8th November, 2010

I often ride my bike to work in West Perth, travelling along the beautiful South Perth foreshore. While the mornings are not without charm, the return journey is the real highlight. I love to slow down a fraction, go “no hands”, and take in the magnificent skyline, the river, and the people enjoying it all.

Do you know what type of people I see most often, enjoying a riverside barbecue on a weekday evening? I’ll give you a tip: it’s not white Australians. It’s Asians and Arabs – in everything from couples, to gatherings of young people, to groups of several families. Similarly, in my local park, it is the African and Asian people who regularly gather to play gloriously big and free games of soccer or cricket.

Are these examples of the slow invasion or destruction of Australian culture about which many of this paper’s correspondents are so concerned? If so, can I say to these concerned people: embrace these sights and add them to your understanding of Australian culture, don’t fear or hate them.

Fearful correspondents should also ask themselves if they are really living the iconic lifestyle that they are so vigorously trying to protect. Because if they are, they don’t seem to be doing it within my eyeshot. In fact, I suspect that most of the more hateful anti-immigrant letters to this paper are written with pale suburban hands – not the bronzed, leathery ones of our folklore.

Finally, let us all remember that however fine it may be, our mainstream Australian culture is no great leap from its very recent European roots. Every reference to Australian culture without a deep nod to our Aboriginal people (implicitly or explicitly) is an insult to them.