Scotch College

Treasured in Australia

Graham Bradbeer

One hundred years ago John MacKinnon started in the little school by the pebbled shore at Elgol. In doing so he entered an oppressive world where cultures collided. Gaelic was the language of his family and almost all of the families who lived on the hill above his little school on the Isle of Skye. In that school every time he spoke Gaelic his teacher hit him with a wooden ruler. The teacher was implementing a government policy aimed at unifying the ethnic minorities of the United Kingdom. All were made to learn a common language: English. John MacKinnon was forced to learn English by ‘immersion’.

John’s younger brother Ewen experienced the same discrimination but was less critical. As last century was drawing to a close, after living 60 years in the USA, Ewen said ‘What good did Gaelic ever do for me!’ In his mind government policy had empowered him to enter a larger world, but there was a price to pay; the diminution of his cultural identity. None of the MacKinnon children spoke Gaelic. So was it oppression or empowerment? The MacKinnon family’s ambiguous experience was a microcosm of cultures in conflict. Today mass migration has accelerated, diminishing notions of cultural and geographic belonging, while, as through Microsoft Windows, globalising technologies reduce cultures to ubiquitous, pixelated images. We have ‘millions of colours’, all emitting on a screen near you, a culturally monochromatic hue. The mix and homogenising of cultures is a pervasive but volatile reality in our global village. Australia is not immune.

So what provides cohesion in a multicultured society where the cultures themselves become sub-sets of an overarching entity? What is that entity? Our Prime Minister has spoken of ‘Australian values’ and ‘shared national identity’.

This has been explored in the media. The Age featured an icon of Simpson and his donkey with every article on the topic. What is the defining thing that makes a person Australian? Is there anything we value which is uniquely Australian? Our ‘values’ are simply and etymologically the things that are valuable to us. Our values are what we treasure, what we love. Looking for the mix of core things ‘beloved’ by Australians is complex.

One lens was provided recently when Major General M. McNarn AO , spoke of some of the distinctive qualities he has witnessed in the Australian military in ‘contact’ situations in five countries when compared with the military personnel of various other nations. He drew attention to electrifying examples of integrity, courage and teamwork. Without personal integrity there can be none of the trust which is vital to operations. Courage has its genesis in the courage of convictions, moral courage. Teamwork, as all sports lovers know, means that together we achieve more. He also added that compassion was, for him, of supreme value.

I found myself wondering if these qualities, discernible in the women and men of the ADF, might be elaborations of what we colloquially cluster as ‘mateship’, ‘a fair go’ and being ‘dinkum’? Could the many people of diverse cultures who now call Australia ‘home’ be unified by these powerful over-arching qualities? If multiculturalism can work in Australia there is hope for the whole world.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’ (Matthew 6:21). Having identified what we treasure, and value, how set are our hearts? Do our daily choices suggest we are choosing lesser things? May we follow the lead of the One whose words and example set the highest standards; by his Spirit he will bring together the world’s richly diverse people.

Graham Bradbeer
Chaplain