The Australian Human Rights Commission's report into the freedom of religion and belief in 21st century Australia report was released this week, after a year of research and nationwide consultations. Race Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes explains that it is not a list of recommendations but a survey of listening 'to the voices of the community'.
It documents a rich array of multiple opinions in the religious sphere, and argues that 'beliefs, religious, anti-religious or a-religious, may contribute to defining a person's identity'. No surprise then that it is awash with terms such as 'multicultural Australia', 'pluralist Australia' and so on.
Quite a few respondents strongly objected to multiculturalism. In fact, the concept of 'multiculturalism' has changed over the last decade or so, and needs some unpacking, in light not only of the report, but also of several other recent noteworthy occurrences.
One was an interview with the French politician Marine Le Pen that appeared in the Australian press earlier this month. The headline was 'Multiculturalism is a myth', and in the article Le Pen argued that true multiculturalism ends in war.
The second was Harmony Day on 21 March. Its purpose, as envisaged by the Council of Multicultural Australia when proclaiming it in 2002, was 'to promote a harmonious Australia, built on democracy and the development of our evolving nationhood by embracing our heritage and cultural diversity'. Beautiful words that you can't t really argue with, but neither do they call a spade a spade.
Multiculturalism, Australian identity, immigration and ethnicity are concepts that are frequently and intensely debated in the Australian environment. The ABC's Q&A discussion on multiculturalism in February provoked many comments on the program's online forums.
Googling the words 'multiculturalism' and 'Australia' produces over one million entries. Add any other related keyword and the count increases. Furthermore, the entries seem to widen the possibilities of interpreting the meaning of multiculturalism rather than defining it more precisely.
This is not surprising. The concept of multiculturalism has a very muddled history.
In the 1970s, the then immigration minister Al Grassby announced the 'Multi-Cultural Society for the Future' as a way to address the social inequities of immigrants from a non-English speaking background. He knew he had borrowed a term from Canada, where it was used to unify the English and French speaking populations. Hardly a model for Australia, which didn't have that problem.
Since then the term 'multiculturalism' has been redefined or rejected depending upon the particular persuasion