Imogen Neale: Boxed in by biculturalism

Culture is an elusive term. It means everything: the way we live, the things we value, the systems we use, the beliefs we hold.

It is also a source of self-pride, heritage, purpose and identity.

It is performance, through language, accent, dance, body adornment and the broad canon of art.

And, it is economic: cultural tourism, the cultural dollar, cultural industries.

No wonder then that New Zealand is having trouble coming to grips with what it means to live in a multi- and intercultural society.

To "all just get along" - as nice as that may sound rolling off the full red lips of the new Miss Universe - would mean, on a micro-scale, that you could speak four or five languages, had a base knowledge of five religions, and had some experience of what it meant to live in a number of societies (democratic, authoritarian, socialist).

It is a tall order that needs to be addressed.

New Zealand is a multicultural society. But our idea of who we are is still locked into the bicultural lens of the late-1990s. Well, the one we talked about in the 1990s and implemented in 2000s.

While this lens isn't incorrect - New Zealand was crudely divided into two "cultural groups" - it is so outdated that its continued use has become incredibly problematic.

And, although it may make us feel a little better about ticking our "we try to be egalitarian; just watch us" boxes, it doesn't appear to help anyone feel any more comfortable or confident about the society they are living in.

Isn't one of the most common questions asked by and about New Zealanders still: "What is New Zealand culture exactly?"

Biculturalism was supposed to provide a neat answer to that. It hasn't.

Why? Well the words don't match the lived picture. The words say two cultures. The picture says many.

As a young New Zealand female who has lived in Asia, this is the topic that makes me feel despondent about where New Zealand is at.
Recently I went overseas to cover an arts festival.

At a press conference two government officials approached me.
"We are so pleased you came," they began.

"We have real trouble trying to convince New Zealand press to come over here and get involved with our projects. We were just wondering, do you know why that is? When we talk to them we feel like aliens."

This from two professional, perfectly spoken, Ivy League-educated arts officials.

What could I say? "Sorry, New Zealand is just a little too caught up in itself to pay much attention to what is happening in Asia."

The next thing I would have had to explain was that if that were the case, then how come we have so many international students from Asia in New Zealand?

Why indeed? It's certainly not because most New Zealanders believe they can teach the country a whole lot about other cultures and attitudes.

No. The answer is rather colder and harder: cash.

When I came home I felt that little phrase bouncing around in my head: "why can't we all just get along?"

I think the answer lies in the fact that as a society we have a lack of respect for difference.

We like to look at it and we like to touch it, smell it, taste it and travel to it but we certainly don't seem to want to integrate it.
Because it takes so much effort.

An intercultural society that "gets along" necessitates a society that can communicate with people from other cultures, that can express and explain its own point of view, listen to and engage with another's and be flexible enough to change should it encounter something progressive.

We don't have that kind of society yet.

I have tried to find this willingness in New Zealand but find I keep returning to the passionate few: the bloggers, publicists pushing the arts and cultural activities that aim to create bridges of multicultural awareness, knowledge and ultimately, respect.

The ironic thing? We are being educated from the outside in.

Why? Because for some reason we refuse to wake up to what we already are; a multicultural society stuck in a bicultural box that's 20-odd sizes too small.

* Imogen Neale is an Auckland freelance writer and researcher, host of 95bfm's Sunday Best and co-editor of the Graduate Journal of Asia Pacific Studies.


Reader comments:

wow, thanks for the update on how biculturalism doesn't work, any updates on how multiculturalism does? Right now we all know its a thinly veiled catch phrase for Australia which plugs a dominant ideal but allows fetished performances of the "other' within a framework of containment.

We could of course move towards a Don Brash One people idea cos we all know that assimilation has worked wonders for indigneous peoples on a global scale so far or has it - oh thats right decimation and depopulation, poverty , crime and dependence might suggest otherwise. Oodgeroo the Australian poet asks "pour your pitcher of wine into the river, where is the wine? there is only the river" but LUCKILY for her and all aboriginal peoples of australia she now has a multicultural society that recognises difference and forgets to say sorry for the hunting parties that shot aborigines like kangaroos. Now - within the dominant framework of White Australian multicultralism flourishes as an ideal, but as practise dissolves its differences within itself, marginalising all except the aussie ocker ideal. Changing the name doesn't make the system different.

Recently in Christchurch i listened to a motelier tell me how he visited Auckland recently and couldnt believe it - he thought it looked like an Asian nation, he was saddened by our changing landscape. Facetiously I told him that i guess i dont see that because everyone is an immigrant to me, being Maori. They should be as welcome here as you are. Thinking I had ended this i was surprised when he confidently told me that there weren't any real Maori's left , we had all interbred. I guess you have to give up somewhere - even i understand a redundant argument.

But here's my point if under Bi-culturalism, many see the move as temporarily aiding a move towards a "one people" ideal, then it already fails to recognise difference of the first people of the nation. How does throwing it out and adopting multiculturalism avoid the same thing? After all the acceptance of one people's difference is so vehemently rejected in public opinion as people cry we are all equal now. Its kind of hard to swallow to believe that multicultralism isnt the same thing wrapped in less confrontational wrapping.

I don't deplore your sentiment, in an ideal world, respect and enjoyment of difference is a great ideal, but i am so over the NZ OE international traveller who enjoys cooking in a tangine out the back door as an addition to the barbeque tradition but failed to meet the local people of the places they visited. They saw the sights, they climbed the mountains, they raided the cookery ideas, they picked over the bones of cultural enlightenment while failing in any way to respect and understand the real differences that make people unique.

Don Brash recently wanted immigrants to share our values: Whose values was he talking about? Oh thats right, New Zealanders and their newly acquired fetish for exotic foods from exotic shores. Their hypocrisy reeks of the spices they eagerly seek out. We love different foods and because of that we are all one people now. Cut the Hui, Cut the Treaty, Cut the Powhiri out of our one people sentiment - WE are all one people - respecting ourselves and throwing out what is not ours.

I am sorry, your sentiment is not a bad one, but where differences and specificity collide with global intergration and merging at a time and place that might see the event as mutually satisfying is not something i see happening right now. Tell me where does it work where differences don't become subsumed within a national identity? I probably, like you, see the dissolution of those boundaries as inevitable, many would not.
- - - posted 11.00am August 9, 2006 by c. schwalger