Page 1022 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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representation of ethnic diversity in Canberra. However, we can go further and broader. Essentially this comes under the broader issues of how ethnicity is represented in the community. While the food and dance spectacular at the Multicultural Festival is a great experience for the observer, ethnicity and cultural diversity should not merely be something abstract to be admired from a distance or in separation.
Multiculturalism is a process that is continually changing. I believe that Canberra has an opportunity to develop new pathways and build on how multiculturalism is expressed through forums such as the Multicultural Festival. While folk dancing is one very valuable form of cultural expression, for many young people cultural identity is about artistic and political expression and dealing with the challenges of modern-day society. The migrant experience is also about celebrating different forms of expression through art, dance and drama.
While there have been statements made by the minister that on one hand the festival is truly the main formal vehicle in the ACT to encourage the passing on of cultural traditions, the minister himself has said that the reason for having the festival in the first place is not so that we can give vent to artistic expression in Canberra but to further the cause of multiculturalism. We need to be careful that we do not dictate what is, or who should express, multiculturalism in our community. In particular, politicians should not dictate these terms. We need to be aware that cultural expression and ethnicity are ever changing.
One great example in the US, for instance, is the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC which celebrates community diversity and inclusion through a variety of ways. The Folk Life Festival is an exercise in cultural democracy in which cultural practitioners speak for themselves, with each other and to the public. It encourages visitors to learn, sing, dance, eat traditional foods and converse with people presented in the festival program.
The festival includes daily and evening programs of music, song, dance, celebratory performance, crafts and cooking demonstrations, storytelling, illustrations of workers’ culture and narrative sessions for discussing cultural issues. It is inclusive, participatory and interactive. It provides a promising practice where different mediums are used to educate and promote social inclusion. I understand that this is a complex production which requires a large team, funding and expertise, but it does provide directions as to how we can energise and conserve multiculturalism in the ACT and set an example for the rest of Australia.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Planning and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (4.51): I thank Ms Burch for bringing this motion forward. I would like to take the opportunity to place on record my support, as tourism minister, for the Multicultural Festival and to indicate a belief within the government that, whilst the festival is a magnificent ACT community event and really is the flagship for multicultural communities in the territory, it is a flagship event for the broader community and I believe has great potential to continue to grow as a major tourism event for Canberra.
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