UNITED BY DIVERSITY

Recently I was an Ambassador for the PNG community for the 2017 Townsville Cultural Fest held at James Cook University. The five- day festival gave me every opportunity to enjoy the vibrancy of our community. There is something there that represents all of us. There were cultural dances, foods, arts and crafts and, most importantly, friendship generated from those experiences. People were saying how nice it was. They felt they were not just part of the festival but something bigger.

Presentations by people who do not normally have a voice were front and centre to the event. This feeling of getting along together should not just be a once- a- year event.

This is the core of being Australian today. We are becoming a different society, we are evolving.

Lots of changes are happening. The festival was an opportunity for all of us to experience that togetherness as it provided the opportunity to listen to those who often sit at the margins.

Leaders in our community recognise the value of these events for the cohesion and the mental health of the community, and the support they give shows leadership.

Festivals raise the level of happiness in town; that is why they are strongly supported by the community.

This has to be good. It gives people the opportunity to feel valued and to make a contribution.

Even language barriers were overcome as Somalis helped set up for the feast alongside Papua New Guineans, Iranians, Kenyans, Maoris, Indians, Greeks, Italians, Scots and Irish, Tokelauans, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups; all nationalities helped set up the festival and performed in it.

Everyone contributed. There is a great opportunity here in Townsville to be at the front line of creating healthy cultural harmony in a diverse community.

Festivals are a catalyst in creating that inclusive harmony.

Sometimes difference seems to divide and separate us but the festival has an answer to that. These festivals bring out the conversations that are needed to make the event happen.

It is a five- day educational celebration. People have to communicate, to say what they want to contribute and how that fits with other events and, in those discussions, is the essence of forming the common Australian culture.

While there is a sense of respect generated, this is not done without difficult dialogues and negotiation. That’s all part of becoming an inclusive community. We were there for one purpose, sharing our cultures with the rest of the community.

We all have different cultures, but how do we extract togetherness from that difference?

PNG culture is not one thing. The Highlanders are different from my Motu Koita people, the coastal people where I came from. Nor are our cultures static, they are always evolving. So, on Magnetic Island in the 1970s there were white Australian women doing hula dancing and they were laughed at by us for being stiff and unable to move their hips.

But today we are more welcoming and invitations to join in the dancing are offered and accepted. It is the participation that is important.

Even Palm Islanders do the hula dance now and Aboriginal boys are a Facebook sensation doing the Zorba the Greek dance. At the Cultural Fest there were blues, jazz and country and western groups contributing, too.

Cultures evolve. My own people have adapted their dancing as a result of the Polynesian missionaries who came a century ago from the Pacific Islands. The Tokelauans tell me of the changes to their cultural practices as a result of the Christian influence; they have a cross that depicts their culture.

That’s just how it is these days – culture evolves. Many dancers invited other people to join in, it is participating that is important.

The rest of Australia, with its unfortunate culture of sniping and carrying on, has a lot to learn from Townsville and its Cultural Fest.

As I sit back and reflect on lessons learnt from this festival, I am very satisfied with the respect generated among participants and what the Cultural Fest brings to Townsville and its ever- evolving cultural identity.

Respect is the important thing.