| A Multicultural Landscape: National Parks and the Macedonian Experience |
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1.Introduction
A Christmas Day visit The fieldwork for this project started on Christmas Day 1999. Having been informed by Royal National Park staff of the longstanding tradition where Macedonian people congregate for an annual mass gathering in the Audley picnic area, I visited the park with camera and tape recorder. On arriving, the staff explained that with the weather overcast, attendance was down on previous Christmases. Ranger Jennifer Bean related that two years earlier the weather had been perfect and it was ‘bedlam’. Even on this reduced scale, Christmas at Audley presented quite a scene. Car culture is evidently strong among the younger men, and by 11 am a vehicle had been impounded by police after some scary exhibitionism on the road. A police vehicle was assigned to the park for the day, and a large contingent of rangers was on patrol.
Diversity at Audley The pavilion at Audley was packed with people, many – but by no means all – of whom were Macedonian. I met Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian people and others. The barbecues were in hot demand and the aroma of kebabs, marinated pork and seafood wafted through the space. Among Macedonians, the pavilion seemed the gathering space for parents, grandparents and very young children. Teenagers and young adults congregated around cars on the other side of the river. Apart from the occasional hotted up car doing wheelies, the atmosphere seemed relaxed. But for some of the rangers it was still a tense day. Problems, mainly to do with driving or drinking, had emerged in the past. Some years traffic congestion had reached the point where vehicles had to be turned away at the gate. Efforts to encourage visitors to share cars or mini-buses had been made by contacting community language media. But this seemed ineffectual. The officer in charge told me how it was
very difficult to talk or negotiate with the community because we’ve contacted all sorts of ethnic newspapers and radio stations and nobody can give us one key person to talk to. There appear to be a number of isolated groups.[50]
The officer’s expectation that Macedonians would be a homogenous community is revealing – a judgement that he would probably be unlikely to make of his own ‘community’. But amidst such attitudes, some valuable, pro-active initiatives had been taken to make the Christmas festivity a smoother occasion. Most importantly, a Macedonian interpreter had been hired for the day. She was there to assist should any altercation develop. Certainly, none occurred while I was there. Much of the time she spent talking to people she knew in the crowd. And she introduced me to several long-term Christmas visitors.
Vera and Draga reminisce There is some conjecture about when the Audley Christmas gathering started. Ranger Bill Sullivan suggested it was in the mid-1970s. Vera Dimitrievski and Draga Nacovski, who I interviewed during their lunchtime barbecue, suggested it was older though neither could give an exact starting point. They are both in their mid-forties and have spent most Christmas Days at Audley for the last 30 years. They gave some important insights on the social significance of the occasion.
An important point to note when considering this festivity is that Macedonians are almost invariably Orthodox Christians. They honour Christmas on January 7 – a strictly present-less day typically celebrated with a lunch at home. December 25, as it has developed in Australia, is more holiday than holy day; a chance to catch up with kith and kin in a bush and barbecue context. Much Macedonian fare, which includes pork, sausage, and cooked capsicum (preferably home grown) is well suited to the barbecue. I was told it is a Macedonian as well as an Australian tradition.
Kinship Vera and Draga have a sisterly relationship. Today, two of their children are married to each other but their own friendship pre-dates that connection. Originating from Macedonian villages about 20 km apart, they arrived in Australia while still in their teens. They have known each other since that time and remember their teenage Christmases at Audley with considerable nostalgia. Like many Macedonian immigrants, their families had settled in the southern suburbs of Sydney. But at Audley they would meet other youngsters, some from their own villages, who were living in more distant places including Wollongong and Newcastle. Draga emphasised the great joy of encountering her own people.
To come from such a far away country to meet again, that was a big thing, a really big thing, like in this beautiful country, you’d see these people you hadn’t seen for five or six years. It was like a reunion. That’s it: it’s a reunion every Christmas.[51]
Relaxation of family pressure For young immigrants of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Audley gathering was an occasion for social contact and release. Girls, especially, were tightly chaperoned and controlled. ‘Because it was so strict anything like this was like a treat to us,’ Draga explained. They described the anticipation that awaited the arrival of Christmas: the months of planning and the decisions about what to wear. The carnival atmosphere of the season allowed some relaxation of the normally rigid codes. It was one of the few occasions where young people of the opposite sex could mix socially. Everyone I’ve consulted knows wives and husbands who first met at the Audley gathering, often on or around the bridge. Judging by the outfits and general sense of personal display around the cars on the other side of the river, the tradition is alive and well.
Being Macedonian in Australia The spirit of community reunion, the chance to hear one’s language and encounter one’s own people en mass, can be compared to day-to-day experiences when, as recent migrants, people so often felt their minority status. That is not so acute today, but the legacy of the Audley tradition continues. It has had a profound impact on Vera and Draga’s perception of themselves as Macedonian-Australians. Having lived here most of their lives, they are comfortable speaking English. It’s the language in which they think and dream. Vera considers that she is very Westernised.
It’s like we live two lives. We’re not really that different here are we, like we don’t do anything different to the Australians? But we have the Macedonian side of it as well.
The Christmas gatherings are not the limit of their interest in the park, though clearly they are very important. Both Vera and Draga visit Royal National Park at other times of year, especially when they have overseas visitors. The picnics assisted in developing their fondness for the Australian bush – an affection that is strongly felt. Vera described her response to news of the 1994 bushfires at Royal that severely damaged the park: ‘We were devastated, absolutely devastated. We didn’t think we’d come again actually.’
The case study emerges This visit fuelled my conviction that the Macedonian gathering at Royal National Park would form a fitting case study for this project. In working from this decision, I am not asserting that the Macedonian experience is in any way emblematic of other communities, nor even that the conclusions drawn are representative of Australian-Macedonians as ‘a community’. As Part 1 has established, I am deeply suspicious of such categorisations, a suspicion that impelled me to pay particular attention to differences within communities, especially as they are played out among generational groups.
Rather, the Macedonian use of Royal National Park was chosen because it seemed reasonably approachable as a research subject. It seemed fair to assume that a considerable number of narratives and memories would have developed over its 30-plus year history, and that a certain amount of documentary and photographic evidence would have accrued. In addition, I had received advice from Rosa Droescher, Senior Project Officer at the Ethnic Affairs Commission, that for a government agency embarking for the first time on this kind of cross-cultural research, it is usually more effective to start with an ‘established’ community where there are likely to be organisations and infrastructure that can help mediate the process. This seemed important given our unfamiliarity with consultation of this kind. While the community knowledge imparted is particular to a particular circle of Macedonian-Australians, the method of approach and research offers insights and certain possibilities for future development of this project.
[50] Multiculturalism and National Parks Research Project Field Tape 1.
[51] Interview with Vera Dimitrievski and Draga Nacovski, Multiculturalism and National Parks Research Project Field Tape 1. The following quotes form this source.