| Community Heritage Project: Wattan Report |
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As within all Australian communities, there is great diversity within the Lebanese and Arab Australian communities. There is also a diversity of histories of the experience of Arab Australian migration and settlement, from the 1870s to the present day. Syrians (as we were known in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) were the earliest Arabic speaking migrants in Australia, and now the Lebanese remain the largest and most dominant group.
It is most significant to note that in NSW, Arabic is the most spoken language other than English (2.1% of the population in 1996). All communities share Modern Standard Arabic (i.e. formal literacy, as used by the Arabic media) although some people may not identify as “Arab” or even “Arabic-speaking”. However each country / region in the Arab World has its own colloquial language, as well as its own cultural specificities.
The birthplaces of Arabic speaking people in NSW are: Australia, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Sudan, as well as Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. (Ref. Ethnic Affairs Commission: The People of NSW, Statistics from the 1996 Census).
This project has attempted to access stories of the two earliest waves of migrants, i.e. from the late 1800s to the 1920s, and up to the 1950s/ 60s. It is clear that there are many histories of Arabic speaking communities (including the “official discourse of the migrant narrative”) and that there is often little linkage and relationship between the different waves and generations of migrants.
This diversity is also layered within broader Australian society, which historically has an ignorance and even fear of Arabs. This project and report does not have the scope for an investigations of racism and “orientalism”, however any work with a focus on Arab Australian culture and heritage must be placed within these underlying historical and contemporary frameworks. This needs to be understood in the way that we can no longer examine “Australian history” without an underlying analysis of invasion and occupation of Aboriginal land and cultures.
There is a uniqueness in the histories and heritage of Lebanese and Arab Australians. There is a need for documentation and analysis of these layers of Australian history, and this project has evidence that further identifies this need on local, regional, national and international levels.
Earlier consultation with Lebanese and Arab Australian groups has highlighted the community’s awareness of the lack of representation in Australian cultural institutions (though they contribute to public funding of these institutions). However, there is a willingness to trust an institution that does not represent any particular community group’s interests. There is also a feeling that community cultures and histories are “validated” by being represented in cultural institutions – this is seen to be essential for the developing identities of 2nd and 3rd generation Arab Australians, especially young people.