I have always enjoyed flights home from Australia as they invariably depart in the early afternoon, affording me the opportunity to gaze and marvel at the great emptiness down below as the plane traverses the continent in a southeast — northwesterly direction.

Beyond the populated strip on the east coast and farming land further in, it is an unending vista of flat semi-desert barrenness bathed in intense sunlight that one sees for the next four hours or so.

There are clumps of bush and scattered trees dotting the landscape, dry riverbeds and wind-sculpted rocky hills. Dirt-tracks running in perfect straight lines that seem to be leading from nowhere to nowhere are the only signs of human presence. There are stretches of desert with absolutely no vegetation and then more semi-desert landscape. It all seemed so surreal, considering that just hours ago I was in one of the most lively and cosmopolitan of the world's cities.

When I left home for Australia in the late 1970s as a teenager, I had naively expected it to be an outpost of Anglo-Saxon traditions, with nostalgia for the mother England impressed everywhere on her culture and symbols. After all, Australians are subjects of the Queen of England.

I thought of Abel Magwitch, whom I have always felt to be the real hero of Great Expectations, as one of the quintessential early Australians who worked very hard to build the Australian nation and wealth for themselves.

My misconception was immediately dispelled upon meeting my first landlord a day after arriving in Australia. A labourer who had migrated from Southern Italy, he spoke broken English with a heavy accent and his wife hardly spoke any. At least I felt comforted that there were quite a few people whose English was worse than mine.

Australia's credit

Further down the years, I got used to the fact that whenever I had to ring up to enquire about a house for rent, more often than not, the person at the other end of the line would be speaking with either a Greek or Italian accent. Extremely hard working, the southern European immigrants forged a symbiotic relationship with foreign students during my time as far as affordable accommodation was concerned, never mind that quite often what they gave us were creaky old houses furnished with bargain, used furniture, and even older fridges of the sort that we had, from time to time, to chisel away with a screw driver the ice cave that was threatening to obliterate the freezer compartment.

At the Brisbane mosque in Holland Park, I was greatly impressed with the number of nationalities gathered in one place — there were immigrants from South Asia, South Africa, Lebanon, Eastern Europe and our own region. During Islamic festivities when Muslims would gather at the mosque, standing out among the crowd would be the Bosnian patriarch, Mr Imamovic, with his brood of blonde-haired grandchildren.

Indeed the Australians of my youthful imagination were few and far between. One was our English teacher, Miss F, an interesting but somewhat crusty woman who made us learn Dickens, Shakespeare and Wordsworth like we were school kids in England's Home Counties.

The few years that I was there as a student and later during my visits for conferences, I never ceased to be amazed and amused by Australia's cosmopolitanism and its capacity to absorb immigrants. In fact, 22 percent of its present population was born overseas.

You would always meet people who speak with foreign accents indicating that they are the newly arrived, searching for a better life for themselves and their families in the "Lucky Country". Most came via a planned migration policy while others came in waves as a result of a crisis in their homeland — in the 1970s it was the Lebanese, then the Vietnamese boat people, the mainland Chinese after Tiananmen, the Indonesian Chinese after Suharto's fall in 1998, and so on. Decades earlier, after World War II and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, were the southern and eastern Europeans.

It is to Australia's credit that despite having high immigration rates from culturally, ethnically and religiously diverse backgrounds, Australians could live in harmony. It may not be perfect, for one reads of crime gangs of Lebanese teenagers feeling excluded from the mainstream and of Vietnamese ghettoes, but on the whole quite good. Most would agree that the diversity of cultures living in harmony is what drives Australia's dynamism and vibrancy. Today it is one of the most successful nations in the world economically, socially and politically.

Burst of patriotism

During my student years in Australia, I was amused at the Australians' laid-back attitude towards politics and the government, always maintaining a healthy dose of cynicism towards politicians, especially those in power.

The only time that I witnessed a fit of Australian patriotism was when Alan Bond's yatch Australia II won America's Cup in 1983. Back then I kept a routine of waking up before dawn in preparation for my final exams. On that day the stillness of dawn was broken by a wild celebration. The streets were alive with people screaming and cars honking. The bouncy rhythms of Men-at-Work's Down Under blared from car stereos and people chanted the song's catchy refrain:

"... I come from a land down under,
where beer does flow and men chunder,
can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder..."

Prime Minister Bob Hawke, wearing an outrageously gaudy jacket was emotionally upbeat on live TV, almost to the point of losing his self-control.

Otherwise Australians regard their government as a necessary nuisance, nowhere near as visible and domineering to what Malaysians are accustomed to.

But actually in matters of immigration policy and efforts at integrating and settling in the newly arrived, successive Australian governments, to their great credit, have been proactive and rational, give and take the present conservative government's controversial handling of asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Multiculturalism as a policy

First taking shape during the Whitlam years (1972-1975) and institutionalised during the Fraser years (1975-1983), multiculturalism as a policy was developed as a way of replacing the politically incorrect and outdated assimulationist policies of earlier years. It was based on the belief that society would work better if people felt that their cultural beliefs were respected and that they did not have to abandon their values to be considered good Australians.

Multiculturalism was put into operation after 1978 with a number of key programmes — in the media, with the creation of Special Broadcasting Services, in employment with equal opportunity, in service delivery with access and equity, and in wider social development.

In 1989, the two major parties reached an agreement to support multiculturalism. However, after 1996, the new Howard government backed away from it, reflecting the prime minister's belief that it was not a viable philosophy and undermined the Australian values he espoused.

After a number of years of wide debate, a new statement of Australian multiculturalism was adopted in 1999 which called for a lower level of government commitment. Many conservative groups believe multiculturalism should be abandoned and all programmes that support it should be closed.

On the other hand, many more people recognise the reality of Australia as a multicultural society, are proud of the diversity of cultures and the overwhelming success of different ethnic communities getting on together. It is interesting that Prime Minister Howard after the recent election created a new ministry of citizenship and multicultural affairs, commented by some as his conversion to multiculturalism, and he simply said that you have to go with the flow.

Lively debate

I was in Australia again recently and at that time there was a lively debate in the national daily The Australian on the subject of multiculturalism, given the rise of extreme right-wing anti-immigration parties in Europe, notably Le Pen's shock electoral success in France's first round of presidential elections and the Pim Fortuyn list in the Netherlands.

Not long after the debate started, the world was shocked to learn of Fortuyn's murder. A large picture of the dead maverick lying on a parking lot appeared on the front page of the newspaper. The shocking event, I suppose, animated the debate further.

Australia of course has had her Le Pen and the National Front, i.e. Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party. She withered as quickly as she rose after she was given the opportunity to say what she wanted to say. It was plain to those who can think rationally that xenophobia and blind racism cannot be the basis of nation-building and to be the way for political and economic success in an interdependent world. The wind was taken out of her sails when mainstream politicians openly debated the sensitive subject of immigration.

A common thread runs through extreme right-wing parties in western countries — anti-immigration and xenophobia, and after Sept 11 it has narrowed down to Muslims.

In times like this it is easy to blame immigrants, but the "l'insécurité" (crime) that Le Pen sold to French voters, the death of local culture and erosion of national identity and the disappearance of old comforting certainties of traditional societies have more to do with the frenzy of corporate-driven globalisation, that with its obsession for efficiency and profitability, seeks to make the world's diverse peoples into uniform, colourless consumers. Appealing to the baser instincts of those most vulnerable to the ravages of the God of Market forces would be even more destructive, taking the world back to the days of unfettered nationalisms and rivalry between peoples.

Much to teach

Of course, old Europe is nowhere comparable to the geographically isolated and the young nation of Australia. Rightly or wrongly, Europeans perceive themselves to be vulnerable to invasions by hungry hordes of the wretched of the earth from the other side of the Mediterranean. In a certain way, Malaysia shares that same geographical vulnerability.

Australia's reputation has somewhat been tarnished by the Tampa incident, though its own citizens held protests against the treatment of asylum-seekers in its detention centres. And there is still the outstanding, complex issue with regard to the aborigines.

All that notwithstanding, the world has much to learn from her by recognising that multiculturalism is an inescapable, modern reality for many of us, and if correctly managed, can be richly rewarding to societies that embrace it.

Even our Malaysia can learn a thing or two from our distant neighbour down under, at least by dealing honestly with its challenges and not submit them to the expediency of race politics.

Dr MAZENI ALWI is a medical practitioner who takes care of sick children.