Thursday 17 April 2008

We are different

but the same



Christi from MacNellyFamilyAdventures made a comment about my blog saying, 'we're all not so different'.

That comment got me thinking.

I have lived in other countries and travelled a lot and, while cultural differences can be quite marked, we are essentially all the same. After all, if you go far back enough, we are all drawn from the same melting pot.

Australia is a very young country and so it has relied on immigration to become the great country that it is. Of course, I still hear people talking negatively about immigration policies and foreigners taking our jobs. It's the same everywhere, I am sure. Strange thing is, many of those who talk this way had parents who came from other countries to settle here (??).

My heritage is German, Polish, Irish and English (I would also like to be Italian and am trying to find a skeleton in the family vault just to prove it) but I was born in Australia. If you track nearly everyone's history it's going to throw up a lot of different bits of ethnic groupings. None of us is in any way 'pure'. The whole thing is a glorious cocktail. We have been shaken, stirred, melted and blended until any one of us would be hard-pressed to swear where we originated. Apparently half of all European males carry a line that can be traced back to Genghis Khan - and he came from Mongolia.

So Christi is right, the differences between us are so very little when you wipe away that veneer we all wear. Yes, we all may wear different clothes, speak different languages and have different customs but we all fall in love, all want someone to hold and hug, to have a family, to be happy and successful, not be afraid of the dark, to live a long time, die a good death, to not get sick, fat or old and we want to own a great pair of Monolo Blahniks (oh sorry, that's just my shallow veneer that last bit...).

What does it matter that we wear a grass skirt (and mine is an attractive little number as well), a tartan skirt, a suit or a sari or a loin cloth, if deep down we cry when we are hurt, laugh when we are joyful and our stomachs rumble when we are hungry?

Wipe away the veneer and you will see that we are all quite lovely and all quite human. Think about those people, who feel just as we do and have the same basic needs and wants we do, caught in wars and disasters. Everyone is touched in the same way.

A powerful movie that really bought this message home to me was Hotel Rwanda. If you haven't seen it I encourage you to do so.

It's easy to focus on our differences because it somehow makes others' suffering more palatable. However, the more we see, acknowledge and think we are the same, the less differences there will be.

Thanks Christi, for the reminder.

So, what kind of exotic cocktail are you?

(Photo by dbking, Flickr)

11 comments:

  1. Bravo, Lilly. Very well said, and wouldn't it be nice if more people got the message? There is far too much "holier-than-thou" going on, so it is good to remember that deep down we really are all the same. Although, I'm not sure I could pull off the grass skirt as well as you. LOL By the way, my cocktail mix is Irish and French (please don't tell anyone about the French part).

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  2. Hey Matt - French and Irish, that's pretty cool. That's why the internet is so great because it breaks down geographical barriers (I know its very bad in other ways but..) and we realise we are no different for each other really when all is said and done.

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  3. Hi Lily,
    I was gonna say "very well said" too but matt said it first so i guess we are different but thought the same ting about what we read.

    "at or old and we want to own a great pair of Monolo Blahniks (oh sorry, that's just my shallow veneer that last bit...)"

    What does it matter that we wear a
    grass skirt (and mine is an attractive little number as well)"

    Hahaha me want manolo too!
    My cocktail mix would be chinese, malay,spanish and then my husband is dutch,malay,african,india, polish...gosh our future kids would have a long list eh?

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  4. Hi Lilly,

    You are absolutely right. Great post! I really think the world would be so much nicer if at least a majority of people thought that way.

    I never did understand the whole race issue, because like you said we really are from the same "melting pot" if you go back far enough. Why carry on and hate each other? In a sense, we are all family. It's really sad people don't get this..

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  5. Pinay Jade - you are indeed a beautiful exotic cocktail and your children will be even moreso.Lucky them! The shoes - what can I say? Ha ha

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  6. Hi Michele - I know, watch that film Hotel Rwanda if you haven't because I think I was certainly very naive about this whole issue to be honest. Thanks for visiting.

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  7. I really loved the movie Hotel Rwanda.It made me cry. It's such a sad story. The thing is that it really happened, and that makes it more awful.

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  8. Brilliant and very poignant post -
    'we all fall in love, all want someone to hold and hug, to have a family, to be happy and successful, not be afraid of the dark, to live a long time, die a good death, to not get sick, fat or old'
    plus the
    'if deep down we cry when we are hurt, laugh when we are joyful and our stomachs rumble when we are hungry?' - if only all of us can consider this we would appreciate more the value of another's worth and their culture for all it's differences.

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  9. Lilly I just love this post. Even though there are things that do make us different, at the core we are all alike. Women are women, men are men and children are children no matter what you country you live in. Girls like to shop (among other things) guys like sports and kids LOVE to play! I think what we really have here is an overall like of respect for humanity???

    By the way, my cocktail is 1/4 Greek and the rest is German, English and Irish. My kids are all that plus my oldest 2 sons from my first marriage have Pakistani and the youngest 3 from my second marriage have Scottish. What a beautiful blend eh!?

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  10. baby~amore - thanks for visiting - its always the basics we need to be reminded of I guess.

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  11. MacNelly Family Adventures - thanks for giving me the inspiration for the post and it sounds like your family is just the exotic cocktail that I was talking about. How truly wonderful. You are so right - it all comes down to respect - respecting ourselves enough to respect everyone else. Thank you again for the reminder!

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Thanks for your comments.