Local culture and lifestyle varies hugely across a nation like Australia. That’s why people like choice in where they live.
I’ve just been down to Melbourne to visit my son in Fitzroy. It is vibrant and full of life but quite different from here. There are huge graffiti-art walls all over the place trams running down the main streets coffee shops and tiny pubs and restaurants and a huge eclectic range of shops and businesses. The houses are tiny ancient rows of workers’ cottages but the streets and parks are lovely. Gay rights posters prostitutes rights posters adorn lamppoles. Women workers in the local childcare centre wear burkas. A baby in the playground in the local park sports a Sea Shepherd’s t-shirt.
Returning here this feels like a very different place. Much more greenery and open space. Much more peaceful and quiet. Much cleaner. It feels much safer. This valley is its own place with its own lifestyle its own type of people and values. The lack of chaos almost hits you in the face.
There is quite a bit of criticism ‘out there’ of the type of people and values that typify our valley community here but we need to feel confident in who we are in our right (it doesn’t fit the current politically correct description profile) to respect and tolerance that is demanded by so many other types of communities around Australia. Our basic profile here is Anglo-European origin Christian. Lots of sports groups (almost like a country town!). Lunch clubs craft groups bushcare groups. Low levels of unemployment. It’s not obvious when you drive around the streets and I didn’t know it when I started studying to understand the community in this valley. And it doesn’t mean that everyone goes to church or has English ancestors or plays a sport but its not far from the truth. On the whole though the stats tell us that is who we are. There is a high level of courtesy to those who don’t exactly fit this description but who fit in well and the numbers aren’t large enough to seriously challenge established local culture. We are very stable and have very low levels of crime.
This is the community we are working within to build resilience. Let’s respect this community with its own unique culture and values. We all do a reasonable amount of good here and little hurting other people. There are lots of worse places in the world to be lots of worse values to live by. Lots of other places for people to choose to live who don’t want to integrate and live harmoniously here in cultural accord. Room for those who have something genuinely valuable and different to add some spice locally.
In the context of building local resilience it is very important to start by understanding our local culture. Building resilience isn’t about turning us into different people. It isn’t about having to vote for a different party or suddenly having to pretend that we’ve never like a roast dinner. Resilience building identifies the strengths of who we are as a community and the weaknesses and then works out together how we can tighten our defences against disasters. Having too much difference erode our relatively strong cultural stability and coherence here could damage our resilience – at the very least we need to think about it.
The world is a better place for having both the Fitzroys and The Groves in it not just one or the other.