2017-01-25
Huong Truong
For the past 10 years, I've been a Greens member taking in progressive politics from the ever-changing Melbourne suburbs. For the last three years, I've been exploring my Vietnamese heritage with other second-generation refugee babies, understanding it as a fundamental part of our Australian-ness.
A few Footscray Lunar New Year Festivals ago, I was wandering past the colourful stalls down Hopkins Street after a stint at a Greens stall. By chance, I picked up a recruitment brochure for the first ever Vietnamese Community Association's Dual-Identity Leadership Program. Today, I'm a part of the 16-strong VCA-Vic Executive Team and growing into a whole new set of perspectives for building community and changing politics in Australia.
It has become more apparent to me that the demographics and cultural diversity of the Greens membership are not yet representative of Australia's multicultural society. Whole communities, cultural perspectives and values are entirely absent from our Party and our political platform.
These are blind spots we must start tackling in earnest as a Party. Participation and electoral support for the Greens amongst communities of colour needs some radical love and intention. The Victorian Multicultural Greens Working Group aims to do just this.
The Multicultural Greens work to make the Australian Greens Victoria a safe and nurturing place for people of colour, to facilitate activism around anti-racism and multiculturalism, to support our branches, our candidates and MPs to engage minority communities, and to host amazing events.
Creating and preserving spaces for people from diverse backgrounds is the best way we know to allow these underrepresented folks the breathing room to socialise, reflect on and organise around our concerns and interests.
If we've learnt anything about organising in our own communities and other non-white spaces, it is that 'participation' is not always progressive or empowering for minority communities. But it has a much better chance of being so when people of colour can gather to speak for themselves, to share and process issues, and evolve our political presence amongst ourselves, and our communities.
Participation of underrepresented groups is a process not a product. We are not an issue to be resolved. We are not a product to be consumed. True participation of marginalised people is necessarily about them determining the tone and texture of their interests and shaping their own reasons and methods of activism.
This necessarily means forums and institutional space for us to imagine what it might mean to be Australian, or to be Green, without 'being white' as the frame of reference.
This is the political antidote to the vampiric far-right populist politics that seeks to validate and amplify divisiveness in political dialogue and manufacture new fears from latent ones.
Being an ally to our multicultural friends means actively ensuring inclusive, progressive spaces grow within the Party, and are demonstrably visible to prospective members and the public.
All of us exist in and between multiple and varied communities, cultures, subcultures, and societies. And we often find ourselves acting as bridges between communities. Sometimes we are called on to help connect dialogue between two worlds. And sometimes we have the privilege of shaping the relationships that are built between our communities.
The Multicultural Greens are learning on the Party's behalf what these bridge-building expeditions could mean creatively, institutionally and politically.
With a National Multicultural Greens Group being set up in 2017, we are hungry to contribute to the Greens' story and to our movement for a just and inclusive world.
Keep your eyes and ears open for more diversity within the Greens. And if you are a person of colour, join us to help build bridges and empower our communities.
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Huong Truong is Deputy to the External Affairs Vice President, Vietnamese Community in Australia – Victorian Chapter and Co-Convenor Victorian Multicultural Greens Working Group