A Conflict of Cultures

Extract

Torres Strait Islanders are frequently characterised by other Australians as caught between two cultures. Evidence and speculation that the majority of Torres Strait Islanders have neither ‘made it’ in the white mainstream world nor live exactly and traditionally as their ancestors did, sometimes lead to the glib perceptions that Islander people are members of neither world and are caught somewhere between the two.

Implicit in this line of reasoning is the perception that the identity of Torres Strait Islanders in the contemporary world is an ‘either/or’ proposition - either Islanders must, in order to remain Islanders, remain totally traditional or they must, in order to survive at all, become totally assimilated into the dominant society. This erroneous and simplistic view of the choices open to Islander people ignores the value of the school in providing a cultural synthesis rather than a cultural replacement.