To be or Not to Be by Nyadol Nyuon

The question "to be or not to be" can be answered only when I know what, or who, I need or ought to be.

Most recently the question has expanded to become "to be or not to be an Australian". But I have come to realise that because the answer does not entirely fall to me, there are limits on how I can respond to the question.

How can I give an answer when I can't make it happen? It seems like solving this question is somehow someone else's problem, but it is not. It is my problem. It's just that someone else holds the answer and thus the solution, or do they?

I was born in Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia because my county of origin, Sudan, was in the middle of a civil war. In 1991, another war broke out in my country of refuge Ethiopia. My family fled to Kenya where we settled in Kakuma Refugee camp. In 2005, our resettlement application was approved by the Australian Government.

I arrived in Australia on the 16th of March 2005. But this is not a story about my journey through the hardship of a refugee life - you have heard enough of them. It is a story about a journey to find a stable sense of identity, an identity that you not only embrace but one which also embraces you back.

I am a Sudanese in origin, an Ethiopian by birth, a Kenyan by naturalisation and I am becoming Australian. On top and above of all these identities, I am simply like any other young person trying to establish my own understanding of the meaning of life and my surroundings. No man is an island. We all need a society as a point of reference, to validate the ‘meanings' we create in life, to give us a sense of belonging, to know who we are and to regulate who we are. Through the meaning of "we" sometimes we can define the "I".

I believe that by balancing being part of a collective with our individuality we can sustain a healthy state of mind and body.

However, I am still left with the question: to which society do I refer - the Sudanese, the Ethiopian, the Kenyan or the Australian? Is there such an identity as a Sudanese-Ethiopian-Kenyan-Australian? Or perhaps there is a less complex identity of a Sudanese Australian? If so, what does that constitute? What part of being Sudanese must I let go to be an Australian? What part of being Australian can I choose not to adapt so I remain Sudanese?

Is being a Sudanese Australian a "compromise" identity? And if this is the case, what I am to compromise and what should not be compromised? Sometimes I wonder if these two identities (as well as the others) are so narrowly and politically defined that I can not comfortably fall into either of the two categorizations

Multiculturalism should solve my problem but it does not. Multiculturalism has always adopted a different shape and form depending on the Australian political landscape. So too has the term "integration". When it was defined by the previous government, integration sounded like a down graded form of assimilation, evidenced by the numerous debates about "Australian values and an Australian identity ". The debates seemed to foster a certain kind of identity in a so-called multicultural society with the citizenship test as a testimony.

But these debates left me more confused than enlightened. Conversely being Sudanese is a daily struggle as some of the "things" I do or say are sometimes considered too Australian to be Sudanese.

It seems that these two "societies" are better at judging what excludes me from their defined identity than they are at accepting me on our common grounds.

So in answer to the question, to be or not to be, my resolution is that I am as much Australian as I am Sudanese. I don't have to sacrifice one to be the other. Becoming an Australian is an expansion of what or who I consider myself to be. To become an Australian is to learn a new way of understanding and analyse the world from a different perspective.

I am not blind to how this change will come about and how harmoniously it will occur, but I recognise that we need more time to exaggerate our differences than we need to emphasise our similarities.

The truth of the matter is, whether I am Sudanese or Australian what is required of me as a human being does not change. The notions of respect, integrity, hard work, honesty, friendship and kindness have all been shown to me by both Australians and Sudanese.

So maybe to be an Australian, a Sudanese or a Sudanese-Australian is above all to be a virtuous human being, who recognises the diversity in the world; some one who is willing to rid themselves of ignorance and accept the learning opportunities offered by different cultures.

Australia has provided me with more than a state while Sudan will always remain a part of me. These qualities speak to my sense of self, which is still growing and might not stop growing because I will not restrict myself to concrete definitions in a changing world.