Mr Andreas Vorst-Hopkins
The University of Melbourne
Having been born in Darwin N.T. to an Indigenous Australian father and a German mother, I have always seen things from the perspective of myriad cultural norms and equally fluid identities. I am both an Australian and a German national, and now also identify as a citizen of the European Union.
I sit in between two examples of modern ethnic cleansing, I feel the shame and guilt from the actions of my German grandfathers generation, but also feel the sorrow and mourning due to the injustices visited upon my Indigenous family. Having grown up in a capital city that was closer to the Singapore then to Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra, I have since a very early age considered 'Asia' as part of Australia and vice versa.
Through my politics and cultural studies and now into my Law degree I have developed a keen interest in the development of the EU as a rising soft superpower in a new world dealing with the decline of the last great military superpower. In my view, the answer to the problems of globalization may be in looking toward the European Union as the basis for an increasingly integrated world needing intergovernmental and/or supranational system to police an regulate the actions of nation states, transnational corporations, international crime and terror organizations.
I am not quite sure how Australia will come to relate with its South East Asian neighbours in the future, but what I do know is spreading goodwill and good governance will not lead to a stable basis for economic and cultural harmony.