Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

There are multiple instances of situations where I felt out of place. Rather than enumerating each one, it is better to describe the underlying reasons why the feeling of being out of place is so common in my life.

The major reason why I feel out of place is because I had a bicultural upbringing. What the hell does that mean? Being an Australian born child of Egyptian-Armenian parents (Armenians by ethnic background but Egyptian by birth) is not exactly a large demographic in Western Sydney – or in Anglophone Australia for that matter.

From my earliest experiences at school, being the only Armenian background student presented its own difficulties. For a start, having to explain to white Australians that there are Armenians from Egypt was an obstacle in itself. When the Anglo majority population know Egypt as the land of pharaohs, Tutankhamen, with Yul Brynner playing an ancient Egyptian and Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea in that movie, I found myself having to provide an impromptu history lesson.

For instance, Queen Cleopatra – made widely familiar to Anglophone people through the acting skill of Elizabeth Taylor, was from a Macedonian ruling dynasty. The pyramids of Giza were ancient history to her. In fact, the pyramids were further removed back in time than we are from Cleopatra’s time. So when Marc Antony and Cleopatra had their love affair, the pyramids were already tens of thousands of years old. And besides, I am Armenian, so having to explain Cleopatra is a distraction from my bicultural heritage.

Secondly, I quickly learned that my name is so incredibly complex, so enormously difficult and complicated for Anglophone Australians to understand and pronounce. Just stating my name was a cause of mockery and ridicule, especially at the pre-teens age. Screwing up their face, and grunting ‘Huh?’ at me when I stated my name was the first step in a long road to feeling out of place.

I have already written why it is important to pronounce foreign names correctly. It is not difficult, just try and you will see that foreign names are easy to pronounce.

Please do not misunderstand, I had a generally positive time at school. Hanging out with friends, playing sports, socialising – all that was important growing up. But the nagging feeling that I was out of place remained. No-one in my circle was truly like me.

Yes it is true that Australia is becoming more multicultural, with greater numbers of people tracing their origins to non-English speaking countries. However, multicultural policies – and the current much-hyped value of social cohesion – has not resulted in greater interethnic solidarity and understanding.

While school was undeniably a great time, that feeling of being out of place never really left me. Perhaps university would be different?

I have fond memories of all the social and educational experiences at university. A new world opened up, and new horizons were available. The formative interactions of university were invaluable. However, I had that nagging suspicion of feeling out of place. Not from any of the students or faculty – but from the curriculum.

Sydney University, following in the footsteps of its Anglo-British templates (Oxford, Cambridge), taught philosophy and sociology as part of a tradition of Western Civilisation. Ancient Greece and Rome were the cultural and philosophical foundations of the Western worldview. The Ancient Greeks provided the basis for a shared cultural, philosophical and scientific heritage, so we were taught.

If you want to draw from the philosophical legacy of Ancient Greece, through the Roman Empire, up to our Anglo-Australian cultural roots, please be my guest. Indeed, this cultural narrative is very much a modern construct, created by the partisans of the British Empire. The latter, which ruled through cultural means as well as by force of arms, worked to build a cultural and philosophical legitimacy for its rule over nonwhite peoples.

If philosophy, science, art and culture all came from the Ancient Greeks, and was transmitted via the Romans to the British, well, where does that leave the rest of us? This is not to dispute the remarkable contributions of the Ancient Greeks to science and culture. I think that scientific achievements are absolutely awesome and should be respected. But if those accomplishments are portrayed as the exclusive province of Western civilisation, how does that include people outside of the accepted Western canon?

The Ancient Greeks invented democracy, and its art and architecture influenced generations of European designers. That is all well and good, but leaves me with a question. Why was it necessary for the Europeans to basically copy Islamic architecture and art, stealing from the Saracens? The latter is not my expression, but the title of a book by historian Diana Darke.

European architecture, including the recently refurbished Notre Dame Cathedral, owes its success to Islamic input. The Saracens, an offhand name given by Europe to the Islamic/Turkish East, provided direct templates copied by European architects. Landmarks of Western civilisation, such as Notre Dame and other cathedrals, owe a forgotten debt to Islamic architecture. Somehow, expressing gratitude to the Islamic influences in European architecture is omitted from the triumphalist construction of an overarching Western civilisation.

No, I am not disparaging the education that I received from Sydney University. I just wish they would include all of us; the non-English speaking world has made its contributions to the pursuit of science and culture. I would have thought that such achievements belong to all of humanity.