Homeward Bound

This Weekend’s Sunday Telegraph magazine, provided another angle on the building multicultural debate with the feature; ‘Homeward Bound’. This article takes a closer look at four individuals from a ABC four part series called ‘Family Footsteps’.

 

The feature draws you in by opening with a controversial topic; the rights and opportunities open to women in Arab countries. The description of Sara’s exciting modern lifestyle is juxtaposed to the Egyptian farm girl’s existance and this striking comparison is a strong lead.

 

“Sara El-Gamal had been in Egypt just three days when she came face to face with how her life might have been, had fate taken a different course. A “typical Aussie kid” who grew up in Sydney’s southern suburbs, the 31-year-old had spent her adult life roaming the globe in search of adventure, snowboarding, dirt biking – anything for an adrenalin rush.

Now, however, in a tiny mud hut on an impoverished farm in the Egyptian countryside, she found herself sharing tea with a teenage girl with no education, no career and nothing to look forward to except the chance that a suitor might appear to rescue her from a life of drudgery. “Suddenly, it just hit me,” recalls Sara. “This could have been me if Dad hadn’t migrated. I could have had that life, stuck there in a mud hut, just waiting, minding the cow and the goat. It was scary.”

The lead also constructs the conflict which will be central the whole article: The conradiction created between the western experiences of the Australian citizens and the vastly different traditional cultures which are part of their heritage.

 

This conflict is a personal one for the four people who are profiled in this article, and is therefore approached from four different angles. It is however also some thing which links these four Australians and fits into one big narrative. This narrative is the individuals persuit of a better life, and this idea is refferred to repeatedly in the article.

The feature explores the family background of each character and by doing this, gives the narrative a feeling of progression. The reader is taken on a chronological journey and thus given the feeling of movement or travel, as is the topic of the feature.

The language used is very basic and often veryAustralian; “a typical aussie kid”. This adds to the conflict or contrast between the character’s home in Australia and these exotic locations which are part of their history.

The article is very readable, mainly because it has a real narrative feel, with a beginning middle and end and provides interesting and colourful insights through anecdotes into the four destinations.