Chào! Greetings to all my new-found friends from Vietnam, in whom - as with all of us - there will ultimately be no distinctions of any human kind. In saying this, of course, I do not wish to forget paying honour at the beginning to those here whom you count as distinguished guests.

It is quite extraordinary that I should find myself giving a speech which will be totally untranslatable incidentally - with my esteemed colleague Professor Sharpe. It is very rare that we find ourselves on the same podium together. Fortunately my speech will not be a matter of the younger professor as a clone of the older one (or a case of the younger japanese professor who feels he can only say "Ah so deska?"). No, there is no fear of that because these days there is so much less opportunity than before even to visit each other in our own rooms, let alone confer about-each other's speeches at conventions like this.

Well, these preliminary remarks at least herald the fact that I am going to talk this morning more about difference or diversity than sameness; and already indicate that I will avoid pursuing the same themes as others. I will be talking to you first of all about toleration or tolerance in religious matters, and secondly, about both unity and disunity (or diversity) in religious affairs. I will be talking to you, by the way as your fellow "Aussie", who hopes you are coming to like it here. Eventually you will get used to this place; actually in its own way, you will find, Australia is a special type of refugee camp - a refuge from all the harsh realities that we imagine existing elsewhere on the face of the earth! But this fair country is not without its problems, as doubtless you have already discovered, and I will have to do some plain speaking about some of them.

Now the Cao-Dai community is one religious grouping in the pluralist society of Australia. Perhaps Sydney in particular has become the most ethnically diverse city in the world. But there is still a problem of prejudice and intolerance in this beautiful, well-housed place which is well nigh the best sheltered city in the world. As you have probably sensed already there are some "hangovers" in Australia, bad effects, you might say, left over from the drinking party called History.

The Past can have these unfortunate, long-term influences which hang on in the Present. I myself felt this very strongly only the other day, when my family and I hosted carol-singing at our home on Christmas Eve. My wife, who is a doctor, invited one of her patients to the occasion, and he was rather desperate to come. In turned out he was desperate to talk to somebody, and as the carol- singing wafted through the air, he was talking, talking away about something that deeply disturbed him. Eventually I found out what was worrying him. He was a Seventh Day Adventist, and he found himself very bit.ter toward Australia because of the ten-year 'scandal' known as the Azaria affair. It is strange but even over the media we currently hear commentators summing up the 1980s as the decade of the Chamberlain or Azaria case. Still more peculiar is it that this case, which began in 1980, is not over, and the Chamberlains, who are members of an apparently "unacceptable" Christian sect, have not yet received the compensation due to such an innocent and maligned family. This case, however, is a sad reflection of the history of prejudice and intolerance which has existed and still persists in my country. And sadly enough the modern media can play on these ssocial tendencies and make them worse.

Thinking a little more about the past, you may be surprised to learn that the idea of the 'Yellow Peril' - the fear of the invading 'yellow hordes' from the north! - was largely an Australian invention. One of my old bosses, John M. Borrie, a rounding father of demography, was counting heads here in the 1920s and 30s, and demonstrating how vastly the peoples of east and southeast Asia outnumbered the whites in Australia and New Zealand. The message about the discrepancy, when it was popularized, was that the Asians were going to "take us over". By now you may have sensed how this fear, and white suspicion of Asians, persists into the present. It is a hangover of history, and of course the war-time expansion of Japan helped to reinforce it. As newcomers to this country you will have to sensitize yourselves to these issues.

The mass media, of course, have a habit of dredging up such old themes and relating them to more immediate problems, highlighting, for example, vendetta and gang killing amongst Vietnamese youth in Sydney (with signs of "yellow peril" fears and anti-Asian sentiments being kept in mind). With this background in view, it will become an increasingly important task for CaoDaists, and also solidly committed groups of Buddhists and Catholics from Vietnam, to alter the image that other Australians may have of the Vietnamese, and in removing the grounds on which intolerance and prejudice can fester, or on which matters of the past can be used to create an immediate sense of suspicion.

It is not easy to take up constructive tasks however if one feels a victim of a confused world of Sydney for one place, with all its pluralism. When we are confronted with other people who are different from us, we can become very upset at the cacophany or at all. By cacophany I mean different kinds of music which offend the ear and cause strain as competing noises. Actually, since I have just driven up from Melbourne to be at this convention, I can illustrate cacophany in another, hopefully pertinent way. For, outside of Melbourne a few nights ago, in the mountains, a new-found young friend of mine was invited to sleep in a small pyramid, which sat in a beautiful garden and was normally used for meditation. (You people are used to pyramids, because the eye of God is sometimes displayed on one in CaoDaist iconography as it also seems to be on the American dollar bill.) I am sorry to say, however, that when this young man emerged from sleep there in the morning he reported on his extraordinary dreaming. "It was as if there were twenty-five different television sets blurting out messages in my brain, and sleep seemed impossible. There was just so much untied energy in that place". I think Sydney and urban Australia can get rather like this - very destabilizing, very frightening and threatening because of the extraordinary differences between people. I hope that the Cao-Dai community will be fortunate enough to find itself settling down,- I suspect more so when the temple is erected, - and overcome feelings of disturbance.

I trust that the temple will be erected without any more hassles than have been experienced already. I hope that you will not run into the kinds of troubles met by others who have introduced religions the average Australian has never known. Professor Sharpe and I heard the sad story this year about the Zoroastrian community, for example, and about how they have bought land in a Sydney suburb only to find that, not only are Zoroastrians disallowed to build on this property, but that they cannot even enter it at this stage, because an affidavit has been taken out against them by the people in the same street. My hope is that this does not happen in your case; it looks as if things are going well, in any case, and the temple will be one means by which you will find some stability amid modern turbulence.

Remember though, that the temple will also be a symbol of difference - from Vietnam. Australians still have fresh memories about the war in Vietnam, especially because there was such conflict among the Australians themselves over American and Australian involvement in the war. I hope you will sympathize with the inner tension you find reflected among the people you meet here; and also recognize some of the problems that you yourselves have inevitably brought with you from Vietnam and which you will have to work through as you become more settled here. I suspect that a fair few CaoDaists will be somewhat worried about Catholics, considering what happened in Vietnam when Ngo Dinh Diem turned out to be much more Pro-Catholic and anti-CaoDaist than at first anticipated. And naturally you have brought with you such strong anti-Communist sentiments; which may lead to certain problems with left-wing elements in the workforce in this country; or perhaps make you feel out of sympathy with the way the Australian government is back-peddling over Cambodia - in allowing the Khmer Rouge room to get to the conference table after the horrors of Pol Pot, and after the incredible trauma in other parts of 'Indo-China' in the wake of the Vietcong victory in 1975.

Average Australians have lots of lessons to learn about you and about understanding human differences, just as you do.'Old' Australians usually take longer to learn patience and tolerance simply because they have been here for a long period of time. For your part, you may be ready and willing to understand, but you will need to acquire confidence. The temple may help in this, although once it is erected there will arise the difficulty of actually avoiding a type of 'ghetto mentality' - or of falling under the spell of the temple's security you now so badly need. But I think that, in the course of time, and God blessing you, you will be able to find a new understanding and adaptability in your new situation.

With the presence of CaoDaism in Australia, and the coming of more Vietnamese, along with many other ethnic groups from around the world, a constantly renewed emphasis should be made on religious toleration and freedom in this country. After all, religious freedom is written into the Australian Constitution; and Cao-Dai Religion can offer a useful reinforcement of this principle with its crucial stress on the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity and the unity of religions.

Speaking of this last stress, will lead me to finish off now by talking about the whole question of unity and disunity (or diversity) in religious affairs. From what I have learnt of Cao-Dai Religion, largely from Nguyen Chanh Giao and Dao Cong Tam, it is a faith very interesting in the way it synthesizes the great religions within the context of Vietnam as the meeting place of East and West. In this attempt at a blending, it has some parallels to Bahaiism, although I note that in Cao-Dai Religion there is a tendency to lump Judaism and Islam in with Christianity. This seems a result of the fact that Islam and the Jews had such little effect on Vietnam, whereas with Bahaiism, which grew up in the Middle East, the synthesizing brings together traditions rather differently - with more recognition of the background distinctiveness of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. (Bahaiism, incidentally, is quietly gaining acceptance here in Sydney. The beautiful temple on Mona Vale Road has made an incredible difference in that respect; perhaps the same pattern of acceptance will follow if the Cao Dai Temple plays an important part as a focal point for many people in our community. Like the Bahais, perhaps you will invite to your ceremonies various representatives from the different religions in the city as part of the ongoing process to bring peace and understanding between peoples).

On the actual (or substantive) question about the unity of religions, you will have to forgive me that, as a Professor of Comparative Religion, I naturally become rather sceptical about mixing religions. As a scholar, of course, I get fascinated by the many points of similarity as well as great differences between religions. The real trouble with me is that I am a specialist in primal religion, and considering that there are 9,000 or so socalled primitive religions around the globe, it is very difficult for me to imagine how (or that) they could all be united. Even in Vietnam, as you will already know, there is a fair sprinkling of tribal religions, and I have not heard that Cao Daists have placed them anywhere in their talk about unity.

Is there, however, some kind of underlying mystical unity behind all religions? I confess that I remain worried about amalgamations - academics are all worried about university amalgamations at the moment! - but that is only my point of view, speaking as your humble guest and trying to point out my difficulties. At least you know what sorts of problems an academic can have when coming to terms with a community like yours which visualizes the unity of religions under the One Eye of the one God (an eye which should definitely be 'keeping an eye' on Australia too!)

Perhaps in conclusion I should state what I am prepared to concede with some conviction. I can readily agree with Blaise Pascal, that great seventeenth century philosopher (and, Frenchman, I am embarrassed to say among a people once colonized in Indo-China!), when he claimed that "all the evils of life have fallen upon us because human beings will not sit alone quietly in a room". I believe, too, following upon what Professor Sharpe has already said, that it is not only important for us to meet, talk and understand each other vocally but also to find what is deeply yearning underneath or within us all. In the significance of silence and meditation over and above talk we will, I dare say, find a hidden unity. All ideas and profound insights, I hold personally, lie deep in God, and so when one looks at the incredible diversity of religious beliefs they present themselves as fragments and expressions of the One who is caring and looking after us all. Out of our talk, out of our silence and out of the wisdom of God, I also trust, we can all come to learn to act out 'unconquerable good will', which I think is probably the best definition of love. God bless.

Garry W. Trompf
(Professor in the History of Ideas, School of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney)