Vicissitudes

noun: successive, alternating, or changing phases or conditions, as of life or fortune; ups and downs

This word is used in the introductory paragraph of the article "Indigenous Australia's Pilgrimage to Islam" by Peter Stephenson, which describes how the indigenous population of Australia is shifting towards the Islamic faith in order to get back in touch with their precolonial roots. The word "vicissitude" jumped out at me because, firstly, I had no idea what it meant. Then, once I looked it up, I realized what an amazing word it is. This one word describes culture, to and through every way it affects life: religiously, politically, linguistically. These peoples are trying to disassociate themselves with everything negative colonization brought to their culture by embracing another. Islam appeals to the Aboriginal peoples because it is not a major political power that tried to suppress their indigenous culture, but a lifestyle that has co-existed in Australia for nearly 300 years. The Aboriginal and Muslim peoples have intermarried without one or the other needing to bend or comply with any standard. This kind of harmony is appealing to anyone, especially the peoples who have been under pressure to mesh with Western society for hundreds of years. The Aborigines and the Muslims have faced the same pressures to conform to the images of the Western world, so it only makes sense that they get along so well. Each knows the struggle and the hardships that has come along with colonization. This kind of understanding naturally leads to friendship, kinship, and eventual mixing of the two cultures in one way or another. It is the kind of mutual understanding of each other that the West should try to conform to, not force its views of "normalcy" upon.