Aboriginal People: The Wrongs Done To Them Essay, Research Paper

What Wrongs Have White Administrators Done to Aborginal people In The Past? Have

all wrong Been Righted?

Even though Hardy wrote his book in 1968, he gives a good definition of

how the Aborigines were treated in that time. A very bias ‘opinion’ based

difinition of the treatment of Aborigines:

“To this day the Aborigine is treated as less than a man, his situation

isapalling. His destiny and very identity is decided by his white superiors.

He can live only on terms dictated by the people, who despise him. He is paid

less, educated less, segregated, rendered landless, discriminated against,

insulted, deprived of dignity, his women molested.” (Hardy 1968)

The Aborgiines have been unfairly treated since European settlement.

Children have been taken from their parents, they have been humiliated. They

have shot down until not one Aborgine was left in Tasmania. Even though all te

worst of it has been over for the Aborigines – but has all wrongs been righted?

One of the most inhumane practices of white settlement in Australia

would be the taking of the Aboriginal children from their families. Some

Aboriginal children were brought up to feel ashamed of their race and heir

colour. “In a deliberate and callous attempt to conceal their cultural

identity,” Aboriginal children were taken from the families an forcibly placed

in an institution and were denied further contact with their families.

(Aboriginal legal service, 1995 pp ii)

For white Australia, the feeling of responsibility, shame, apologetic

and sympathetic for what their past people have done to the Aboriginals. The

Aboriginals feeling anguished, rejected and feeling in a sence made “different”

from the Europeans.

“For Aboriginal participants a catharsis for feelings of sorrow and rage,

and it encourages as to anticipate that, after generations of neglect, white

Australia is finally prepared to own the shame of its past, and to accept the

responsibility of effecting real and substancial reparation in the future.”

(Aboriginal legal service, 1995 pp ii)

Aboriginal children in Western Australia were removed from their

families until the 1960’s. The children were taken from police and ‘welfare

offices’ to be raised as white children for the purpose of assimilation.

(Aboriginal Legal Service, 1995 pp ii)

Surveys have been conducted from Aboriginal people. They were asked

about the effects the assimilation had on them. (See Appendix A)

“It is not only the intence impact of removal from families and culture

which has contributed to long lasting effects. Life at the missions, faster

care, or other institutions was for may a harsh experience which exacerbated the

dislocation, alienation, lonliness and pain felt from being rem,oved from

families and culture.” (Aboriginal Legal Service, 1995, pp 5)

Emotional, physical and sexual abuse were taking place apon Aboriginal

children in institutions and dormatories. “Spiritual hurt has also suffered the

Aboriginal children from the removal from their families. The following list

shows how Aboriginal children were abused. (Aboriginal Legal Service 1995, pp

5) (See Appendix B)

The often forcilde take of Aboriginal children from their families were

taken into orphanages, missions, and foster care. Aboriginal children were

assimulated and integrated and were in control of white people “allowing those

in control to educate and rear Aboriginal children in a manner they saw fit. In

most cases that up-bringing was informed by the opinion that “it was in the

(Aborigines) best interest to be something other than Aboriginal.” (Aboriginal

Legal Service 1995 pp 10)

“The goal of assimilating children of mixed Aboriginal blodd ‘into the

white community’…. was an attempt to ‘breed out’ the Aboriginal race. It

amounted to genocide” (Aboriginal Legal Service 1995 pp 1 & 2)

Their has been two deliberate attempts in history where certain person

or race has tried to commit genocide. Hitler and his soldiers as well as the

white Australians. The germans were defeated in the war and Australia helped

prevent the extermination of the Jewish race. Maybe white Australian thought

that was a horrible cold cold blodded war. Did they actually think that they

did the same in their own country. ” White Australia was able to persue its

crime until not one Aborigine remained alive on the island of Tasmania.”

(Hardy 1968) (See Appendix C )

Five thousand Aborigines occupied the island of Tasmania in 1803. Just

21 years later only 500 remained. By 1876 the last of the Tasmanians,

Traganinc, were dead, here body dissected and her skeleton articulated for

examination by the pseudo-scientists. In truth we have one of the first

examples in modern times of the ‘final solution’ – the genocide of an entire

group of people in a specific area.” (Bessant 1978 pp 12)

The Tasmanian Island had the worst conflicts of all. “The most vicious

of all colonial administrations” and the most brutal of all convicts. Governor

George Arthur arrived in Tasmania in 1824 and was warning to end the killings of

the Aboriginals. “He intended to introduce a new policy of conciliation” and

civilise the Aborigines to make them like white families. In 1826, the governor

concluded that “Aboriginals were beyond salvation. The Aboriginals started to

fight back, obtaining firearms “and adopting kelly-type raiding techniques…

They were refusing to recognise the superiority of the Europeans.” The governor

onve hought of the Aboriginals as childish and then regarded them “as an evil it

was duty to destroy” (Bessant 1978 pp 12)

Arguments have been expressed about the contraversy of whether all

worngs have been righted. Aboriginals even today are not treated completely

equal by all white Australians. Even though the Government has allowed

Aboriginals to vote, receive pensions and the same benefits as all other

Australians, they still have problems with getting employment.

“The European settlers wanted land. Because the Aborigines did not

cultivate the ground or make permenant dwellings or settlements, the new comers

did not realize or care, that the land was owned and occupied… and so the

question of Aboriginal right to that land hardly concerned them at all” (Brendt)

The Mabo issue has in some sence been righted. Alot of sacred land has

been cultivatedm, and settlements have taken place. Therefore it is too late to

give this land back to the Aboriginals. Some land has been given back,to the

Aboriginals,and this land is under conservation by the Aboriginals.

Other problems cannot be righted, such as the worngs with the

dislocation of Aboriginal children and the genocide in Tasmania. Problems such

as these are impossible to be righted. But they can be apoogised by the white

Australian Government. The Government has taken responsibility for their

actions, and now look down with shame.

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