Approaches to Indigenous Issues
Some people have asked the question, 'how' the Australian Aborigines helped shape non-Aboriginal Australians. The response is to say that contact between the two races, both British and Indigenous Australians often resulted in bringing out the worst in people. Human beings have the innate capacity to be either 'moral' or 'sinister. In 1788 Governor Philip arrived with the best of intentions in British treatment of the Australian Aborigine, however there was a determined effort by various governors, to drive the Aborigines from settlements and punish those who would not conform to the new 'way of life'. Often the Aborigines refused to accept British standards and could see no advantage in changing their ways. By the turn of the century, the settlers had no time for the Australian Aborigine. The Indigenous community was seen as being a pest and a nuisance, but of course, there were exceptions. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there was a belief in the colony, that the Aboriginal race was 'reaching its end'. Until this had happened they were to be kept out of the way of the British population and were herded onto reserves and missions, to live out their days away from the Australian population where they would not interfere
The ethnocentric attitude that fuels the first racist statement by Cunningham in 1834, of allows an insight into the extreme racist views that were widespread within the colonies at that certain time in Australia's history. The allowance of such views was rampant, and allowed for the negative actions to be supported in the racist colonies of Australia. The statement made by Cunningham would have had a frightening negative impact on the general community. Such a statement shows the ignorance of the British colonists, their total lack of knowledge of the Indigenous community around them, and furthermore a certain desire to keep an absolute view of a superior status, than that of their fellow mankind, those of the Australian Aborigines. Henry Reynolds (1998) in his work, 'This Whispering In Our Hearts', goes on to describe the immoral violent behavior associated with the colonists in the call to exterminate all Australian Aboriginals "call aloud for the extirpation of such lawless marauders, and do not lacerated remains of the unburied corpses and mangled limbs of individuals, who have breathed their last in agony, in the lonely and sequestered forest.... kindle feelings indescribable in the breast of every generous member of our community and demand immediate punishment". This overview holds current when assessing the statement with relation to Curr 1886. The dominant discourse of the superior being, that was the British settlers over the original landholders those of the Indigenous land owners of Australia. The dissposseion of land and the lack of equal opportunities that were not given to any of the Indigenous community, allows for Curr to portray the ethnocentric belief of the Aborigine upon the fellow colonists at this period of time within Australia. The background to this was a hardening of attitude towards the Aborigines. The European mindset hardened at a time when there were many opportunities for emancipists ( time-expired convicts) and the free settlers who were arriving in the continent, for individual prosperity. Australia had become the land of opportunity for the English migrants, and a land of incredible hardship for the Australian Aborigine. Mr. Keating has allowed for a sharing of guilt within the Government, and has recognized the disgraceful action portrayed upon the Aboriginal community here in Australia. As outlined in the text, In The Age Of Mabo. "Rather than feed the unconstructive emotion of guilt, Keating believed we must now 'open our hearts', there must be a historic turn
Some common words found in the essay are:
Australian Aborigine, Aborigine Indigenous, Australian Aboriginals, Australians Broom, Charles Darwin's, Charles Darwin, Strait Islander, Keating Howard, School Act, Reconciliation Convention, australian aborigine, indigenous community, australian government, aboriginal people, community australia, australia's history, social darwinism, program systematic genocide, extreme racist, prime minister, human race,
Approximate Word count = 1701
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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