Australia is a a multicultural country. That is because it has had an increased numbers of different come to live here for many different reasons.. They have all called themselves Australians and had accepted Australia as their new home. Although the perspective of accepting a different race/culture has changed, racism still exists in Australia. Australia’s indigenous people were the first victims of racism in this country. For about 50,000 years before the settlement of the British, Australia was occupied exclusively by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. After the settlement of the British, the European legal concept of Terra Nullius was used which let white settlers gain economic and political control over the land up until the federation of the colonies of Australia 1901. British colonisation policies and later land laws were framed in the belief that the colony was being bought/owned/received by occupation (or settlement) of a Terra Nullius (land without owners). The colonisers recognised the presence of Indigenous Australians but justified by their land right policies they said that “Aborigines were too primitive to be actual owners”[6]. Furthermore, this pushed the strict immigration laws to preferences to “white” European on the basis of their Social Darwinistic principles, this resulted in the creation of the “White Australia Policy”. There were three significant events that led to the downfall of the policy, one being the creation itself, the undermining of the policy by bringing in non-European migrants and the shift of perspective from the original ideal of White superiority. Discriminatory laws against the Indigenous Australians and immigrants were abolished during the Post War period. Policies of multic...
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"Australia and the Colombo Plan 1949-1957 - Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade." Australia and the Colombo Plan 1949-1957 - Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. .
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Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy provides an insight into 1960s/70s Australia and helps reinforce common conceptions about Australian culture. One common conception Goldsworthy reinforces in this text is Australia’s increasing acceptance of multiculturalism. Maestro, set in the 1960s to 1970s, shows Australians growing more accepting and tolerant of other cultures. This shift in perspective was occurring near the end of the White Australia/Assimilation Policy, which was phased out in the late 1970s/early 1980s. An example of this shifted perspective in Maestro is Paul’s father’s opinion about living in Darwin:
Unfortunately, with most if not all large-scale conflicts, a detrimental aftermath was soon sure to follow. Australia was by no means exempt from this, as made evident by the Australian veterans and
...ndigenous recognition and the removal of racist remarks has been an on-going theme for a vast majority of time. The necessity of Constitutional reform to close the gap on cultural divide as well as support the on-going concept of reconciliation is essential in ensuring Australia continues to improve and nurture its relationship with Indigenous peoples. The process of amendment through referendum has proven to be problematic in the past, with the success rate exceptionally low. Though with key factors such as bi-partisan support, widespread public knowledge and correct management, the alteration to remove racial discrimination and provide recognition for Indigenous persons within the Constitution is highly achievable. If proposed and eventually passed, this will provide assistance in eliminating many of the cultural gaps Indigenous persons face throughout society.
When the Great War began, Australia went to war as a nation which not only held its own but was invaluable to many ...
Key events in Aboriginal Australian history stem from the time Australia was first discovered in 1788. For instance, when Federation came into existence in 1901, there was a prevailing belief held by non Aboriginal Australians that the Aborigines were a dying race (Nichol, 2005:259) which resulted in the Indigenous people being excluded from the constitution except for two mentions – Section 127 excluded Aborigines from the census and Section 51, part 26, which gave power over Aborigines to the States rather than to the Federal Government. Aboriginal people were officially excluded from the vote, public service, the Armed Forces and pensions. The White Australia mentality/policy Australia as “White” and unfortunately this policy was not abolished until 1972. REFERENCE
In the nineteenth century, the “History wars” became the fight between the most prominent historians revolving around the deception of frontier conflict between the labor and coalition. The debate aroused from the different interpretations of the violence that took place during the European colonization and to what degree. It became a crisis in history, emerging from the dispossession of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (ATSI) that resulted in exclusion of their traditions and culture. The ATSI were the first people of Australia that brought along a different culture, language, kinship structures and a different way of life (Face the Facts, 2012). Post European colonization was a time where the ATSI people experienced disadvantage in the land they called home. With the paramount role as future educators, it demands proficient knowledge on the Australian history and one of the most influential moments in our history started from the first European settlers.
In 1842 Martial war was declared on aboriginal people and in 1830 the Tasmanian Aboriginal people are resettled on Flinders Island without success.*
Within Australia, beginning from approximately the time of European settlement to late 1969, the Aboriginal population of Australia experienced the detrimental effects of the stolen generation. A majority of the abducted children were ’half-castes’, in which they had one white parent and the other of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Following the government policies, the European police and government continued the assimilation of Aboriginal children into ‘white’ society. Oblivious to the destruction and devastation they were causing, the British had believed that they were doing this for “their [Aborigines] own good”, that they were “protecting” them as their families and culture were deemed unfit to raise them. These beliefs caused ...
In the late eighteenth century prior to the arrival of the first European settlers, Australia was once believed to be a terra nullius, an uninhabited “nothing land.” The European colonizers of Australia sought to make something of this land they believed they had discovered. Operating under this false notion, colonizers systematically invaded and conquered Australia, imposing their own ways onto the land and its original custodians, the Aboriginal people. The introduction of western settlements disrupted much of Aboriginal life. In a publication titled, Is it in the Blood? Australian Aboriginal Identity, author Myrna Ewart Tonkinson discusses Western imperialism and its implications on Aboriginal identity.
Throughout the world, in history and in present day, injustice has affected all of us. Whether it is racial, sexist, discriminatory, being left disadvantaged or worse, injustice surrounds us. Australia is a country that has been plagued by injustice since the day our British ancestors first set foot on Australian soil and claimed the land as theirs. We’ve killed off many of the Indigenous Aboriginal people, and also took Aboriginal children away from their families; this is known as the stolen generation. On the day Australia became a federation in 1901, the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, created the White Australia Policy. This only let people of white skin colour migrate to the country. Even though Australia was the first country to let women vote, women didn’t stand in Parliament until 1943 as many of us didn’t support female candidates, this was 40 years after they passed the law in Australian Parliament for women to stand in elections. After the events of World War Two, we have made an effort to make a stop to these issues here in Australia.
presents itself in a more discrete way than racism in other countries. Racism in other countries goes further than just having a bias towards races. In other countries racism denies the people of certain races privileges that everyone should have access to, as well as creates a prejudice that leads to minority groups to be treated badly. An example of this can be found in the video “Understanding Systematic Oppression and Institutionalized Racism” by Kyol Blakeney from TedxYouth in Sydney. In his Ted talk Kyol Blakeney compares the chance of an African American in the U.S to end up in jail to an Aboriginal Australian to end up in jail and found that an Aboriginal Australian is 14 times more likely to end up in jail. This example shows that the institutionalized racism in Australia is so present that it affects minority groups like that aboriginal Australian which make up 2.7 % of the population on a huge scale. The fact that racism in the form of an institution which stems from racial bias affects minority groups not just in the U.S. but also cross-culturally in other
The assimilation policy was a policy that existed between the 1940’s and the 1970’s, and replaced that of protectionism. Its purpose was to have all persons of aboriginal blood and mixed blood living like ‘white’ Australians, this established practice of removing Aboriginal children (generally half-bloods) from their homes was to bring them up without their culture, and they were encouraged to forget their aboriginal heritage. Children were placed in institutions where they could be 'trained' to take their place in white society. During the time of assimilation Aboriginal people were to be educated for full citizenship, and have access to public education, housing and services. However, most commonly aboriginal people did not receive equal rights and opportunities, for example, their wages were usually less than that paid to the white workers and they often did not receive recognition for the roles they played in the defence of Australia and their contribution to the cattle industry. It wasn’t until the early 1960’s that expendi...
Indigenous Australians have had a controversial place throughout Australian history, with World War 1 being one of the main events in this topic. Although there were no aboriginals that went to fight in World War I, it was not that they didn't want to because of their violent history with the British, it was because the British didn't allow them to enlist for World War 1.
After the release of Rabbit Proof Fence, many `politically right' white Australians tried to promote that the film was based on myth and misunderstanding but in facet is not as the film itself promotes the openness of racism. Racism was not only a problem is Australia but throughout the world and is continuing to stay a problem, even in our own backyard. The racism between the white Australians and the Aborigines is quite similar to the racism shown in schools and even in parliament here in New Zealand between the Maori and Europeans, or once again between the `white' and the `black'.
Instead, multiculturalism places a wide range of claims of accommodation such as religion, ethnicity, language, race and nationality (Song, 2010). In the case of Australia, the acceptance of multiculturalism based on such far-flung claims has essentially resulted in the advent of politics of recognition among the minority groups seeking accommodation or integration in Australia. This is shown by Song (2010) who states that key among the claims fronted by Australia’s minority groups is self-government or at least some sort of recognition that affords such communities a form of autonomy. One key comparison is the aboriginal communities of Australia and those of Canada, whereby claims for recognition based on the uniqueness of ethnicity have left a bad taste in the mouth of white