“In my mind, the ultimate objective is to cause all Australians to have about them a spontaneous national pride in Indigenous Australia”, Kevin Rudd. It is important that Australian schools provide students with the opportunity to learn about the Australian Indigenous people. This is because they are a part of Australia’s history and cultural background and we need to appreciate their uniqueness. This is illustrated though the poems ‘No More Boomerang’ and ‘Then and Now’, by Oodgeroo Noonuccal. It is also represented in the picture book ‘The Rabbits’, by Shawn Tan and John Marsden. These texts demonstrate how the Aboriginal people experienced a loss of culture, land and traditions due to the colonization of Australia.
Throughout the poem ‘No More Boomerang’ it suggests that the Aboriginals lost their culture, land and traditions, and that Australia needs to learn about the Aboriginal’s experiences. There are many techniques used in this poem to provide more meaning to the
…show more content…
text. For example, juxtaposition is used to compare the Aboriginal’s culture to the European’s culture. ‘No more boomerang, no more spear, now all civilized, colour bar and beer’. Anaphora is also used to illustrate the demanding tone and is a metaphor for the Europeans taking away the Aboriginal people’s culture. ‘Lay down the woomera, lay down the waddy’. Throughout the poem, it gives the reader a feeling of sympathy towards the Aboriginals. It illustrates the loss of culture and the introduction of the Europeans way of life. The poem ‘Then and Now’ also focuses on the Aboriginal people’s loss of culture, land and traditions.
The text also suggests that we should learn about their history and experiences. Different techniques are also used in this text to add to the meaning of the poem. First person is used to highlight that the Aboriginal people miss their old culture and traditions. Oodgeroo Noonuccal writes this poem in first person to represent all Aboriginals. ‘In my dreams, I hear my tribe’. She is dreaming reinforce that her dreams are no longer a reality and she misses for the Aboriginal’s traditional way of life. Sarcasm is used in this poem to indicate that the Aboriginal people were better off without the European’s culture. ‘Now I have dress, now I have shoes’. The Aboriginal people lost their culture and were happier before the colonization of Australia. The Europeans took away the Aboriginal’s land, culture and traditions. The Europeans also industrialised their land and educated them to be more
‘white’. The picture book ‘The Rabbits’ illustrates the loss of culture, land and traditions that the Aboriginal people experienced. This book also teaches the reader about the history of the Aboriginal people. This is represented through many techniques. One of the techniques used on the last page of the book is salience. The salient is used to express the sadness, misfortune and wonder of the Indigenous Australians. The faces of the rabbit and wallaby illustrates this. The salient in this picture is also looking over a pond which symbolises the unknown future. Modality is also a technique used on the last page of this text. The modality of the image is high. This displays how the Aboriginals and Europeans have become to know one another and seem less alien. They have become more familiar with each other and know what each other’s intentions are for the land.
“a verse for the cheated” discusses the effects of colonialism in Australia. The poem suggests the the European invaders or “tourists” arrive and are ignorant in respect to the Indigenous Australians.
Rituals, teachings, ceremonies and identities of the Aboriginal people were lost and neglected in the past. Even today, those of the culture continue to heal and strengthen from the consequences. In Louise Halfe’s poem “My Ledders,” a native woman addresses the Pope expressing her passionate feelings towards the traditions that were robbed of her culture, while pleading him to change the teachings back to the original way. In the letter the speaker writes as if she was speaking, using phonetic spelling and broken English, asking the Pope if he could use his power to retain the native culture, as the government may listen to him. Directly linking the losses of native traditions, customs and languages to the residential school system, the speaker uses orature combining a native dialect along with satire to express how the losses in one generation continue to affect the aboriginal identity in future generations.
The poem “We’re not trucking around” by Samuel Wagan Watson presents an Aboriginal perspective on Australian National identity, showing the audience that Australians still mistreat Indigenous people, expressing his perspective through the ideas that white men still mistreat Aboriginals and the marginalization of Aboriginal culture. Watson reinforces his idea through poetic and language
Pung explains that “This was a deliberate and light-hearted attempt to shift away from the two decades of ‘migrant’ or ‘ethnic’ literature narratives that have been published in Australia” (Arcangelo,1). Yet the beginning of the story is scattered with examples of the Pung family mirroring this expectation, though how she describes the way her family marvels at new resources Australia has to offer “Wah, so many things about this new country that are so taken-for-granted!” (9). The amazement that there is no one needs to “walk like they have to hide” (9) and “no bomb is ever going to fall on top of them”(9) nor will they find any one “pissing in the street” (9)that was “so gleaming spick-and-span clean” with “beautiful food” and “pretty packages” (11) makes it difficult to disassociate the familiar stereotypes from Pung’s
Both Keating’s and Rudd’s speeches are firmly based on the ideas of recognition and reconciliation for the wrongs that European settlers, and their decedents, have inflicted on Indigenous Australians. To explore this idea I believe that it is necessary to take a closer look at both the plight of Eddie Mabo and the stories of the Stolen Generation.
The lines, “As I said, it might help if we … we can imagine it’s opposite” use perspective to put the non-indigenous Australians into the shoes of indigenous Australians, to help them explore and understand the possibilities of not belonging.
Although the author’s words are simple, they create a mood into the illustrations that truly emphasise the emotion of the indigenous point of view. Viewers can than feel more of what they can see, an example of this is when the authors used different sized text in “stole our children.” This text with the illustration can truly create an effect on the way it is read and viewed by, making viewers feel empathy as the size of each words shrinks defining the children’s positon as they get further away from their parent. This attains the Europeans guilt on the choices they had made as the story is seen in the indigenous point of view on how they suffered due to the past horrendous choices made by the Europeans at that
Aboriginal art is widely associated with the primitive and primordial nature of the Australian Indigenous culture. However, as it has become more popular globally, one must consider the authenticity of the Aboriginal art sold on the contemporary market. Eric Michaels essay, ‘Bad Aboriginal Art’ (Michaels, 1988) exposes his concerns with how we define certain art as being genuinely ‘Aboriginal’ and questions what external influences exploit and influence the validity and authenticity of Aboriginal art. The essay summons readers to question what they identify with Australian culture and whether or not White Australians have disordered the meaning of Indigenous art.
Reynolds, H. (1990). With The White People: The crucial role of Aborigines in the exploration and development of Australia. Australia: Penguin Books
Indigenous Australian land rights have sparked controversy between Non Indigenous and Indigenous Australians throughout history. The struggle to determine who the rightful owners of the land are is still largely controversial throughout Australia today. Indigenous Australian land rights however, go deeper than simply owning the land as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have established an innate spiritual connection making them one with the land. The emphasis of this essay is to determine how Indigenous Australian land rights have impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, highlighting land rights regarding the Mabo v. the State of Queensland case and the importance behind today’s teachers understanding and including Indigenous
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 ...
Throughout both ‘Rainbow’s End’ and ‘The Rabbits’, the audience discovers the plights that the Aboriginal Australians faced, due to discrimination and assimilation, in intensely confronting, yet intensely meaningful ways. We see how the discrimination and forced assimilation of cultures was common in the lead up to modern times because of composers like Harrison, Marsden and Tan reminding us of these events, allowing us to discover and rediscover our past wrongs through their works, in order to pave the way for a brighter, harmonious future. Without these documentations and retellings of events such as these, history would repeat itself, conflicts would be more apparent and we as a species would not be able to thrive and prosper due to our prejudices and superiority complexes.
Land is used to describe the major historical conflict when settling into Australia; however, the Indigenous Australians were not acknowledged for their belonging on the land before. This part of history is represented through the concept of the pioneers being old trees, “surviving contact with Australian Aboriginal peoples” (McGennisken, 2010, p. 40). This statement acts as a negative connotation for the Aboriginals while continuing to demonstrate the perseverance and stoicism of the pioneers. This reference to the past is a prime example of the use of a grand narrative because it is excluding certain parts of history with the intentions to make a particular culture, in this case the pioneers, have a better reputation and positive thoughts about their cultures
This is an incredible paragraph extracted from Bora Ring. This poem depicts perfectly of the European invasion of Australia. It shows how the traditions and stories are gone, how the hunting and rituals are gone and ‘lost in an alien tale’, the Europeans being the aliens. This poem also describes that it seemed as if the tradition of Aborigines was ‘breathed sleeping and forgot’. These are powerful words Judith Wright used to show how they Aborigines were quickly invaded and ‘forgotten’. This poem is an excellent example of why Australian students should study her poetry.
Throughout Australian history a racist attitude towards Aboriginals has been a significant issue. The instant the early settlers arrived on our shores and colonised, the Aboriginals have been fighting for the survival of their culture. The Aboriginals haven been assimilated, subjugated and marginalized to bring them in line with an idealistic European society. These themes have been put forward by Jack Davis in his stage play, No Sugar, the story of an Aboriginal family’s fight for survival during the Great Depression years. In communicating the racist and hostile attitudes of the dominant white ideology towards, for example, discrimination and assimilation, Davis constructs characters, which are continuously under fire and in opposition to the oppressing dominant white society. Admittedly Davis utilizes his characters to confront the audience and take them out of their comfort zone, thus showing them the reality of Aboriginal treatment. Furthermore this influences the audience to see that discrimination and assimilation are compelling elements in the ongoing cultural survival of Aboriginals within a Western society.