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Issues faced by aboriginal Australians
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Recommended: Issues faced by aboriginal Australians
One of the biggest issues effecting Indigenous Australians is inequality, this negative one-sided view has led to many young Aboriginals leading a life of social disparity. The dispossession of Indigenous Australians has been looked upon for many years. The colonisation by the British reduced the number of Indigenous people significantly; they reduce so much they are now only 2% of Australia’s population. Due to the colonisation this bought many diseases and sickness that Indigenous people had never been exposed to before. At the same time the lands the Indigenous owned were stolen by force, many were hurt but also driven away from their land. In 1992 it was recognised that the Indigenous people had rights to land, due to the connection of spiritual, religious and other obligations (Martin n.d.). Many Indigenous people still remain …show more content…
Indigenous people are able to keep their culture and heritage alive by passing on knowledge, arts, rituals and performances from one generation to another. Many traditional beliefs include: Land- Indigenous people don’t think of their land as soil, rock and dirt but for Indigenous Australians it is all about how the land is spiritual (Australian Indigenous Culture Heritage 2015). Diversity- Aborigines identify themselves through the land areas of which they come from (Australian Indigenous Culture Heritage 2015). For example Tammy Williams is a Murri woman from Gympie Queensland. Language- this is important to understanding the Indigenous heritage; there are many meanings to the language spoken including the location and tribe they come from (Australian Indigenous Culture Heritage 2015). Tools and Technology- all tools and technology used by Aborigines help define the location of different tribes. For example coastal tribes use fishbone and desert tribes use stones as weapon tips (Australian Indigenous Culture Heritage
Eddie Mabo is widely known for his plight to regain land rights for both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In 1982, along with four other Meriam people from Murray Island, he initiated legal proceedings in the Queensland Supreme Court claiming customary ownership of their lands on Murray Island. This original claim was rejected by the Supreme Court, but rather than backing down Mabo chose to present his case to the High Court of Australia. The basis of his case explores how “’Australia’ is morally illegitimate to the extent that it is founded on European denial of the continent’s prior ownership by indigenous people…” (Rowse, 1994)
“Art can use the power of visual image to challenge and even change popular opinions about important and universal issues. Art can be a very influential way to give a strong, direct comments and criticisms on things that have happened in society and culture.” (Rehab-Mol J, 1998, p6) Indigenous art is mostly about connecting to their land and their religious belief; however, art has different forms, especially the Indigenous contemporary art as it uses ‘modern materials in a mixed cultural context’. (Aboriginal Art Online, 2000)
Bourke, E and Edwards, B. 1994. Aboriginal Australia. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press.
ties that Aboriginal people have with the land. Thus insuring that The Dreaming is not separated from the physical world or hinged on the past, but existent in the present. It is not only believed that the Ancestral beings gave Aboriginals their physical surroundings but were also responsible for establishing the social and cultural patterns to be emulated. Demonstrating human qualities the Ancestor Spirits established the Aboriginal way of life. including kinship systems, customs and moral lessons represented by both good and bad behaviour.
The connection Indigenous Australians have with the land was established, and maintained, by The Dreamings, passed down through generations binding Indigenous Australians to the land (National Film & Sound Archive, 2015). National Film & Sound Archive (2015), highlight that land and being can not be separated for Indigenous Australians as they form part of the land and are accountable for the preservation of the land. Indigenous Australian land rights originated from an intricate social process constructed on traditional core values; where the rights of the land were established on principles of descendants, kinship and marriage (Dodds, 1998). However, despite this, the British colonisation of Australia in 1788 brought about change when the land was declared Terra Nullius (Short, 2007). Short (2007) stated that as a result of Australia being declared Terra Nullius, Indigenous Australians had no legitimate claim to their land. Hence, British colonisers dispossessing Indigenous Australians of their land rights as the customs established by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were not recognised or taken into consideration by the British Government (Short,
Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.
The Stolen Generation has had a profound impact on every aspect of the lives of Indigenous communities. It has jeopardised their very survival. It has impoverished their capacity to control and direct their future development. The Stolen Generation has corrupted, devastated and destroyed the souls, hopes and beliefs of many Australian lives through damaging assimilation policies established in an attempt to make a ‘White Australia’ possible. Discrimination, racism and prejudice are some of the many permanent scars upon Indigenous life that will never be repaired. However, recently Rudd and the Australian public have sincerely apologised for the detrimental effects the Stolen Generation had caused. The Stolen Generation has dramatically shaped Australian history and culture.
Australia’s Indigenous people are thought to have reached the continent between 60 000 and 80 000 years ago. Over the thousands of years since then, a complex customary legal system have developed, strongly linked to the notion of kinship and based on oral tradition. The indigenous people were not seen as have a political culture or system for law. They were denied the access to basic human right e.g., the right to land ownership. Their cultural values of indigenous people became lost. They lost their traditional lifestyle and became disconnected socially. This means that they were unable to pass down their heritage and also were disconnected from the new occupants of the land.
Through maintaining their culture indigenous people are able to meet their basic needs and advance economically and socially. Indigenous people maintaining their culture is remembering the past, understanding the present, and preparing for the future.
Indigenous people have identified themselves with country; they believe that they and the land are “one”, and that it is lived in and lived with. Indigenous people personify country as if it were a person, as something that connects itself to the land, people and earth, being able to give and receive life (Bird Rose, D. 1996). Country is sacred and interconnected within the indigenous community,
Australia is a very unique place, along with our multiculturalism there is also a strong heritage surrounding us. At first thought of Australian heritage we think about such landmarks as Uluru, The Sydney harbour bridge and The Sydney opera house, The Great Barrier reef and other internationally recognised places. But our heritage goes much deeper than that; it is far more than outstanding icons. Along with these icons there are also unsung places like the old cattle stations, Aboriginal missions, migrant hostels, War memorials, our unique wetlands and the towns and cities we have built. Adding all of these things together, helps to tell the story of who we are and how we have shaped this land in the unique identity it has today.
Believe it or not but there are still places that have embrace the cultures from their past. Australia embraces their heritage and the natural people who were there before the Europeans came to inhabit the area. Australia is also known for their scenery such as highlands, lowland, beaches and large cities. The animals located in Australia are very unique, the kangaroo is the animal thought to be the symbol of Australia. Most people in the US think of Australians as a completely different kind of people but the truth is they are very similar.
About 50,000 years in the past Australia was founded by a group of Aboringal people then later again by others. “Each group formed a unique societies and relationships with the land, and each played a vital part in shaping the history of Australia. (Smith)” The name Australia originally came from the Latin root word “australis”. “Australia is the last of lands only in the sense that it was the last continent, apart from Antarctica, to be explored by Europeans (Twidale)” By the time Europeans had arrived the Aboringal people had already changed the landscape to fit their hunter gatherer needs.
Indigenous Knowledge (IK) can be broadly defined as the knowledge and skills that an indigenous (local) community accumulates over generations of living in a particular environment. IK is unique to given cultures, localities and societies and is acquired through daily experience. It is embedded in community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals. Because IK is based on, and is deeply embedded in local experience and historic reality, it is therefore unique to that specific culture; it also plays an important role in defining the identity of the community. Similarly, since IK has developed over the centuries of experimentation on how to adapt to local conditions. That is Indigenous ways of knowing informs their ways of being. Accordingly IK is integrated and driven from multiple sources; traditional teachings, empirical observations and revelations handed down generations. Under IK, language, gestures and cultural codes are in harmony. Similarly, language, symbols and family structure are interrelated. For example, First Nation had a
The Australian Aborigines tell the story of their nation in many varied forms, in the form of songs and chants, ritual dramatizations, paintings, dances and oral narratives. For over 60,000 years the Indigenous people of Australia have used oral narratives and songs that are passed down from generation to generation as a way of telling the story of their people in the past whilst embracing the present. There are two kinds of ways that these narratives may be told, openly for all to hear and sacred stories reserved for initiated members of one or the other sex. These stories can be incredibly complicated and profound often containing dozens or hundreds of verses, and often repeated over and over. These narratives, or stories of The Dreaming, often contain important information for the younger members of the tribe such as how the land came to be shaped and inhabited,(Fryer-Smith 2008) how to behave and why, and the personal histories of people’s lives. Many written sources of history often only tell the past from the point of view of the victors. Considering the history of Australia, the traditional oral narratives of the original indigenous inhabitants of is of paramount importance in keeping their time-honoured culture and its story alive.