Where Are We Came From? – Australia –

Down and Out

They have been around for the last 50.000 years. Recent studies have also shown that they were probably the first Homosapiens to have inhabited our planet. However, numerous factors have led to their gradual fall – their tribe is bow struggling for survival.
The term ‘Aboriginal‘ means the first or the earliest known. Until the dawn of colonialism, the Australian aboriginal lived as creative clan and had been one of the fittest enough to survive harsh climates. With the entry of the European settlers sometime during the 15th Century, these native began to be exposed to exploitation of sorts. It is said that their number was close to 300.000 in the 1700s, but it drastically reduced to a mere 30.000 in the 1930s. in place of bygone era of rich culture, strong religious and moral ground, strength and integrity, the aboriginal of today are left with nothing except poverty, poor health, low life expectancy, violent crime, racism, substance abuse, low rate of education, unemployment, etc to characterize them.

Dreamtime: There isn’t enough archaeological evidence to present a clear picture of the early Australian aboriginals. However, it has been known that they innovated many devices and traditions alike. The foundation for these indigenous lot lies in a concept knows as ‘Dreamtime’. It refers to the belief that their land had been created for them by ancestral superheroes. In fact, each element of Nature – sky, rock, tree, animal, etc – were believed to have been created during the ‘Dreamtime’. In fact, aboriginal religion and laws are based on such beliefs.
Studies have also establishes their links with Melanesian and Indonesian much before the European colonist arrived in Australia.

Read to degradation: The degradation of the Australian Aboriginals is chiefly attributed to excesses of colonialism. It was the year 1606, at the first recorded sighting of Australia, Dutch captain William Jansz described the native as “…savage, cruel, black barbarians who slew some of our sailor”. Though the Dutch government had declared the region unfit for colonization, it was gun powder that finally ruled and Australian aboriginals eventually became the colonized lot.
The natives contracted diseases, against which they had no resistance. They began losing their hunting ground, and were taken as forced labour. The settlers could punish and even kill them legally for no apparent reason. Religious conversions were imposed. Aboriginal children were taken away from their parents and put under the oft-harsh management of the church, as an attempt to bring them to follow the white society. Most of these children, referred to as the ‘stolen generation’, never got to see their parent of their families again.
It was only during World War II that about a thousand aboriginals were ‘employed’ in the military forces. In 1967, they were given the right to vote and receive state benefits like their mainstream counterparts. Protests against exploitation continued – both by the natives themselves and other who had identified themselves with their cause – and in 1972, the Australian government admitted, for the first time, the land had been taken away from the native and was right to give it back to them. Subsequently, in the year 1992, the previous legal concept of terranullius was declared invalid, which recognized the ownership of land by the natives. Though such legislations have been considered historic, their implementation remains a problem. Many aboriginals are engaged in reclaiming their lands, which is a difficult process and exposes them to more exploitation. The rate of suicide in police custody is on the rise. The aboriginals are dying young because of lifestyle factors; in fact, a 20-year study has shown that while the main stream Australians have experienced a marked increase in life expectancy at birth, that of the indigenous people is set up to 20 years lower.
Beside, cases of domestic violence are rampant; a study conducted by Australian universities has shown that one in four aboriginal women aged between 18 and 23 report some experience of domestic violence. The Australian aboriginals now number around 460.000 or 2.27 per cent of the total Australian population.



Sunday, Vijay Times – Bangalore. 02 July 2006