The Stolen Generations
AL375
The Stolen Generations
The Aboriginal people of Australian and the invading Europeans have a complex and troublesome past extending back to the European colonisation of Australia. Governmental policy in relation to the Aboriginal people has greatly changed over time. Unfortunately, until around the 1970s, the Aboriginals were regarded as inferior beings unworthy of basic human rights and, at times, life itself. One such time period was the Stolen Generations where tens of thousands of Aboriginal and part-Aboriginal children were taken from their families and forced into camps and apprenticeships to integrate them into white society. In 1937, the Native Welfare conference of the heads of Aboriginal administrations official changed Australian governmental policy to one of assimilation regarding the indigenous Aboriginal population (Broome, 2010, p.216). While this policy was progressive for the time, especially when compared to the previous strategy of extinction, the forceful assimilation of one culture into another is still a form of genocide. When two diverse cultures come into contacts there can be many different results. Inevitably, one group will declare itself superior and the other group inferior. The inferior group(s) will be seen as a threat to the existing way of life of the superior group. Once dominant and subordinate groups have been established, several policies can be adopted to confront the differences. The most ideal and nonviolent strategy would be fusion, which is the combining of dominant and subordinate groups to form a new race/ethnicity. Unfortunately, cultural differences more commonly lead to conflict resulting in more oppressive procedures. Other policies such as segregation, expulsion, and secession are those that involve removing the subordinate groups from the dominant either through force or the inferior group’s willing participation. The two major strategies employed by the Australian government in relation to the
The Stolen Generations
The Aboriginal people of Australian and the invading Europeans have a complex and troublesome past extending back to the European colonisation of Australia. Governmental policy in relation to the Aboriginal people has greatly changed over time. Unfortunately, until around the 1970s, the Aboriginals were regarded as inferior beings unworthy of basic human rights and, at times, life itself. One such time period was the Stolen Generations where tens of thousands of Aboriginal and part-Aboriginal children were taken from their families and forced into camps and apprenticeships to integrate them into white society. In 1937, the Native Welfare conference of the heads of Aboriginal administrations official changed Australian governmental policy to one of assimilation regarding the indigenous Aboriginal population (Broome, 2010, p.216). While this policy was progressive for the time, especially when compared to the previous strategy of extinction, the forceful assimilation of one culture into another is still a form of genocide. When two diverse cultures come into contacts there can be many different results. Inevitably, one group will declare itself superior and the other group inferior. The inferior group(s) will be seen as a threat to the existing way of life of the superior group. Once dominant and subordinate groups have been established, several policies can be adopted to confront the differences. The most ideal and nonviolent strategy would be fusion, which is the combining of dominant and subordinate groups to form a new race/ethnicity. Unfortunately, cultural differences more commonly lead to conflict resulting in more oppressive procedures. Other policies such as segregation, expulsion, and secession are those that involve removing the subordinate groups from the dominant either through force or the inferior group’s willing participation. The two major strategies employed by the Australian government in relation to the
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