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| Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls Training Home |
“The Stolen
Generation” is the name given to the Aboriginal children forcefully taken away
from their families between the 1890s and the 1970s by Australia’s government,
with the aim of “breeding out” the aboriginal blood. Thousands of children were
taken and put in institutions and foster homes, where most of them were
physically, emotionally and/or sexually abused. Almost none of them were to see
their families again, but surely all were left scarred for life.
We can’t deny this is
an act of violence; forcing kids away from their loves ones and making them
lose their culture. There is a racial thing here too; the whole idea behind
this plan was to “breed out” the Aboriginal blood, making Aboriginal girls
marry white boys. They had even calculated that, after 3 generations, kids wouldn’t
show Aboriginal traces anymore.
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| Bringing Them Home report's cover |
One of the first
attempts to fix the damage done was the “Bringing Them Home” report, published
in 1997, which explained what had happened and gave the numbers of children
taken away. "Indigenous families and
communities have endured gross violations of their human rights.
These violations continue to affect indigenous people's daily lives. They were
an act of genocide, aimed at wiping out indigenous
families, communities, and cultures, vital to the precious and inalienable
heritage of Australia".
As you can see, this
report treats the measures taken by the Australian Government as pure genocide.
I believe we can all agree that what was done was terrible. It is truly a
violation of human rights, the way these kids were removed and treated afterwards.
And the consequences are extensive; they were forced to leave their culture
behind in order to fit in the white world, but they could never really integrate,
and so they suffer from this lack of identity. They are neither this nor that.
They know they were stolen, and so spend their whole lives trying to find their
families, suffering from alcohol and drug abuse because of the depression
caused by the pain.
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| Aadvertisement of a person looking for their family |
However, there are
people against the idea of referring to this as genocide. For the past years, since this topic came became a spotlight, there's been a great deal of debate around the issue. It’s true, it didn’t
involve killing, but its ultimate objective was that at the end of the process
the Aboriginals would have disappeared. This is why some people call it a “cultural”
genocide.
Taking this into consideration,
are the past policies towards Aboriginal children comparable to those of Nazi
Germany- being this the most common case of genocide? Was it less important because there was no killing? Or was it really an act
of benevolence towards these children, to give them a “better” life, as some
people argue? Is it necessary to
apologize to these stolen children? Is it OK to call the removal of Aboriginal children
genocide?
Interesting entry. After having read the whole post, a question popped out: Would it really have "breed out" the aboriginal culture? Because I think it could erradicate the indigenous blood, but not the culture itself. People would have looked back to their roots anyway and the aboriginal culture would have lived on. Great post ! :)
ReplyDeleteI wrote about Australia's Stolen Generation and to me the word genocide implies murder, but if I think "outside the box" it could be genocide given the sense of exterminating a whole race or culture and that's what the Australian government tried but did not succeed, even if they did it for "good reasons" being these: prevent alcoholism, drug addiction and to put them in a loving family, it clearly did not work out.
ReplyDeleteI think genocide in a not literal "killing" way may fit.
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ReplyDeleteI wrote about the Stolen Generation too and I think the same about the violence and the emotional damage in those kids who were removed from their parents, they need to live with their parents, they need affection from them it's something essential for their lives!
:D
I had no idea about this topic and it is really sad. However, nothing can surprise me in this world anymore. Of course that this is a genocide, a ''culutural genocide'' as you said. I felt the pain of those children while I read your entry. Good job, this touches the heart and makes you reflect.
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