Extreme Historical Persecution Of Australia's Aboriginal People

The Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people are Australia’s first people. They’re the Indigenous and traditional owners of our beautiful land. However, until the last few decades, this hasn’t always been recognised. The Indigenous people of Australia have faced colonization, oppression, the Stolen Generation, and all kinds of disrespect to their cultural heritage.

The Australian Indigenous community hold extremely significant corrections to the land of Australia, of which they refer to as ‘Country.’ Indigenous people acquire deep meaning from the land, sea and the countless resources derived from them. This special relationship has formed for many centuries. To them ‘Country’ is paramount for overall wellbeing; the strong, significant, spiritual bonds embody their entire existence. Knowledge is continually passed down to create an unbroken connection of past,

It is without denial that aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people are treated differently in our society especially by the media. They are often represented as, trouble makers, violent and drunks. These remarks used by the media are giving bad impressions on Aboriginal people. Tonight, on Media Matters we will unmask the truth on the media’s treatment of the famous Sydney Swans footballer Adam Goodes. The media has heavily criticized this athlete making unfair statements causing them to break the journalist’s code of ethics, the very rule book they should be following. The code of ethics applies to all journalists and is designed to keep their reports fair, non-judgemental.

To begin with, a clarification must be made. Although for the purposes of this assessment I will be using the term Indigenous Australians, it is not the most appropriate term to be using, as the technical definition of indigenous is ‘originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native’ (‘Indigenous’, 1987). The more correct term would be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Good morning/afternoon fellow members of Queensland Youth Parliament. It is a great honour to stand in front of you during Reconciliation Week and talk to you about an inspiring woman who greatly changed the lives of many Aboriginal descendants through her determination to bring forth a better life for her people. Pearl Gibbs, despite her natural light skin which gave her the opportunity to pass off as a white person and live a normal life, identified herself as aboriginal and struggled through discrimination to fight for equality for her people (Taffe, 2008).

Since the beginning of European colonization in 1788, Aboriginal people have experienced displacement, have been the targets of genocidal policies and practices, and have had families destroyed through the forcible removal of children. Decades of colonial exploitation and a prolonged systematic attempt to destroy Aboriginal people and culture have led to legislations and policies that are punitive and restrictive towards Aboriginal people. Such legislation reflects the dominant society’s perceptions of Aboriginal people and how they ought to be

European settlement had a negative impact on the Indigenous Australians and it provided a catalyst for the destruction of Indigenous society. The impact of European settlement on the Indigenous people of Australia was disastrous due to many things such as taking land that belonged to the Aboriginal people. Though there were some attempts to understand each culture, it led to various massacres and conflicts around Australia which had caused a decline in the Aboriginal population. Apart from the violence, the Europeans had brought diseases to Australia which wiped out generations at a time and had a dramatic effect on the

It is many citizens’ beliefs that the situation can be improved through reconciliation because it ensures equal rights, a better way of life and harmony. It will provide compensation – aiding many poverty stricken communities and why shouldn’t these citizens get adequate health care, education, housing and employment support that every Australian citizen deserves? Why should Australia be one of the few countries in the world that does not recognize their indigenous race of people? This leads onto the other hand of the argument of saying “sorry”.

Since European invasion in 1788, Indigenous Australians have fought to retain their rights and freedoms and to have governments recognise them. From 1788 and onwards the British created settlements on land that Aboriginal people previously used and controlled. Throughout the 19th century the government applied policies of ‘protection’ that have segregated Aborigines from Australian society by denying them equality and opportunity. They have achieved some significant changes in the brawl for acknowledgment (Anderson, 2014). Certain key developments that are significant in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders struggles for rights and freedoms are ; 1967 referendum, Mabo decision, bringing them home(stolen generations) and the apology. These four main key developments have been momentous developments for the Australian Indigenous population that are now allowed they’re human rights and freedoms.

In the media that has been recently sparked, many have said about choosing not to celebrate this race-based event, where one race is dispossessed to the benefit of another. This is an important step towards healing, reconciliation, building a respectful and inclusive nation. The main contention in this topic is that our Australian society should memorialize the Indigenous people who sacrificed their life for freedom. There are many articles that support this sparked issue. The author in each article attempts to persuade that Australia Day should be changed to another date.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the natives of Australia (Rigney, 2006). As of 2011, there were 548,370 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in Australia with 90% of that was from the Aboriginal origin, 6% of Torres Strait Islander

“ Aboriginals needs to understand that everything the whites have done was for their own good” this statement is cruel but factual what the white people did was better then what the aboriginals could have done for themselves. The fact that the aboriginal people were here before the white people does not justify that the aboriginal people had the right on the land, but the facts that need to be consider are which of them really benefited from the land and progressed the overall country.

- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples inhabited the land of Australia for many thousands of years

Aborigines are believed to have lived in Australia for between 60,000 and 40,000 years, their early ancestors coming from South-East Asia. Precise population details for the period before European colonisation are unavailable, but it is estimated that there were between 300,000 and 1,000,000 Aborigines in Australia when European settlers first arrived in 1788.

Australian Aborigines are thought to have the longest continuous cultural history in the world. Yet, within a hundred years, the near extinction of the Aboriginal culture almost occurred. This single event, the invasion of the Australian continent by European settlers, changed the lifestyle, the culture, and the fate of Australian Aborigines. Their entire lives were essentially taken away and they were forced into a white, European world where the lifestyle change could not have been any different. Aborigines in Australia today are struggling to deal with a past in which they lost touch with their culture and now are trying to regain some of that cultural identity.