On Mar 24, 1:48=A0pm, lynx <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Theo Bekkers wrote:
> > Jani wrote:
>
> >> No mention of protection, no mention of removing children because of
> >> abuse, only of the "usefulness" of "half-caste" children and how they
> >> should be "trained" in "institutions". And that's not an
> >> unsubstaniated personal narrative, it's a policy statement.
>
It should be said that as the children were half-caste, generally
white father-Aboriginal mother, they belonged to two ethnic groups.
It was said by one politician, quite a number of years ago, that as
half-caste children there was a danger of them being killed in some
Aboriginal groups.
The removal of such children was a policy that began about 1869 and
ended in 1969. In the 1960's there were two refendums sup****ted by a
very lage percentage of Australians which enabled Aborigines to be
counted within the Australian population and to have voting rights.
Surely that was because, by that time, a large ****tion of the
Aborigines were able to participate within the electoral system in
Australia.
'Bringing them Home Re****t' in the late 1990's was the first time, as
far as I am aware, that the general public was made aware that there
were half-caste children who had been removed from their tribal life.
An ABC TV programme do***ented the lives of two Aborigines who had
been placed in an Institution organised by a Christian denomination.
After many complaints about institutional life - rules they did not
like - they stated they were commuting by plane to America each year.
So in that sense they were doing better than the many Australians who
had sup****ted helping Aborigines to enable them to come into modern
times.
I have even come to think that some social anthropologists may have
been more interested in keeping the Aborigines in their traditional
lifestyles to enable them to do their research studies.
But as a person of German descent (on one side of my family tree of
four generations in Australia) and knowing now that my surname has a
history of 1000 years in north-west Germany that I would not want to
go back to those times with the social conditions that existed then.
<snip>
>
> And if she believes socialist lefties like you, she'll believe that
> we're a pack of evil bastards, and Western democracies are the epitome
> of evil. The simple fact is that the authorities did what they thought
> was the right thing at the time. What other reason would there be?
>
They were presented with a problem for which there were no precedents
on which to work. The situation must be seen in the context of the
times and what was wrong should have been apologised for by those at
that time.
Personally, in my lifetime I have experienced problems due to the
times in which I grew up, especially the World War II years and the
state of medical knowledge, but no one has apologised to me or others
who were also affected.
I believe that the campaign through the media from 1976 was a
political one, in NSW it was against the Liberal Government in the
time before the election of Neville Wran's Labor Government that
year. That campaign had anti-English sentiments in it, most likely in
a programme to establish Australia as a Republic.
> > There is currrently an 18 year gap in life expectancy
> > between white and native Australians.
>
> Mainly due to how and the way they choose to live, and their
> demographics, the localities they live in, environmental factors, etc.,
>
The fact is that in some Aboriginal groups the older women have taken
charge in their own programme to eliminate the problems of alchol use
and glue sniffing. That is not something that is given prominence in
the media.
There is also an Aboriginal initiated Tourist business in Cape Yorke
*****ula in Queensland. Aborigines now can have roles within the white
population or as leaders of their own people as they gain heigher
degrees in education. One such programme to give the increased skills
was started in the Hunter River area of NSW in the late 1940's,
another in Sydney about the 1960's.
Another programme gave sponsor****ps to Aboriginal children to remain
in school in their country districts.
In the Anglican Church at least one Aboriginal has gained the position
of Bishop.
Those and others generally received no recognition through the media.
It is also a fact that as (State governement) activists became
involved in the take-over of one Christian Aboriginal mission from
1960 and demanded that Aborigines have access to the use of alcohol
that the Aborigines of that area in Queensland had the highest youth
suicide rate in that state. (Sydney Morning Herald article). However,
the implication was that the the church organisation that had
developed the site was incorrectly responsible for that state of
affairs - whether deliberately or ignorantly. But journalists are not
always able to follow through that all the information they receive is
correct.
Gladys Swager
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