Today we celebrate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
I hope to spread some awareness about Indigenous Australian history, and of the plight that is suffered every day by many Aboriginals within Australia.
Aboriginal Australians belong to the longest surviving culture on Earth, having existed here for at least 65,000 years. Many components of this culture have remained useful since their inception, and can be observed in use today.
Colonial thought harbored a skewed view of progress and of privilege. When the First Fleet landed in Botany Bay in 1788, Captain Cook and his crew failed to observe permanent dwellings and demarcated land which, in their eyes, would have signified ‘proper’ land ownership. Their failure to understand Aboriginal society allowed them to justify the myth of terra nullius, of land belonging to no one, because they categorized Aboriginals as scenery, as part of the land; as animals. The beleif in this myth led to the mass genocide of Aboriginal people and the defilement of their culture. Indigenous Australians were dispossessed, enslaved, raped, and displaced onto missions and reserves for forced enculturation, christianization and adoption of colonial ideals.
Once deemed a ‘dying race’, Aboriginals were almost completely wiped out. The first Australian colonials believed this extinction to be an inevitability which was caused by the Aboriginals occupancy of the lowest rungs in the evolutionary hierarchy, where white Europeans inhabited the very top. The amount of hardship endured by Aboriginals beginning from the day of invasion, is impossible to conceptualize. It was only in 1967 that they were formally recognized as citizens of Australia, to be included in the census. Despite all of this, more than 3% of Australia’s population identifies as Aboriginal, and the population is rising.
Disappointingly, many of the dominant myths which were believed by the first colonials are still believed by Australians today. A truly disgusting amount of racism and ignorance remains in the minds of many Australian citizens regarding their perceptions of this continents First People. The situation of Indigenous Australians today is complex and upsetting, with suicide and incarceration rates much higher than that of the white population. Still, much progress has been made, though it is difficult to see what lays on the horizon.
In a world where we have destroyed and poisoned our Earth, believing ourselves to be separate from it, as being more powerful than nature, we have much to learn from these peoples whom have been so gravely mistreated throughout the course of history. We are all part of the land. The Australian continent is ancient, mysterious and deeply spiritual. Australia’s First Nations People have a deep and true connection to the spirit of the land, and it’s about time we listened to them, and learned from them, before it’s too late.
