Aboriginal People Essay

1136 Words3 Pages

The way a society is organised can create conflicts or creating some difficult conditions for survival for others, which can increase the chances of having conflict between different cultures and societies. The Arrival of the first fleet in 1788 was the beginning of a conflict era. Aboriginal people are living in Australia for thousands of years. When British arrived in Australia they did not understand the lifestyle of Aboriginal people and they did not realise the deep connection that Aboriginal people had to the land. The non-indigenous started to use the land in their own way because Australia was seen as unused and this led to a concept of Terra Nullius (land belong to no one or land that no one owned). The new settlement of whites had devastating impact on indigenous people. Vast number of aboriginal people died after involvement in devastating conflicts with modern settlers and the exposure to diseases also contributed in numbers of deaths. The aboriginal population in 1788 was 1,000,000 (estimated) and by 1900 it had been reduced to 60,000 and there was a threat that this race will extinct soon. The ignorance of whites in past was resulting in creating more difficulties for Aboriginals to survive. An eye for an eye principle means a person who has injured another person will receive the same treatment but to describe the revenge taken by whites from indigenous can be more than one eye. The murder of a European in WA in 1926 was lead to the killing of 30 Aboriginal people in revenge. Similarly another European death led to the deaths of about 70 Aboriginal people. The concept of Terra Nullius led down to the destruction of Aboriginal culture and the way Aboriginals were using the land was not valued for white settlers. ... ... middle of paper ... ...d so the justice is achieved. “No issue… is more important for Australia than resolving the relationship between the indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous communities. We have had 205 years of either pretending that there are no issues to be resolved or attempting to resolve them according to non-indigenous ideas of what is best” a very true statement by Garth Neitteim (as cited in Bottmley 1994). This is a very true statement that describes the ignorance of Whites in the past. New settlers did whatever they wanted without caring about the effects on indigenous society. But now we’ve taken the responsibility to shape better future for the indigenous people and by just apologising for the past, we cannot return the severe losses made to indigenous community but now we can stand with them and create an environment where equality and justice is the surrounded.

Open Document