Introduction
Throughout Australian history, there have been men and women who fought for the entitlements of the indigenous people. The most respected and recognised of these is Eddie Mabo, a Torres Strait Islander. Mabo stood up for the rights of his people from a very young age all the way to his death, in order to generate changes in the policies and laws of the government. Mabo battled for his right to own the land which he had inherited from his adoptive father, a fight which was resolved only after his demise. Despite this, Eddie Mabo became one of the key influential figures in the Aboriginal rights movement, as his strong will, determination, and intelligence allowed him to bring about change.
Early Life
Mabo was born on July the 25th, 1936 in the village of Laos on Murray Island. However, soon after his birth, his mother passed away. Because of this, Eddie’s father gave him away, to his brother, and Eddie’s uncle, Benny Mabo. From birth Eddie was taught the traditions and customs of the indigenous people by the elders as well as his family, while at the same time he learned to read and write from a teacher at the island school, Robert Miles. However, due to the state of the country at the time, no islander was expected to pass beyond primary school. His life was very simple and rudimentary, spending most of his time learning how to fish, grow plants, and sing the songs of his culture.
At the age of 16, Eddie learned how to speak English, and began to question the way the system was run, and ask why his people were treated the way they were.
However, he became infatuated with a young islander girl, which at the time, unless permission was given, was outlawed by the Queensland government. Because of this, Mabo was exiled from the island and sent to the mainland. He settled down in Cairns, and worked various jobs, until he met his future wife Bonita, whilst working on the railroads in 1958. They married on October the 10th one year later, and it was around this time Mabo became interested in politics, and fighting for rights.
Family Life
Mabo was raised by his Uncle from what was practically birth, due to his mother’s death. He lived a simple existence with his family, caring for the land and learning the traditions of his people, until his exile from the island.
Eddie Mabo was a recognised Indigenous Australian who fought for his land, Murray Island. Mabo spent a decade seeking official recognition of his people’s ownership of Murray Island (Kwirk, 2012). He became more of an activist, he campaigned for better access for indigenous peoples to legal and medical services, to house, to social services and to education. The Mabo case was a milestone court case which paved the way for fair land rights for indigenous people. The Merriam people wanted to ensure its protection. Eddie Mabo significantly contributed to the civil and land rights of Indigenous people in Australia due to his argument to protect his land rights. In a speech in 1976, at a conference on the redrawing of the Torres Strait border, Mabo articulated a vision for islander self-determination and for an independent Torres Strait Island (Stephson, 2009).
In the biographical film Mabo the Audience is positioned by the filmmakers to see Eddie Koiki Mabo as a hardworking, tenacious and strong man.
If Chicka Dixon didn’t do what he did to help change the rights of Aboriginal Australians, we would still be fighting to let Aboriginals be counted on the census, or allowed to vote in the Parliament
Those two key points incited him to protect his land. He participated a lot of debates for those cases in the court. When he was alive most of people were against Mabo’s speech saying Merry island is not belong to aboriginal people, even showed on televisions. ‘We’ve been farming on that place before you mob set foot on the land. We handed it down from father to son.
This essay is about the land rights of of Australia and how Eddie Marbo was not happy about his land been taken away from him. In May 1982 Eddie Marbo and four other people of the Murray Islands began to take action in the high court of Australia and confirming their land rights. Eddie Marbo was a torres islander who thought that the Australian laws were wrong and who went to fight and try and change them. He was born in 1936 on Mer which is known as Murray Island. The British Crown in the form of the colony of Queensland became of the sovereign of the islands when they were annexed in1978. They claimed continued enjoyment of there land rights and that had not been validly extinguished by the sovereign. (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012)
The laws regarding native title have continually been questioned about its legitimacy in providing justice to Indigenous Australians and their lost land. The Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) was recently established in response to the Mabo v Queensland case in 1992. Eddie Mabo and four other Torres Strait Islanders went
“We can change anything. We can make a just and peaceful world. History has shown that a genuine people’s movement can move more than governments. It can move mountains” (World People 's Blog, 2006). These are the insightful words of Faith Bandler, one of the most significant women in the ten-year campaign for the rights of the Australian Aboriginal which ultimately led to the 1967 Referendum. Faith Bandler was given many popular awards by the media some of which include; being listed as a national living treasure in 1997 by The National Trust, being included as one of the 100 most influential Australians of the 20th century by the Herald in 2001, and being included in a list of 50 women considered the most influential in the world by The Good
Throughout the world, in history and in present day, injustice has affected all of us. Whether it is racial, sexist, discriminatory, being left disadvantaged or worse, injustice surrounds us. Australia is a country that has been plagued by injustice since the day our British ancestors first set foot on Australian soil and claimed the land as theirs. We’ve killed off many of the Indigenous Aboriginal people, and also took Aboriginal children away from their families; this is known as the stolen generation. On the day Australia became a federation in 1901, the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, created the White Australia Policy. This only let people of white skin colour migrate to the country. Even though Australia was the first country to let women vote, women didn’t stand in Parliament until 1943 as many of us didn’t support female candidates, this was 40 years after they passed the law in Australian Parliament for women to stand in elections. After the events of World War Two, we have made an effort to make a stop to these issues here in Australia.
Indigenous Australian land rights have sparked controversy between Non Indigenous and Indigenous Australians throughout history. The struggle to determine who the rightful owners of the land are is still largely controversial throughout Australia today. Indigenous Australian land rights however, go deeper than simply owning the land as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have established an innate spiritual connection making them one with the land. The emphasis of this essay is to determine how Indigenous Australian land rights have impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, highlighting land rights regarding the Mabo v. the State of Queensland case and the importance behind today’s teachers understanding and including Indigenous
The case of Mabo and Others v Queensland (No.2) sparked an outcome on the people of Australia that presented many legal and political issues regarding land rights in Australia. The ruling of the Mabo case, known as the Mabo decision impacted many different Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian through their individual lawful rights, industry work and personal emotions. However, its sole significance sheds light on the extent of recognition and protection of Aboriginal people rights and interest in land through the Mabo decision and Native Title Act 1993.
Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.
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Leroy Anderson was born June 29, 1908 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His parents, as children, immigrated to the United States from Sweden with their families. His father, Bror Anton Anderson, worked as a postal clerk in the Central Square post office. He also played the mandolin. Anna Margareta Anderson, his mother, was the organist at the Swedish church in Cambridge. He lived in the suburbs of Boston for twenty seven years with his parents and brother.
Albert Ellis was born on September 27, 1913 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and raised in New York. He was the oldest of the three Ellis children and played the role of their main caregiver due to their parent’s lack of interest in such things. Their father was somewhat nonexistent and although their mother was present in their lives she was much the same. Ellis described his mother as a self absorbed woman with a bipolar effect (Ellis, Abrams, and Abrams, 2012, para. 1). He was a sickly child and developed a serious kidney disorder which led to multiple hospitalizations. These hospitalizations “turned his attention from sports to books” (Ellis Institute, 2014, para. 2) and he found enjoyment through writing. Even with all of Ellis’s health issues, his parents were still very much indifferent towards their children and he continued to care for his siblings until he left to study at the City University of New York.
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