Sunday, November 28, 2004

Let's go to the Land Down Under.....

Hello guys, hope you had a good weekend. I just spent time with my friends, and that seems to be the most interesting thing for me to do here. Otherwise, am hunting for a holiday job, working in a factory or something, just to keep me occupied over the holiday and to keep me indoors since it gets very hot herre (35-45 degrees).
Just wanted to tell you something about the land down under. Aussie was discovered in the 17oos, but the first British people (Captain Cook and his guys + some criminals) settled here in 1788 on the East Coast. Australia was declared 'terra nullius'. This latin term means 'no man's land'. The Europeans did indeed find the Aborigines here. The Aussie Aborigines as some of you know are aware, were a nomadic people. Because they used the land in a way that was inconsistent with the European way of utilising land, their land was therefore declared terra nullius. That is, they did not cultivate on the land. Further, Aussie was terra nullius, because the Europeans thought that the Aborigines were uncivilised and were without a centralised system of government or had no recognised form of government or law.
The Aborigines belived that the land belonged to everyone, the land was to be shared and so they did not cultivate it. They also had a decentralised system of government, so they did have some form of government.
The British forced the Imperial Law on them and tried to make them civilised. This factor began to slowly damage their unique way of life.
In the 1960s, early 1970s, mixed blood children began to be a problem for the white Aussies. So, the government decided to infultrate these mixed blood Aboriginal children into white society, by forcefully taking them from their families and ensuring that they go to white schools (to be taught the white ways) or were adopted by white parents. This was called the 'Stolen Generation Policy'. Again this damaged their way of life, caused problems such as identity crisis for many of the kids.
However, the concept of terra nullius was abolished in 1992 in a landmark High Court case known as Mabo v. R.
Currently, the Aboriginal people are unemployed, they are beggers, have high birth rates among the young girls, girls are raped by their fathers, and violence and alcoholism is prevalent among them. They are also treated as second class citizens by the white Aussies. Honestly, I have only met like only 3 Aboriginal people who do not display the above behaviours. So, who is to blame for all this? Aussie's history is very sad and in a way has affected their future. Hope this info will be insightful. Cheers.

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