Soren wrote on Oct 18
th, 2014 at 7:54pm:
Brian Ross wrote on Oct 18
th, 2014 at 7:34pm:
freediver wrote on Oct 18
th, 2014 at 7:29pm:
Sure, as I said in part one of this thread, I think the government has no place telling people what version of history is the correct one and which version they are allowed to promote. I can understand people getting particularly wound up over this one, but it is time we grew up. The government can not and should not protect us from ideas.
How about denial of the Stolen Generations, FD? Government denial of their existence and any need to apologise under Howard versus an apology on the behalf of all Australians under Rudd. Which was the morally correct path?
There was no Stolen Generation.
Raven is going to have to disagree with you there. When the various governments have a policy of
compulsory removal of 'Half-Caste' children it can not be claimed the children were removed for their own good. Aboriginal people were considered a dying race hence the policy of forced assimilation.
Look at the Aborigines Act 1905 (WA) The purpose of the Aborigines Act (continued from the earlier 1886 Act) was the ‘protection, control and segregation of Aboriginal people’. Unlike the earlier legislation, the impact of the 1905 Act was far-reaching, establishing an administrative regime under the control of a Chief Protector that invaded every aspect of Aboriginal life. The Act assumed that Aboriginal people were a ‘dying race’ in its objective of forced assimilation of future generations.
The Chief Protector had wide-reaching power as legal guardian of all Aboriginal children (under 16 years) whom he decided were illegitimate. He could grant or deny permission for Aboriginal women to marry non-Aboriginal men and could manage the property of Aboriginal people without their consent. Freedom of movement was also restricted. In the subsequent 1936 Native Administration Act, which continued the objectives of the 1905 Act, there were severe penalties, including imprisonment for cohabitation between Aboriginals and Europeans. Police had extensive powers of surveillance, which continued for some time.
The segregation reinforced by the Act and the existing attitudes based on race, established an apartheid regime where Aboriginal people in Western Australia were discriminated against in all sorts of ways. Civil rights were denied by the Act. For example Aboriginal people who had lost control of their property under the 1905 Act lost their eligibility to vote at State Elections
The children who were targeted for removal by the authorities of the time, in almost all cases, had one parent that was 'white' and one that was Aboriginal. The objective behind the removal of these children then was often one of racial assimilation,
The Aboriginal Protection Boards at the time believed that by separating these mixed race children from their families, community, land and culture, assimilation into white Australian society would be all the more effective, with the mixed descent Aboriginal population in time merging with the non Indigenous population.
The children removed and then placed in institutions or with new foster families so often received a lower standard of education, and sometimes no education at all, when compared with the standard of education available to white Australian children.
In Western Australia once removed, children were often placed in dormitories, trained as farm labourers and domestic servants, and by the age of 14 were sent out to work.
Many deny the Stolen Generation ever occurred, it's a soothing balm we apply to a wound in our past history. We don't want to believe that our forbearers were capable of such policies.
But it did happen and we as a nation must acknowledge that yes, there were things we did wrong. Things we could have done differently. But simply denying it marks us almost as much as we marked them.
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