Throughout history,
some people regarded their races as superior to other
societies; therefore, they started wars, occupied lands and killed people of other races. Additionally, in recent history,
natives bore witness to a
lot of pain / history bears witness to the fact that natives suffered a lot of
pain.; because white men regarded themselves as kings of the world, so with
geographical explorations, they killed native humans in discovered lands in
order to move there with their families and citizens. African natives, Tasmanian
natives, and Aboriginal people faced massacres and in Australia, Aboriginal
people were exposed to separation and assimilation. The Australian government
had a policy of assimilating
aboriginal children by separating them from their
families in order to give them up for adoption to white Australian
citizens. This aboriginal generation which was given
to other families is called the “lost generation”. Not only the aboriginal
children but also all of the aboriginal citizens have been affected badly by this policy.
First of all, for many years the Australian authorities regarded
Aboriginal people as lower class men and wanted to assimilate them but in the modern world, it seemed very barbarous; thus, they formed a new strategy; kidnapping children. The Goal of this policy
was the degeneration
of young aboriginal people. Whether these children forgot their cultural identities or not; they
certainly lost their psychological and physical health because foster parents abused
them and family bonds
lost their importance for these children. This situation affected
both their childhood and their family members in the future because even if they loved their child, they
likely would not be good parents by reason of having no parent. These effects of the government policy
created a lost generation of aboriginal
people who lost their identity, cultural values, customs, etc. Even though this
policy was ended and the president
apologized to
aboriginal citizens for their wrong attitudes, today these people still suffer
the psychological and physical effects of assimilation
What is more,
aboriginal people who were moved away suffered deeper depression because they were both excluded and they
lost their families. Additionally, they hadn’t got any right to search for their children
because they were lower class men. This hopeless situation which they were experiencing
caused a lot of damage in aboriginal families;
parents started taking drugs and they became alcoholics. They lost their customs and cultural values, too. Rumor
has it that, they tried to struggle with this kidnapping by painting their
children’s skin
with coal, because authorities selected children who had white skin. But they
did not succeed in protecting
their children. In this period of cultural, psychological and moral collapse,
other Australian citizens organized a protest for the rights of Aboriginal
people in the country and they apologized to them before the Australian authority but many people
lived far away from their children.
In conclusion, white
men assume that the whole world is their private domain; therefore, they want to do everything they want, because of
this reason, all of the wars, massacres and assimilation were considered normal
in Africa, in Tasmania and in Australia. Aboriginal people in Australia were
affected not only psychologically but also physically owing to these attitudes.
A generation has lost their
culture because of white men’s ambition.
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