Aboriginal People and Colonization - Essay Example

Students Name: Institution Name: Before the arrival of European colonizers, the Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal people lived in various places of the Australian continent, each of them speaking more than hundred various languages with the various lifestyles and cultural and religion traditions. The indigenous people had difficult social systems and highly established traditions showing a reflection of their deep linked with the environment and the land. Torres Strait Islander and Australia’s Aboriginal people are culturally and ethnically different. The Aboriginal individual used to stay in Australia and different offshore Islands. In the year 1788 when Australia was colonized by the British colonists, the Aboriginal land was taken on the basis that the land belongs to one, Terra Nullius. The colonization results to a continuous decrease in the Aboriginal population because many died in the fights and also killed by the diseases. In the view of securing policies and assimilation policies of the Aboriginal people, the survivors of the conflicts were moved onto the reserves. The different territory and State laws were put in place to secure the association between the Aboriginals and other Australian citizens. In the year 1937, the State of Australia agreed that the Aboriginal people should be absorbed into the wider population. This made them start experiencing challenges with other populations. (Flood & Josephine, 2006). In the year 1967, a new constitution was passed which allowed the Aboriginal people to be included in the citizenship and also the national census. 5 years later the Australian labour State adopted the rule of self-determination for the indigenous society. It was a recognition that the Aboriginal people had the right to make their own decisions. This would need recognition by the State of their various forms and culture of a social organization, decision-making, and governance. The decision to make their own choices also meant that they would transfer the assets, power for the decision making and responsibility to the indigenous people so that they can deploy and implement choices that would impact them. In the year 1992, they gave the native title that is the rights to owning their lands. (Flood & Josephine, 2006). Despite Aboriginal people being protected by law about their rights they still face a lot of challenge in the workplaces. Culture is many things that cause the issues in the workplaces. Culture consist of the religion, beliefs and religion, food and other shared features of the ethnic or social groups. Cultural knowledge and awareness give community services employees with the capability to work effectively with individuals from various cultural backgrounds and to meet the requirements through the understanding and the appreciation of the barriers they encounter. The Aboriginal people have different and distinct cultures which include the history, traditions, beliefs etc. which allows the non-indigenous and indigenous Australian educators to work efficiently together. During the period of colonization, the Aboriginal people proved to be the readily available workforce and they were used in labourers and station employees and the form of payment was a just little sugar, flour or sometimes a little piece of beef. Women were employed as the domestic in the apartments of the wealthy owners of the land. The use of the Aboriginal native languages and the cultural traditions were barred and the children were eliminated. Because the culture of the Aboriginal was oral culture the loss of the native languages and the elimination of the kids should have cause the end of the culture, however, small groups of resistance cause the existence of the culture. Aboriginal people who lived near to the colonist places were affected most. Until today many of the individuals who were disconnected with their cultures still encounter the effects. The cultural disconnection by the previous decades has had an overwhelming effect on the various communities, individuals, and families. Some of the extended families of many have been taken away. The past mistreatment has established personal and social variations for many Aboriginal people. The personal effects for many individuals include; a feeling of shame this is one of the influential interactive emotion, causing an individual with the feelings of uncomfortableness, embarrassment, dishonour, humiliation, degradation, loss of confidence and disorientation and even uncertainty. This has made the Aboriginal people be difficult to be identified even with the acute body language and even hide their emotions. Another effect is the impact of low self-esteem in many individuals, the generation of the social demerits has led to most individuals feel low self-esteem and some social discomfort in the unacquainted surroundings. Another one is poverty, the generation, and the person’s poverty has had an overwhelming effect on Aboriginal people and the community itself. Lack of the vocational and educational chance and the long period dependence on the welfare establishes the poverty cycles. (Bennett, Zubrzycki & Bacon, 2011). Another effect that past mistreatment caused is mental and physical challenges. Aboriginal people most likely experience the challenge of mental or physical challenges since they live with the symptoms without any treatment. Health standards among these people are the lowest in the entire country of a nation. Past mistreatment caused the displacement from their homeland. This is a primary issue for many persons. Many Aboriginals individuals who live in regional or urban areas are there because of the actions there were beyond their control. Education also is still they key challenge in Aboriginal people. Learning in the Aboriginal community was grounded on a sophisticated and rich oral tradition. The education surroundings that do not employ approaches like visual, touch, movement and verbal can be aligned to Aboriginal students. Another challenge is the mistrust of State and their representatives. The previous governments’ decisions have left the Aboriginal community and its people with a big mistrust of the State and their agencies. (Bennett, Zubrzycki & Bacon, 2011). Unemployment is also the greatest effect that has affected the Aboriginal people. This effect is caused by many barriers which include; education and literacy- in Canada the graduation rate of the Aboriginal people is 24 percent in the period of 9 years the other population graduation rate is 84 percent. Academic certifications are required by many employers to employ people hence disadvantage to them. Another barrier of unemployment is cultural variations- the co-workers and employers may not empathy or respect the sole cultural variations of the Aboriginal people which can establish a worksite mood of the lack of respect. Another one is the challenge of the racism this is a major barrier to the Aboriginal people from securing a job opportunity or continuing in the job for a lengthy period of time, it related to bad attitudes pass down by European colonists to people. Some non-Aboriginal people still believe in the myths and misconceptions about the Aboriginal individuals (Flood, 2006). Low self-esteem is also another barrier to employment. The effects of poverty, stereotypes, racism, broken families and discriminations are just but the few things that are contributing to the low self-esteem. It becomes difficult to present a person with low self-esteem in a job interview. Another barrier is poor housing and poverty. The unhealthy living state usually impacts a person physical comfort and mentally this causes many of them not to go on looking for job opportunities since they are disturbed. The failure to have a driving license is also a stumbling block to many Aboriginal people in remote areas and it has lowered the chance for them to secure job opportunities other than that taking the training lesson is a challenge since they may not easily access the training providers. Access to transport is also a challenge since they live in remote areas and this causes many pre-employment situations. Many of them in the remote areas cannot afford to buy the vehicles and its insurance. Child care is also a challenge to Aboriginal communities more so those in Canada. They cannot afford safe child care. (Howard, 1982). Aboriginal people faces the challenge of various government legislation most of the legislation have contributed to their land being dispossess, the breakdown of families, it has the mental health problems, poverty, poor health results, poor housing standards, loss and grief issues, unemployment, being represented most in the juvenile courts, emotional and social comfort problems etc. Self-determination in Aboriginal people consist of the transfer of decision-making authority from the State to the Aboriginal people. It needed the assets and systems that can help them in reconstructing their own group's decision-making abilities. Despite being given the self-determination by the government it still had issues and challenges which include the family-run reigns, service givers renounce responsibility and clashing of the laws. Family-run reigns within Aboriginal society can deteriorate the self –determination of the Aboriginal individuals. They sham to be controlled by the community but not working within the firm organization guidelines controlled by the community. Other Aboriginal societies have created 2 class problem in housing, education, and health where the favoured class receives quick entry to services and programs while the other remaining class has to wait for the waiting list. Services givers reject responsibility- some of the facilities givers abuse the power for self-determination as their method out of the accountability. They consider the self-determination as authorisation to ignore or abandon their accountability, saying that the under self-determination was not appropriate for them to be considered. The Aboriginal health came to be the Aboriginal challenge that facilities seemed to be pardoned from. As many people of Aboriginal work with their self-determination, it means that some of their choices would clash with the state laws. An example is Murrumu who was known to be Jeremy Geia had to reject his citizenship of Australia and refunded his passport. Some other people have failed to recognize the state rules due to self-determination. Aboriginal people still faces the challenge of guarding the human rights in the workplaces. The work of the social justice is to ensure that every Australian either non-indigenous or indigenous has the worth about the ways to make decisions and how they live. Social justice is the basis in the practical of the day to day activities of life. It is about having proper sanitation and good housing condition. It also means considering the various rights of the Aboriginal people which include the right to various culture and status, the rights of self-determination and the rights of ownership of the land. It is unfortunate to note that human rights are taken for granted by some individuals. They see it has the well –intention clichés. Despite the commitment of human rights like the rights to self-determination, the Aboriginal individual still suffers the pain of the unequal conditions. The indigenous individual is continually being blamed and subjected to society anger for inadequate of development in our economic and social conditions. For indigenous individuals, such obligations were made in three decades ago. The true reality is that Aboriginal people still suffer. The challenge of the cultural bias is also an issue in Aboriginal people in the workplace. Cultural bias usually points to the negative discrimination and stereotyping. Indigenous or Aboriginal people are furious and do not usually pay attention to their leaders this is stereotype held by non-Aboriginal people. The cultural can have an influence on how to behave or feel. Creating the awareness of our cultural biases leads to be closer to giving culturally and effective secure work surrounding for the Aboriginal people. (Anaya, 2004). Aboriginal people also faces the challenges of conditions of imprisonment. Many of the Australia detention services specifically in remote places, overcrowded, dirty, or do not have air-conditioning do not give the Aboriginal people in cells with access to culturally relevant rehabilitation or healing programs and this puts the juveniles at risk of being abused by failure to distinct them from the elderly while in cells. Many imprisoned persons do not get good medical services and even the mental care which leads to incidents like madness or death in the cells. Also the transportation of the arrested people in the places where the Aboriginal communities lives take a long time with high temperatures and not well-ventilated vehicles which threat to the health of prisoners. The places also lack Inspector for custodial facilities to give a sole and fair checking service that provides up to date analysis and guidance about the custodial services and facilities (Howard, 1982). Aboriginal people faces the challenge of accessing justice. Due to an experience of the cultural and language barriers and low levels of literacy and numeracy, they get a lot of setbacks in seeking justice. Despite the Aboriginal people imprisonment rates rising at alarming rates in the previous years and rise in demand of services like ATSILS the total of funded given is still declining. Indigenous kids and women still remain persistently disadvantage in ways of accessing the justice like in situations of the violence in the families. Due to low funding, the family violence prevention facilities cannot reach to remote places but will be only effective in the urban areas (Chartrand & Whitecloud, 2001). In the past, they face the problem of stolen wages and the stolen generation that is in the period of 1909 to 1969. High portions of them were physical, sexually and psychologically abused. The effect of the trauma has been handed on successively generations by generations with the delegates of the stolen generations having no mentors of parenting to refer on. In the period of 1980 to 1990s, many of Australian State suspended wages and payments for the indigenous individuals under their protection and care. This led to poverty which is still experiencing today. In conclusion, Aboriginal still holds important factors in the community activities such as each person has their own area, place and sense of belonging that gives a steady sense of identity and security, spiritually linked to people and country and sense of responsibility to the community. This show that a lot of community strength is on Aboriginal people than Non-Aboriginal people who they followed western cultures. References: Anaya, S.J., 2004. Indigenous peoples in international law. Oxford University Press, USA. Howard, M.C., 1982. Australian Aboriginal politics and the perpetuation of inequality. Oceania, 53(1), pp.82-101. Chartrand, P.L., and Whitecloud, W., 2001. The Justice System and Aboriginal people: The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba: Winnipeg. Taylor, J., Wilkinson, D., and Cheers, B., 2008. Working with communities in health and human services. Oxford University Press. Flood, J., 2006. Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal people. Allen & Unwin. Bennett, B., Zubrzycki, J. and Bacon, V., 2011. What do we know? The experiences of social workers working alongside Aboriginal people. Australian social work, 64(1), pp.20-37. ABC Education TV (1993). "Towards the future: policies and practice". Windows onAboriginalAustralia, OLAA Series, Melbourne, episode 13. Altman, J.C. ed., 1991. Aboriginal employment equity by the year 2000 (No. 2). Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Ansara, M., 1989. Self-Determination. Raheja, M., 2007. Reading Nanook's smile: Visual sovereignty, Indigenous revisions of ethnography, and Atanarjuat (the fast runner). American Quarterly, 59(4), pp.1159-1185. Murphy, E., 2015. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Green Left Weekly, (1072), p.5. Beckett, J., 1988. Aboriginality, citizenship and nation state. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, (24), pp.3-18. Read More