Stolen Generations as the Key Area of Discussion - Literature review Example

Students Name: Instructors’ Name: Course Code and Name: Date of Submission: Stolen Generations has been chosen as the key area of discussion. Introduction The Stolen Generations also known as the stolen children were the offspring of Aboriginal people of Australia and Torres Strait Islander descent that were taken from their families by both the Australian Federal and State government agencies. This was under acts of their respective governments. The removal took place for a long period of time, about early 1900s to late 1960s. They justified this in the Aboriginal parents’ inability to raise their children in acceptable mainstream ways, absorption into the white race through removal, adoption, fostering and interracial marriage revealed itself as a breeding-out policy; such of the race HAEBICH, A (2000.PG 134). RENES, M (2011) says removal would entail severing the emotional, physical, and geographical bonds with the child’s Aboriginal parents and culture in a process of displacement, stopping and denying of tribal genesis, whereby mission reserves children’s homes and good non-Aboriginal families all played their role. READ, P (1989) says that there may be lots of thousand people of Aboriginal descent who do not have trace of their families or communities. He adds that they do not know if they are of Aboriginal origin. READ, P (1983) notes that white people believed that the best way to make black people behave like white people was to get hold of the children who had not learned Aboriginal life ways. READ, P. (1981). They consider children’s mind were like a kind of black-board on which the European’s secrets could be written. The system of institutional taking away of children to special locations, such as the Moore River and Carrolup Native Settlements was started by A.O. Neville, a Western-Australian Chief Protector of the Aborigines who was notorious in his deeds. Under-funding of the Department of Native Affairs made Aboriginal families contained in reserves and missions to luck of work, training and adequate housing facilities and sanitary infrastructure. This consequently made them unable to provide for their children and deliver the stipulated standards of hygiene, food and care and this led to parents being accused of child neglect and penalized with child removal. Child separation had been a talked-of topic with Non-Aborigines sometimes denying its happening while the victims finding it a shame to talk about their removal. Nowadays, thousands of Aboriginal adults have spoken against the hurt they endured and are still enduring. This is due to learning and exposure to materials talking about their histories and rights. Some children were taken under Aborigines Protection Act which was enacted in 1909 and taken to homes like Kinchella and Cootamundra. Aboriginal foster homes were also used. From 1969, children were taken under Child Welfare Legislation which led to ‘uncontrollable children committed to non-Aboriginal institutions like Mt. Penang and Parramatta. ‘Delinquent’ children were committed for offences to non-Aboriginal corrective institutions. Children of ‘light caste’ were committed to the Child Welfare Department as wards READ (2011). First thoughts on Stolen Generations As a child growing up in Australia, I used to hear about The Stolen Generations. I always thought that the action took very few years like about three years. Sometimes, as I used to be told by uncles and aunts, that the incident never happened at all. I never thought about any implications of the whole process as I used to think that the children were in dire need or deserted by their parents and sometimes I would believe they were committed there by their parents. I have always been a sympathizer and would have emotional pain for any bad things done to individuals or groups. Equality has always been a thought in my mind when it comes to human races, but my knowledge about the incidence has always been shallow. I had only explanation from adults saying that the children benefitted educationally and socially or were taken as foster children of white parents. Mirror Image of Stolen Generation Knowledge With time, I developed a liking for literature writings. I started to seek knowledge from books and other learning materials. I first read about Stolen Generations in a pamphlet and this opened my eyes to seek more and more of the knowledge. Reading became my hobby and historic events became a bigger part of my reading. Reading gave me a deeper understanding of the whole process. Looking at a photograph of two Stolen Children in a book, I developed an inner pain for them. I would see beyond the state of their posture, their faces with a lot of sorrow eyes are likely to give concrete information that the mouth would not be able to say. The favorable conditions created in my mind by my first thought state to erode. I realized that human beings would lie, to justify a situation. The picture gave me a hunger for the knowledge about the event. This drastically led me to stay much longer at the library, and doing some references online. I was able to dig into more information and I developed a critical way of analyzing the different sources of information. Implications of the events started making a swift course. More pictures started drawing in my mind. I started seeing how the children lost their cultural uniqueness, for everyone. Moving past this, with more study, I learned about difficulties the Aborigines faced to find their religious beliefs and their internal guilt and anguish for their identity. I did a research on how the actions affect the Aboriginal people up to today. I realized that actions stayed dominant in their memories. Most victims reflect on the agony they passed through when they were separated from their family for a long time. The pain is still published by the Aboriginal writers and poets as a reminder of the past bad action to their generations. It is painful to pass through that without any wrong deed. Writing of journals helped me in reflecting the whole process. I wrote about The Rudd government apology. At first, I had thought about the apology being effective but I later saw it from a critical point of view. The apology assumed the power of the State indicating sovereignty of the government in production of verdict spotting exception powerfulness within the liberal cocoon of democracy. My world view On refection of the knowledge, my personal world view has been changed gradually with information I have been coming across pertaining The Stolen Generations. As a Christian, I see people as special creation compared to other animals and no person can be rated as sub-human or inferior to the other. God is the Supreme Being in the world and we are all equal before His eyes. Throughout the study, I have learned of new things, most being things I never believed or thought about in the past. Some of these things are like purpose of human life. I never thought about life’s purpose but the knowledge has opened my eyes to try to look at it. I figure that human life is to respected and everyone is to live life with a freedom provided they are living within the confines of righteousness. Also It has opened about how much human beings do not know about each other. In the case of the taking away of children, I see that some people still believe they are more special and have the right to control over the life of others. They can choose for you your destiny yet God is the one with that guarantee. We as human beings have a problem when it comes to viewing other people’s culture. Some think that others’ culture is archaic yet they don’t see how unique it may be. It is a person’s environment that may determine one’s culture dynamics and forcing one to assimilate into another’s culture is a failure of human’s thinking. The heroism played by people in the world only weakens ties of us as one people before our God. The world now can be seen as chaotic, with people having less sense for the right and the wrong. Forced taking away of children contradicts the moral authority given by God to guide us in choosing our actions. People can hide truth so as their actions can be seen as righteous. The world is not ready to change when it comes to wrong-doing. History tries to justify how things can be repeated even with the fact that they are wrong. When the effects of slavery were painful, people still managed to start illegal taking away of children. Conclusion When looking at The Stolen Children act, one thing becomes certain;-it was wrong and unfair and led to many people suffering. Justifications of any benefits from it cannot change the fact that it was painful and has a multi-generational impact to Aborigines. It is an important historical part of Australia showing importance of a people’s culture and helps in teaching about the negatives people can do in the name of help. REFERENCES CUTHBERT, D. (2001) Invisible Mothers and Unspeakable Stories: The Experiences of Non-Aboriginal Adoptive and Foster Mothers of Aboriginal Children KORFF, J. (2015) The Stolen Generations- Effects and Consequences MANNE, R. (2001) In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right Melbourne: Schwartz READ, P. (1981). The Stolen Generations New South Wales Department of Aboriginal Affairs RENES, M. (2011). The Stolen Generations, a Narrative of Removal, Displacement and Recovery Read More