Assimilation In Australia

From 1788 (After Europeans discovered Australia), the white settlers gradually took Aboriginal people’s traditional lands. They defined aboriginals as a doomed race (due to their intelligence and way of living). Therefore, in the name of protection, lots of policy relating to removal of children had been created and impacted on the Australian native people and their society over time. Even until now in 2016, some of the scars still cannot recover, such as loss of cultural identity, loss of language, extinction of tribes and clans and the “Stolen Generation”. These policies include the protectionism policy, the assimilation policy and the integration policy.
Protectionism was the earliest unequal policy that settlers used on Aboriginals. …show more content…
It was the second stage of manipulating and enslaving Aboriginals. It started in Victoria first, soon all the states started this policy in between 1950s. The assimilation policy almost completely ignored aboriginal’s human rights. Instead treating aboriginals as human beings, the assimilation policy was more likely treat natives as objects. White officer could remove kids from natives’ tribes at any time and their actions were permitted by local government. Molly in “Rabbit proof fence” was forcibly removed because she was a “half-cast” however, she was about to marry a pure blood aboriginals. Which was unacceptable for the white government during that time, because she must evolve to the “Advanced (white) level”. Due to removal of children, it caused a massive destruction of aboriginal societies and languages. The legacy of this practice caused for “Stolen Generation” had been a loos of identity and major social problems, such as high rates of crime and alcoholism especially in northern Australia cities such as Darwin. For the aboriginals that are 13 years and over, 80% reported that they spoke English as their main language, while only 6% know how to speak traditional aboriginal