The Aborigines

Thought I would do a reminder to myself of my story so far on Aborigines. Its important because to an extent they have dominated the cultural side of the last 4 weeks - especially the outboack bit as will be explained. Its also a very frustrating story. So a brief history lesson, which I have greatly simplified..

Aborigines arrived in Australia some 40,000 years ago - might be more might be less. There were about 250 different tribes all speaking different languages and generally occupying their own area of the country - I thought the Aborigines were 1 people.

Captain Cook set foot on Australian soil in 1770 and declared it terra nullis - no mans land. The British, after losing the American War of Independence needed somehwere to send their convicts so in 1778 sent the first colonists (convicts) to Australia to create a settlement. Gradually the country grew and after gold finds in 1830-50 it exploded with new immigrants. The arrival and continued settlement of the country had a disastrous effect on the aborigianl people - a) the diseases introduced by Eurpoeans were new to them and their immune systems could not cope b) they were driven from their lands and c) in many cases if they resisted they were wiped out.

In the 20th century Australia (up to 1967) persued a policy of allowing the aboriginal culture to die out, in many cases implementing policies to kill it off. They moved aborigines away from the towns, in some cases removed the children from aboriginal families to train them in western ways. Australias policy was a white only policy. In 1967 this changed and aborigines were given citizenship. However, the population had been reduced to 5% of its original population and is now onl 2% of the total.

Over the next couple of decades it seems that guilt set in, along with aboriginal desire to reclaim their lands and in the 80s and 90s large areas of land were given back to the indiginous communities - in many cases these were then leased back to the Australian goverment . So this is why Ayers Rock is now Uluru. The government it appears has done a lot and is trying to do more to apologise for earlier generations policies and to try and rebuild the aboriginal culture.

However, from what we have seen they have a huge way to go. In most of the outback cities we have seen there are large numbers of aborigines hanging around on street corners, shouting a lot, The communities have huge problems with drink and drugs - to the extent that towns like Alice Springs have dry areas and don't allow alcohol in many areas outside of pubs. In Uluru the aboriginal people have no involvement in the nationla park - simply being paid a rental fee. Only in kakadu have we seen any involvement of aboriginal people in tourism. It appears , and from speaking to people, that they want no involvement with 'the Europeans'.

I have to say that the majority of the people we have seen seem to spend a lot of time drinking, sitting around in parks, they seem to be very sad, they do not have good personal hygiene. Sadly they appear to be misspalced in their own country and its very sad and frustrating. Goodness knows what the solution will be , but I leave this area with a ) a feeling of sadness for the aborigines and b) a feeling of giving a kick up the backside to get on with what modern life has thrown at them.