Racism in Ethnic Communities
Racism in Ethnic Communities.The whole history of progress of human liberty
Shows that all concessions
Yet made to her august claims
Have been born of earnest struggle.
If there is no struggle
There is no progress.
Frederick Douglass, 1857
Introduction;
To rationalise or “make sense” of the Australian states attempts to control Aboriginal socialisation and identity we must first look into the foundation of the racist ideology and the archaic scientific theories held by the governing body at that time.
It could be argued that racism is a virulent and hateful form of collectivism, it is mass exclusion that creates mass poverty and despair. Racial discrimination is in reality ethnic conflict and is characterised by territorial protectionism basing its ideology on the subconscious philosophical residue of European-style racial theories.
Hollinsworth argues that with the expansionism of the European nations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the ideology and rationalisation of racist theory shifted from that of a class structure to one based on the nessessity to maintain a capitalistic doctrone and support the nationalistic ideals through the labour of non-European cultures. He further contends that most Europeans felt that because of their economic and military domination they were superior in both culture and racial origin. (Hollinsworth 1998)
A few years later in the nineteenth century the scientific community adopted Darwinism. Darwin’s theories were based upon the synopsis that there were no permanent forms of nature and that each species adapted to its environment by natural selection. (Darwin 1859) When Professor Ernst Haeckel developed these theories to incorporate a general theory of human and social development, the notion was used by racists to justify their, ‘conceptions of superior and inferior peoples and nations.’ Ethnocentrism flourished under this philosophy as certain extracts from these theories were used to validate the Europeans racial ideology. (Banton, M. 2000)
The doctrines laid down in the formation of Judeo-Christian religious beliefs also played a primary role in the formation of European ethnocentrism. In order to justify such evil use of power Montague argues that people will appeal to those moral systems which give them a sense of meaning, rightness, and ultimate value in life, their ideological belief systems, which serve as the highest authority in their lives, the moral basis of their existence. (Montague 1965). Using this premise, I would argue that if people use religion to explain their social reality, then a religious ideology with its sacred texts will be used to justify this exploitation, thereby transforming God into the biggest exploiter and racist, even when this may be done unconsciously. If, however, a scientific perspective dominates a person’s worldview, then a scientific ideology will be used to show why some groups of people are inferior to others.
Having briefly touched on the building blocks of the ethnocentric ideology of the European culture and more particularly in Australia’s situation the invading forces of the British imperialistic monolith, a study of the problems faced by the invaders with respect to the geo-physical nature of the continent, dispersal of individual nations, language differentiation, cultural barriers and the seperation of any radical elements from more passive groups among the indigonous nations would have had to be addressed by the invaders.
The first measures employed by the invaders was to attempt to eliminate the indigenous nations through genicide Using the myth of terra nullius as justification the Indigenous people were systematically slaughtered. In Tasmania between 1804 and 1834, the Aboriginal population was reduced from an estimated 5000 people to just 200, which represented a 90% reduction in just 30 years. (Cowie1992) In Victoria it has been estimated that the Koori population declined by about 60% in just 15 years between 1835 and 1850 as more than 68 individual ‘massacres’ were perpetrated in that period. By 1850 virtually all active resistance to the invasion had been quelled in Victoria. Census figures published in March 1857 showed that only 1,768 Aborigines were left in all of that state. (Christie 1979) So comprehensive was the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Australia that out of an estimated 500 language groups on mainland Australia when the British arrived, barely half that number of languages were to survive. By 1871, one correspondent, G. Carrington felt compelled to write,
We shall never possess a detailed history of this singular and gradual work of extermination - such a tale would be too horrible to read - but we have an opportunity of seeing a similar process in full work in the colony of Queensland, and when we have seen that, we shall understand the mystery of Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
The policy of ethnic cleansing perpetrated against the Aboriginal peoples could arguably be described as a success from a militaristic point of view, with respect to the objectives of the invaders. Morris has described it thus, ‘The colonial process had reduced the Aborigines to a residual minority’, but they had not been eliminated. The European invaders then adopted a wait and see approach in which they took the attitude of hoping that the problem would resolve itself.’ In other words a new policy emerged dubbed, ‘Soothe the Dying Pillow’, it was based on the assumption that what was left of the Aboriginal populace would now die out. (Cowie1992) So whilst indiscriminate killings of Aborigines were to continue well into the 1930’s, Cowie further notes that the attitude of most of the white Australian population was that of caring little for the fate of the indigenous peoples and were waiting for the “Aboriginal Problem” to die out through natural attrition. The widespread genocidal activity of early ‘settlement’ gave way to a policy of containment. This was typified by the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, which established the first Australian ‘concentration camps’ to provide a place for the doomed race to die off. All states save that of Tasmania adopted the new policies which would later come to be known as “Assimilation”. (Cowie1992)
Within Cowie’s text he draws on conclusions from Professor W. Stanner who argues that there is no worst part of our 19th-century story than that of the containment of the indigenous peoples which led to the powerlessness, poverty, homelessness and confusion of the Aboriginal people. (Stanner, W., op. cit., pp 44-5)
A general plan evolved which developed into an Australian version of “assimilation”, whereby the theory was that mixed-race people should be absorbed into the general white community over a period of time. At the same time the “full-bloods” would die off, thus maintaining the desired racial homogeneity of Australian society. This plan found expression when, on 21st April 1937, the first ever conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal authorities as its major resolution, under the general heading, ‘Destiny of the Race’, declared,
“That this conference believes that the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth, and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end.” (Commonwealth of Australia, Initial Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities 1937)
Writing a decade after this conference, the former Western Australian Protector of Aborigines, Mr. A. O. Neville, revealed himself as an advocate of interbreeding as a means of eradicating a potential future race problem. As an influential former administrator in Aboriginal affairs he contended that to encourage so-called ‘half-bloods’ to intermarry with either white men or other ‘mixed-bloods’ (’octoroons’, ‘quadroons’, etc.) would produce children with increasingly less ‘Aboriginal blood’ through several generations. Thus any future ‘racial problem’ could be avoided. (Neville 1947)
At the turn of the twentith century the racial policies and practices of the governing body were expanded and became standardised within Australia. The Aboriginal people were now no longer considered non-human however their rights as members of an established state were non-existent. This could arguably be seen as the beginnings of the welfare situation. Within the laws of segregation and protectionism the Europeans hoped that the aboriginal culture would die. That their family structures would be destroyed through forcible relocation and their ability to support and maintain family and cultural ties were removed thus leaving a unique and distinctive culture totally in reliance of charity. Lippmann notes that resistance to the institutionalisation was evident and was practiced by a great majority of the indigenous peoples. The use of passive resistance was developed by the leaders within the concentration camps, utilising a regime of non-cooperation, lying and deliberate ingratitude. Lippman further argues that these forms of passive resistance are still utilised by Aboriginal peoples today. (Lippmann 1991)
The truth about these camps have for the most part been unrecorded. They have not been taught within the educational system until recent years and many parts of the Aboriginal history is foreign to non-indigonous Australians. The realisation of the effects of these camps can be summed up from two identical yet differing .perspectives. The first from the late Senator Neville Bonner in which he notes that,
“Many of my ancestors were unceremoniously butchered. Those, far to few, who escaped the guns, knives and poisons of your so-called civilised ancestors were largely herded onto reserves and missions, there to live in enslavement” (Bonner 1977)
One of the more confrontational Aboriginal leaders today Gary Foley contends that under English law genicide of the whole Aboriginal people was attempted, one third of the Aboriginal population was herded into concintration camps and used as slave labour surviving on subsistence levels of food and wages while still being denied ciizenship and freedom of movement. (Foley1977)
Conclusion
To hold that races exist is the first step of racism, prejudice is a fuel of the logical fallacy, and Colonialism/Imperialism views of white anglo saxon invaders that conquered this land and the limited government view that attempted to overturn the former Discrimination and exclusion are the practical results of racial theory and prejudice.
The solutions to the problem of racism are found in individuals, particularly intellectuals, teachers, parents and business people.
Bibliography
Banton, Michael “The Idiom of Race” Theories of Race and Racism (ed Back, L. Solomos, J.) Routledge, London 2000, Pp 57-58.
Darwin, Charles 1859. On the Origin of the species by means of selection; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the struggle for Life, (page references to New York: Mentor Books Edition) Pp 61-61, p73.
Hollinworth, D. “Race and Racism in Australia Social Science Press 1998 Katoomba P 35.
Montague, A. Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, 4th ed., revised and enlarged. New York, Columbia University Press. 1965.
G. Carrington, Colonial Adventures and Experiences by a University Man, Bell and Daldy: London, 1871,
M.F. Christie, Aborigines in Colonial Victoria 1835-86, Sydney University Press: Sydney, 1979
Morris, Barry, Domesticating Resistance: the Dhan-gadi Aborigines and the Australian State, Berg Publishers, Oxford, 1989
Cowie, H.R. Imperialism and Race Relations, Thomas Nelson: Sydney, 1992 Pp 297-298.
Cowie, H.R. Imperialism and Race Relations, Thomas Nelson: Sydney, 1992 P 299.
Cowie, H.R. Imperialism and Race Relations, Thomas Nelson: Sydney, 1992 P 300.
Commonwealth of Australia, Initial Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities, Aboriginal Welfare, Canberra, April 1937.
A. O. Neville, Australia’s Coloured Minority: Its Place in the Community, Sydney: Currawong Publishing, 1947.
Lippmann, L. Generations of Resistance Longman Cheshire Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 1991 p.16
Bonner, N. ‘Let the law be my peoples law too’, Aboriginal and Islander Identity, vol3 (2), April 1977: 6
Foley, G. ‘Blacks for Australian Independence’, ibid, vol 3 (3) July 1977: 5