Every January 26th, there are displays of jingoism and nationalism all across Australia. Australians celebrate this day to commemorate the first fleet that sailed into Sydney Cove.
For the Aboriginals, this day has been one of pain and trauma. They refer to it as The Invasion Day.
Aboriginal Australians face the effects of colonial hangover even today. They do not have access to proper health care, education and a crisis of identity. They do not feel like the Australian government is doing its part in working for the aboriginal communities across Australia. They feel neglected by their government.
An average Indigenous Australian dies a decade earlier than others and are far more likely to be in prison and unemployed.
More than 50% of indigenous adults above the age of 35 have type 2 diabetes and is predicted to rise in the upcoming years. In some indigenous communities, diabetes has reached epidemic proportions.
Due to poverty, tuberculosis continues to affect Aboriginal Australians. Several programs have been implemented to battle TB but poverty, poor housing, a lack of access to medical care and drugs, cultural barriers, language differences and geographic remoteness are making it difficult to help them. The hospital environment brings up their memories of racism and mistreatment. Many of them do not trust the existing health care system due to their past and present experiences.
Alcoholism and all its consequences are a huge problem among indigenous communities across Australia.
Children are malnourished and their brains are not as developed as they should be. They were affected pre-birth due to the effective amount of alcohol their mother drank while they were pregnant. This condition can last for life and is known as fetal alcohol syndrome.
There are so many health-related problems that the Aboriginals face due to neglect. Yet, in Australia’s election campaign, both the Labour and Liberal Party have barely addressed the central issues faced by the Aboriginal Australians. The Aboriginals feel ignored by the politicians.
History
The Forgetting, after the invasion some of the most important places in Australia was renamed. Toonooba became Fitzroy River, Baga became Mount Jim Crow, Gai-ee became Mount Wheeler.
People were slaughtered to clear lands and was carved up into privately owned blocks. Fences were erected and mines were built and the barriers to asserting sovereignty over traditional lands became both physical and legal.
Children were taken away from their families by government agencies and missionaries. They removed children from their families whom they believed are of mixed ethnicity between 1907 and 1967. They believed that they were saving the Aboriginal Population from extinction. The idea expressed by A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines for Western Australia, and others as late as 1930 was that mixed-race children could be trained to work in white society, and over generations would marry white and be assimilated into the society.
The Northern Territory Chief Protector of Aborigines, Dr Cecil Cook, argued that "everything necessary [must be done] to convert the half-caste into a white citizen"
Under the Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910, the Chief Protector of Aborigines was appointed the "legal guardian of every Aboriginal and every half-caste child up to the age of 18 years". This provided them with the legal basis for enforcing segregation. After the Commonwealth took control of the Territory, the Chief Protector was given total control of all Indigenous women regardless of their age, unless married to a man who was "substantially of European origin", and his approval was required for any marriage of an Indigenous woman to a non-Indigenous man. This later came to be known as, the Stolen Generation.
The children were taken into care to “protect” them from neglect and abuse. However, the report said that, among the 502 inquiry witnesses, 17% of female witnesses and 7.7% of male witnesses reported having suffered a sexual assault while in an institution.
The language- an issue of Identity
About 250 languages were spoken in Australia before colonization.
Until the 1970s, government policies banned and discouraged Aboriginal people from speaking their languages. The indigenous languages were replaced with English through missionaries.
The Commonwealth Office of Education explained its intention in 1953:
“The policy of assimilation demands a lingua franca as soon as possible—not only for communication between aboriginal and European but between aboriginal and aboriginal.That lingua franca must be English… There is a need everywhere for a planned, vigorous, and maintained drive for English. Substitution of a new language for the old is not likely to disrupt the traditional social structure of the people any more than the substitution of the Christian religion for their old religion and superstitions. The former might assist the latter process.”
Due to this policy, the aboriginal languages were banned in Australia under the Commonwealth Government. It was so extreme that it banned kids from using their native tongue even in the playground. They were successful in attacking their language as they ran dormitories, boarding schools and were separated from their families to further reduce their influence on their children.
This attack on languages is partly based on racist and the government's colonizing mindset. Just like how the commonwealth treated the rest of their colonies, indigenous people were seen as less intelligent and uncivilized. They considered Aboriginal Languages to be a deficit and lacked critical thinking. They had no sensitivity and did not think twice before making such racist remarks on Aboriginal language and culture.
Missionary linguist Beulah Lowe commented that Aboriginal people have “no real language.” Linguist Robert Dixon remembered being told in 1963 that Aboriginal languages were “just a few grunts and groans.”
As recently as 1969, the Commonwealth government presumed the need for “remedial work” in Aboriginal schools due to the supposed “inhibitory influences” of “bilingualism in education.”
Learning English
Aboriginals were already multilingual before colonization. So, adding English wasn’t that hard.
They were eager to earn the language to defend their interest and open up multiple opportunities.
Some thought it best to keep their language secret from colonizers, perhaps to hide their Aboriginality and the associated discrimination, perhaps to uphold their authority over their cultural knowledge. So they spoke English.
Attitudes began changing in the 1960s. In 1963, the Yolngu people presented their Bark Petition to the Commonwealth government. The petition was written first in Gupapyngu with an English translation. Aboriginal languages could no longer be dismissed as “grunts and groans” of little cultural value.
Health Care crisis within the Aboriginal communities
Indigenous peoples often find it difficult to access appropriate ainstream primary health care services. Ensuring the accessibility of health care for Indigenous peoples who are often faced with a vast array of additional barriers including experiences of discrimination and racism, can be complex.
Indigenous health care services addressed these issues in several ways including the provision of transport to and from appointments, a reduction in health care costs for people on low incomes and close consultation with, if not the direct involvement of, community members in identifying and then addressing health care needs. Colonialism may be a thing of the past but the colonial hangover is still very prevalent across the world.
Lately, lots of NGOs and world organisations are working very hard to highlight the everyday problems faced by the indigenous communities.
Now, the Australian Health care system is trying their best to implement measure to bridge the gap. They call it a National Priority. They are aiming to deliver culturally appropriate and high quality of essential health services. The Australian Government has set a budget of $4.1 billion on Indigenous-specific health initiatives to 2022–23, including the Indigenous Australians’ Health Programme.
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