Identidades in English No 1, February 2014 | Page 33

Policy, aimed at preventing migration to the country
by people of color, particularly those from Asia. This
remained in force until late in the 20th century.
Stolen Generations
Like other first inhabitants of colonized nations, Aboriginal people who survived the genocide of the colonial era experienced territorial dispossession and displacement within their own land. In Australia there
were also attempts at forced assimilation. Thousands
of part-Aboriginal children were forcibly removed
from their families by government agencies. The children were placed under foster care with white families
or in institutions from 1909 up until the 1970s.6 No
one who has watched the movie Rabbit Proof Fence
(2002), based on one true story of these “Stolen Children,” can fail to be moved by the story of three sisters
who were taken away from their mother in 1931 and
placed in an orphanage where they were trained to be
domestic staff for the homes of White Australians.
The sisters managed to escape and trekked thousands
of miles across the desert to return to their family.
In February 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd delivered an apology to the “stolen generations.” He described it as an occasion for "the nation
to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting
the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with
confidence in the future".7 Yet just one year earlier, in
2007, the government of then Prime Minister John
Howard launched an intervention in the remote Northern Territory, an area with a large Aboriginal population. The intervention was presented as part of an attempt to close the gap in education, employment and
health between white and black Australia. Thousands
of troops and police were sent into Aboriginal communities to stamp out child abuse, alcoholism and domestic violence. Restrictions were placed on welfare
payments and access to alcohol in these communities.
As John Pilger puts it: “Indigenous communities were
stripped of their already limited basic rights and services on the pretext that pedophile gangs were present
in "unthinkable" numbers – a claim dismissed as false
by police and the Australian Crime Commission.8 Aboriginal people were portrayed as being so dysfunctional that the Racial Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory was suspended when the intervention
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started. Despite Rudd’s apology, he decided to stand
by the Northern Territory Emergency Response intervention launched by his predecessor. This disappointed many Aboriginal leaders, who had hoped that
his apology would mark the start of a new chapter in
internal race relations.9
Entrenched Racism
In 2009, following an inquiry into the treatment of the
country's Aboriginal population, the United Nations
reported a finding of "entrenched racism" in Australia.
James Anaya, the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights made this statement in Canberra, the Australian capital, at the end of a fact-finding tour of the
country during which he visited indigenous communities and held talks with the government.
His report accused the government of repeatedly
breaching international obligations on human and indigenous rights. Referring to the Northern Territory
Emergency Response, Mr. Anaya said the country's
hardline policy towards the indigenous population
was clearly discriminatory. He noted that "[The intervention] undermines the right of indigenous peoples
to control their own destinies, their right to self-determination." He also stated that the measures taken
overtly discriminated against Aboriginal peoples, stigmatizing already stigmatized communities. He described the policy of forcing Aborigines to set aside a
portion of their welfare checks for essentials such as
food and rent as "demeaning." "They have to carry a
card around that marks them as someone who can't
manage their own funds," he said. The restrictions
were "incompatible" with Australia's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Mr. Anaya also
called for compensation for the "stolen generations"
of Aboriginal children.10 Tony Abbott, then opposition spokesman on Indigenous affairs told Anaya to
"get a life" and not "just listen to the old victim brigade." Abbott became the prime minister of Australia
in September 2013.11
In August 2010, another UN report by the Committee
on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)