Australian Cultural Genocide

The Australian treatment of the aborigines was cultural genocide, and there is no way to make amends for their actions. Cultural Genocide (or in this case ethnocide) is a term used to describe the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people.

“Article 7 of the �United Nations draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples’ (26 August 1994) defines �Cultural genocide’

Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress for:

(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;

(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;

(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;

(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;

(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.”(Exert from the Wikipedia entry for Cultural Genocide)

If you know about what happened to the aborigines you can see that all of these apply. The Australian mind set was that they were helping these people by forced assimilation into the “proper” culture of the Australians. The term stolen generation is one used for describing the method that they used to achieve this. The