6. L’HISTOIRE

6.1. Les opprimés / La reconciliation entre les peuples

 

ΠOut here , on the prairie, the Lakota Sioux Indians tribe once lived free, in harmony with nature.

The tribe has become known to millions through the film Dances With Wolves . The movie depicts the Sioux as a proud and hardy people who survived prairie life through a deep understanding of nature, strong sense of community and rich spiritual life. Little about this arid prairie has changed in a century but for the descendants of the Lakota Sioux, life has today is a very different struggle for survival. In a few generations, a people once free to roam pristine grasslands at will have been confined to a life of neglect and poverty on government reservations.

The statistics tell a lot about what has happened to the Sioux in the 100 years since the West was won. On the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to 12,000 Sioux, unemployment and poverty are rampant: 60% of youths drop out of high school , unemployment is nearly 90% and because jobs are few, those who are employed are mostly white, or mixed blood. Rarely are full bloods given job opportunities.

There is lack of adequate housing - a tribe leader is housing 23 people in a two-bedroom home. The suicide rate is double the national average. Diabetes is five times the national average and alcoholism, resulting from a widespread sense of hopelessness, causes one in four babies to be born with delirium tremens or AFS (Alcoholic Fetal Syndrome) and, due to poor nutrition,  infant mortality rate is 50% higher than that in Bulgaria.

                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                             Adapted from The Wall Street Journal

                                                                                                                                                                            March 25, 1991

 

¨Aborigines are the earliest known inhabitants of a country. The term is generally applied to the original or  native inhabitants of a country, as opposed to an intrusive conquering race from another area, or settlers,  and their descendants.

Australia was originally settled by the British. around 1788. The massive intrusion of carriers of a powerful, imperialist culture cost the Aborigines their autonomy and the undisputed  possession of the continent, and it forced them into constant compromise and change.

Although the  Colonial Office in London prescribed the safeguarding of indigenes' rights and their treatment as British subjects, friction soon developed between the colonists and local Aborigines.  Communication was minimal and the cultural gap was huge.

Once European settlement began to expand inland, the two parties clashed over the issue of land tenure and economic activities and led to desecration of the Aboriginal sacred sites and property. Clashes marked virtually all situations, and the Europeans viewed Aborigines as parasites upon nature, defining their culture in wholly negative terms.

In the course of the next generation, white settlers continually harassed the natives: kidnapping, rape, and murder were common and of course rapists got away with it.  Although it had been thought that the Aborigines were destined for extinction, in the 1980s their population greatly increased; by 1991 they numbered 257,333. Only recently have Australian Aboriginal people become aware of the richness of their culture and tried to hold on to their cultural heritage through political action and literature.

                                                                                                                                                                            Adapted from

                                                                                                                                                                            Encyclopedia Britannica

 

Ž MAKING AMENDS

In Australia, many individuals are quietly working together to end racial divisions and foster understanding. Set up in 1991, the reconciliation council is charged with steering the country towards formal reconciliation by the repairing of damaged relationships. « We have a real groundswell in this country towards reconciliation, », a member of the council says.  «It’s people mixing and meeting, trying to weave together two different cultures and laws and to draw individuals closer. » Bonds are being forged around the country: near Lakes Entrance, 300 km east of Melbourne, the 16 Aboriginal and 16 non-Aboriginal students of the primary school are taught the local Aboriginal language. But there are obstacles of prejudice and ignorance even to such small first steps: some whites resent Aboriginal people for receiving what they regard as favored treatment. There is a growing awareness, too, of what failure would mean for Australia. « If we get it right and do justice to the Aboriginal people, life in Australia will be much more productive, more harmonious, it will be a happier nation », says Cardinal Edward Clancy, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. But Australia is not the first nation to find the path to reconciliation rough. Many countries are seeking an end to division, from South Africa, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to salve the wounds the wounds of Apartheid, to New Zealand where Maoris MPs have paid tribute to outgoing Prime Minister Jim Bolger for his work on reconciliation.

 

                                                                                                                                             Adapted from Time, December 29,1997