6. L’HISTOIRE
6.1. Les opprimés /
La reconciliation entre les peuples
Out 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
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