Blog 9: Rabbit Proof Fence

1. In chapter three, the author explains the background that the aboriginal people had with the Europeans. The author explains how the land of their ancestor's was taken by the Europeans, and how they were unjustly treated. Unjustly treated is a really general way to say the absolute torture and pain that they had to go through. Two boys killed sheep, as a sort of way to rebel and they were in "prison...Their elderly parents wept and wailed...their legs [were put] in irons, into a boat and sailed down the river, out to the open sea. They were never seen again" (14). Which is a perfect example of how they violated human rights laws:


1. Right to Equality, after all, the only thing that these boys did was kill shee while the Europeans were brutally killing their families.


2. Freedom from torture and degrading treatment, these boys were put on ships so it was clear to see for many people that they were under society, and they were never seen again, so obviously not very important.


3. Freedom from slavery, these boys would have been put to work right away. Unfortunately, they never made it home, so who could imagine the pain that they must have endured.





2. "Civilizing" the Australian people was another way to tell the people that the Europeans' were not going to accept them, as a culture or as a people. They believed that they were so superior that they would assimilate people into their culture through something called a degrigation ceremony, someone is stripped of their identity and is given a new one to put in place. In the United States I don't believe that we went exactly that far, but we did segrigate people. We left them from society, and it had such an impact on people that when people tried to prove that segrigation was wrong they went to children with dolls-one black one white. They asked them two simple questions, "which doll is pretty" and " which doll is ugly". The children all said that the African American doll was ugly and the White American doll was pretty. Now, Australia is dealing with the children, who are now adults in "the lost generation". The suicide rate is high, and many of them have emmotional problems.