Australia: the remains of the oldest culture in the world

For: J. Brandoli, text / D. Landa and J.Brandoli, photos.
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At seven in the morning, outside Sydney's Town Hall Tube Station, there are hardly any tramps. I notice one, black skin, and her clothes in shreds. He is at that early hour in the morning already drunk. Is an aboriginal, an Australian native. A member, according to a study in the journal Nature, of the oldest culture on earth. I will not see many more in the remainder of the trip except in certain areas of the desert and north of the country. Official data say they live in the country about 670.000 aborigines, a 3% of the total population.

Australia has a very low population density despite being the 10th country with the highest per capita income. Australia's population is 25 million compared to more than 66 million UK; the area of ​​Australia is 7692 square kilometers and that of the United Kingdom is 242 square kilometers. A rarity that such a rich and large country is so depopulated. The answer lies in the strong migratory control exercised for decades that has caused the image of a racist country that always flies over this huge island..

It is commemorated the day that a fleet of eleven ships commanded by Arthur Philip arrived at Sydney Harbor loaded with prisoners

Sydney looks like a Victorian town coming out of the suburban, british. Is 26 Jan., the sky is overcast and the streets are half empty. We just found out that today is the national holiday. In particular, It is commemorated the day that a fleet of eleven ships commanded by Arthur Philip arrived at Sydney Harbor loaded with prisoners. There began the white history of Australia.

The celebration is carried out without regrets of conquest despite a growing internal debate about its own history that emerges in the country. In any case, I see a huge difference with Mexico, where i lived four years, and where the 500 years of the arrival of the Spanish to Veracruz and the conquest of Tenochticlán between this year and 2021. The recent letter that the President of Mexico has sent to the Pope and the King of Spain demanding that they apologize to the native inhabitants for the abuses of the Conquest of America is just one more example of that interested conflict that certain Latin American political classes promote and I understand different from the resentment of the indigenous peoples before a conquest that annihilated them socially and culturally.

In Australia, where abuses have reached the end of the 20th century, I gaze at a statue of Queen Victoria in Hyde Park, the main park of beautiful Sydney, next to the Barracas Museum, what was the first prison of the British who were deported to the islands. The origin of white Australia was to serve as a huge penitentiary to the United Kingdom.

There is hardly any indigenous person left here to throw paint at the revered Queen Victoria, while in Mexico live 11 million indigenous

The statue of Queen Victoria see that is untainted. In Mexico City, Columbus statue placed in the Paseo de le Reforma always had red paint thrown over him remembering gore and a perennial sign of genocide. Likely, the difference is that here is no longer just one native to throw paint the revered Queen Victoria, while in Mexico live 11 million indigenous, 10% population, and in any case the 93% population is mestizo.

The interesting debate, I, It is not in any case to mark differences of good conquests and bad conquests. Traveling makes you understand that all the processes of colonization or conquest are repeated in the basics since the time of the Egyptians., Romans, Aztecs or Mongols: the most powerful civilization imposes its norms and culture on the weakest civilization. Cortés conquered Mexico because indigenous peoples who were subjected and enslaved by the Aztecs joined his cause. The Aztecs arrived from the southern United States and the Spaniards by ships from Europe. It unites them both not to be from the Valley of Mexico and to have conquered and subdued the peoples who lived there. Perhaps for some, the fact of coming on foot and from closer will give them more rights over the land, everything is debatable, but in both cases it was a violent conquest of foreigners. Perhaps Mexico will one day have to face the assumption that the Spanish conquest was made by the natives and independence, the Spanish.

But, the story does not seem to have been told the same in all cases. Anglo-Saxons have ruled the world in the century of communications. The story has been built with the cinema, television and internet, and that belongs to them. A white man in the United States or Australia was a pioneer, in Peru or Brazil he was a conqueror. Language is important to build realities, the image too, and the cinema taught heroes in the Anglo-Saxon colonies who fought against evil natives who wanted to kill women and children and pull men's scalps.. His search for gold was virtuous and shows his capacity for sacrifice, that of the Spanish and Portuguese was pure greed.

A white man in the United States or Australia was a pioneer, in Peru or Brazil he was a conqueror

In Australia or the United States, to put the two examples clearer, most of the indigenous population was eliminated (in many cases due to diseases brought by Europeans as a passage in Latin America), They locked her up on reservations or put racist laws on her, not in the 16th or 17th century, until the end of the 20th century. Better to provide data than opinions: to 1962, Australian Aborigines had no voting rights, and up 1967 they were not recognized as citizens. The so-called Stolen Generation scandal, Aboriginal children stolen and handed over to white families in the 60, still shakes the ethical foundations of a country that until 1998 did not recognize and apologized for these facts.

Today, in absolutely all social scales, the Australian Aboriginal population clearly lags behind the white population. Again a data as an example: an Aboriginal has a life expectancy of 69,1 years, in front of 79,7 years of the rest of Australians. In any case, this lag is not something that only happens in the former British colonies., rather, it is repeated in all the many indigenous peoples with whom I have lived in the last nine years of my life between Africa or America..

«Es nuestra tierra», I reluctantly summarize an Aboriginal woman who works in a store

It is also true that in recent years in Australia steps have been taken in recognition of the rights of Aboriginal peoples. In Uluru National Park, the sacred mountain of the aborigines, there is a significant indigenous population. And 1985, the government granted local communities the right to land. It is the communities that manage the accommodation and visits to the famous sacred rock. «Es nuestra tierra», I reluctantly summarize an Aboriginal woman who works in a store.

In the city of Cairns, the north, is where we see more aborigines. Some seem to be part of the city's middle class, but, However, the generalized image is once again lagging. It is not an easy debate without falling into stereotypes. Who owns a land? What is being a native people? Does an indigenous person prefer to live on aid than adapt to the market economy? Should they? Are they victims or do they live from being victims? I guess it all depends on where you are in the pool, I reflect on the northern city of Cairns where lots of white and Asian families bathe in the downtown public pool while five Aboriginal people, very poor looking, They watch sitting on some secluded benches how the rest have fun. They ask bathers for money. They are drunk.

 

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