INDIGENOUS LIVING MATTERS

HISTORY
Australia’s indigenous people have experienced 4 phases in relation to the majority.
1. Mutualism briefly after Europeans arrived
2. Elimination, by disease, physical combat and genocide.
3. Assimilation of survivors
4. Incarceration of objectors

In 2020, indigenous persons were 3.3% of the population, and one in four were in prison.

INDEPENDENCE
Australia’s outback has retained some largely-indigenous communities from before European settlement and developed others since. These communities are stable and self-sufficient, with self-administered health and welfare services, police and education.

INTEGRATION
Indigenous living in Australia has a spectrum of integration, from dispersed living in cities, through partial ghettos, to integrated communities in outback towns.

GHETTOS
Leicester in England is one of several English cities where ethnic residents have adopted separate living in ghettos, condoned by secular authorities, bringing peace to the city’s suburbs. A research finding is that poor Somali students can accomplish more learning in ghetto schools than in better-off integrated schools.

SEPARATE DEVELOPMENT
Brisbane’s Hymba Yumba is an independent school where about 200 mainly indigenous students between Years 1 and 12 study selected school subjects across the national curriculum, presented in indigenous languages. Separate development of indigenous people encourages independence but could reduce assimilation.

APARTHEID
Racial segregation by territory is not present in Australia. Archbishop Tutu declared that treatment of Palestinians reminded him of apartheid, only worse. Israel’s repression of Palestinian citizens, African refugees and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is reported to have become more brutal over time with ethnic cleansing, land seizure, home demolition, military occupation, bombing of Gaza and international law violations.

CONCLUSION
Assimilation is partial. Independence, integration, ghetto-living and separate development are alternatives. No single development strategy is followed. Individual choice is limited by affordability. Social friction has been exacerbated by Black Lives Matter conflict in the USA.
My speculative fiction novel The Grass is Always Browner considers indigeneity in Australia 250 years in the future.
http://www.martinknox.wordpress.com