The Society Song — Hi Hi Oppression

I am Australian. I am Arab. I am Muslim. I am considered a non-aboriginal. Above all, though, I am human. I was welcomed to Australia when I was 2 years old. When I was 5, I was awarded with a citizenship. The same year, an aboriginal man robbed my family and I, and stole our goods and money. When we told fellow members of the Australian (non-aboriginal) community, they responded with many vulgar comments and one that to this day stands out to me was: “Yeah mate, just be careful from those mobs, they’re dangerous, sayin’ it’s their land an’ all, ungrateful.” My parents taught us to stay away from these ‘mobs’. Such negative stereotypes are a primary cause of the social, economic and cultural disadvantages of aboriginal people. They are often judged as being ‘less than’ from the get-go, thereby keeping them from having the same access to opportunities as the rest of us.

Of course, any accounting of the current predicament of Aboriginal people is incomplete without considering the horrifying history of the oppressive colonisation of Australia, and its long-term consequences for the community. The brutal means of the colonisation of Australia changed the lives of Aboriginal people forever, and to this day, they have not fully recovered. As a result of colonisation, their well-being was jeopardised, with no education or a means of freedom, with no property and no prosperity. With the past as it was, they have had to struggle even in their present.

The discrepancy in the lifestyle and treatment of aboriginals and Non-Aboriginals is a predecessor to many other injustices. As I reflect on their heartbreaking history, it angers me, that aboriginals were treated unfairly. Their pride for their land was obliterated. I can understand this because as a refugee, I was deprived of growing in my homeland freely. They were stripped of their identities, forced to change their names and their privileges were purloined. In fact, they are the “stolen generation”. They were bounded and hounded to respond silently to their colonisers’ demands. Over 20,000 were massacred due to colonial violence. Slavery and labour became their life style. They lost a sense of where they belonged, they forgot the roots of where they came from. Two centuries have passed since the colonisation of Australia began and, yet, to this day, aboriginals are treated as being subpar.

Another area where Aboriginals are at a significant disadvantage compared to non-Aboriginals is in their standard of health. Aboriginals have approximately a 10-year lower life expectancy than non-aboriginals. Even as an Arab Australian, I have distinct advantage over Aboriginals and this inequality distresses me. As a non-aboriginal, I am at an advantage with a decade more of experiencing this world. Colonisation has created lower life expectancies as well as poorer health and higher rates of infant mortality among Aboriginals. As I reflect upon this devastating information, it renders in my mind how the past remains alive in their present. Their pain isn’t acknowledged in its entirety. This infuriates me because they are human beings, and most of all, they are the original owners of this land. It saddens me that this was, actually, is their home, yet they are now treated as strangers in it. It is devastating that they are still suffering from the consequences of crimes committed more than a century ago. That they are so affected by their past and left with a deteriorated culture, language and wellbeing, and still unable to surmount the long-term complications upon their community.

Was the “Sorry” that was said to the Aboriginal People enough? Did it suffice? I don’t think so. I am currently an optometry student, and in my first semester, I learn’t more about the Aboriginal People than I ever had in my life. Their health is so affected, why isn’t anyone talking about it as much as they should? It’s funny to me that my family ran away from one oppressed nation to come to a ‘more just’ one. But no, theres an oppressed nation here too. Theres one in Palestine, one in Africa, Pakistan, Iraq, France.

So what now?