Persuading the White Australians

The Aboriginal Australians deserve an apology regarding the white Australians' treatment of them as a racial group, from as early as the colonization of Australia to as recently as 1970. It may not be people from the current generation who were sending Aboriginals to camps and trying to "breed out" the Aboriginals, but nonetheless the shame emulates to the Australians as a race. While the white Australians believed that what they were doing was the right thing to do, that they were saving the Aboriginals from themselves and that by breeding out the Aboriginal in people they were doing a service to mankind. Evidence of this viewpoint can be seen in the film Rabbit-Proof Fence, based on the true story of Molly Craig, a half-caste in Australia who, at 14, was captured and taken to the Moore River gulag with her sister and cousin and manages to escape. The main antagonist, A. O. Neville, was the legal guardian of every half-caste in Australia and believed that he should send all of them to camps, where they learned to sew and cook and would eventually breed with white Australians. Although this may sound like horrible behaviour now, this was accepted by all whites and known by all half-castes in the 1930's, when the film was set. While it was intended to be for the greater good, this plan forcably seperated many children from their parents, most of whom never got to see eachother again. Some children were as young as a few months old. This cannot possibly be seen as beneficial to the country; how can teaching the young white Australians that stealing children is perfectly acceptable and causing Aboriginals so much distress possibly lead to a good outcome? Another point in the film was the white Australians using deception to re-capture Grace, who eventually dies of an unknown cause. When has it ever been right to trick a 10-year-old girl into being at a station at a certain time to be re-captured, under the belief that she would be seeing her mother? This surely cannot have been seen as a show of good citizenship, even in the 1930's where out-breeding was deemed correct. A final point of remorse can be seen when the maid takes in the young girls so they can have somewhere to sleep for the night. We don't see the maid's master, but from the dialogue and sound we can tell that he is beating her for letting in the children and threatening her by telling her she will be beaten again if she lets them go. He wants to keep them so he can claim a monetary award from the government; the girls are wanted, after all. The man obviously has more money than most people, showing that he is motivated not by the belief that the girls' futures will be brighter in the camp, but by greed. An even subtler indication of his character is seen when he discoveres the girls; he just barges straight in to the maid's room, not knocking or showing any respect for her personal privacy. He obviously views half-castes as inferior, as animals. While he is only one man, we can infer that he is the majority of white Australians, due to seeing how the government is educating most white Australian children and adults. We only see one kind white Australian household in the entire movie, a representation of how few white Australians view Aboriginals as people. Discrimination has never been right and never will be. Today, few people would believe that the past actions of white Australia were correct and just. Many would experience feelings of horror, disgust and remorse. These feelings are ordinarily followed by an apology. The white Australians generalized all Aboriginals, therefore the Aboriginals generalized all the white Australians based on the few white Australians they knew of. If both groups ultimately have the same negative view of each other, peace, harmony and unity will not be possible in Australia; to improve relations, an apology to all Aboriginals is in order.

Molly Craig- Hero or Not?

The film Rabbit-Proof Fence is centred around the real character of Molly Craig, a young half-caste girl living in Australia in the 1930's. She is taken from her camp at Jigalong to a half-caste Gulag over a thousand miles away from her mother, along with sister Daisy and cousin Grace. The three escape from the camp, but are being tracked by an Aboriginal tracker and the white government, following the Rabbit-Proof Fence to find home.

To me, Molly is a hero. She initially shows no character traits typical of a hero; she is timid, as seen in her reluctance to be checked for whiteness by the handler of half-castes, seeming too afraid to move or respond to her name. She stays away from all the other girls at the camp, as well as not going for breakfast on the first day, showing her apparent fear of things and people she is unfamiliar with. She also almost never talks at the camp, presumably through fear of being punished or fear of being judged, yet at her home in Jigalong she spoke to her sister and cousin fairly regularly. Normally, a hero would be someone who is brave, stands up to everyone and everything, tackles everything new and speaks their mind. However, she does commit one heroic act, so large and out of character that she has become a hero from my point of view; she escapes from the camp with her sister and cousin.

Why does this one act of defiance make her a hero in my mind? The dictionary definition of a hero is "a man/woman distinguished by exceptional courage, nobility, fortitude, etc." Molly's non-courageous character makes her one action stand out amongst the rest of her decisions; it must have taken an amazing amount of courage to finally decide to leave the camp, especially after witnessing the punishment of a girl who had left but was found and taken back. The soure of Molly's new courage cannot fully be determined, but the amount the source gave her must have been enough to classify as "exceptional". She would definately be seen as a hero to her sister and cousin, seeing as she managed to get both of them out; alone, neither of the other two had the courage to get out themselves. Although Molly failed to get Grace to stay with them, resulting in Grace's death, she managed to get home safely with her sister. Based on this story alone, Molly is a hero in my mind.