The Stolen Generations is a term used to describe those children of Australian Aboriginal descent who were "removed" from their families by the Australian government or church missionaries for reasons known only to them. This "removal" occured for over 100 years between 1850s and 1970 - continuing well into the modern world.
C'est tre's Bizarre! Mais c'est Vrai! Its History and its a reality. Quite well depicted in a fictional movie - Australia. Although the movie doesnt deal with the reasons or causes or solutions to this behavior it atleast made many people aware that this is actually a reality and not just a part of the history books.
The world has seen many outrageous episodes such as Hiroshima, The Hitler mania, The Gulf war, 9/11 and the recent 26/11 which have killed thousands of people. Great tragedies! Loss of life can never be compensated. I consider this "removal" of children from their families to be on par or even more than these tragedies. Its a total loss of culture, identity, security and even if it doesnt equal the loss of life - its the loss of identities changing most into living aliens - neither here nor there! The "removed generations" are lost forever and we can't even gauge the personal loss of each family!
So have we lost some old world customs and traditions followed by generations of Aborigines? For now this seems to be an excellent political debate - who cares? Does anyone care to take measure to restore some identities?
Check out what's the latest on this issue - http://www.eniar.org/stolengenerations.html
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