DISCRIMINATION TOWARD INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

The case of Australia is one example of discrimination toward minorities, what is important to highlight is the fact that the Government was the one who promoted it trough polices, which is a paradox of what the State is aim to do . Policies that forcibly separated the indigenous children from their families and communities; under the name of “assimilation” were forced to put away their languages, their ceremonies, their lifestyle in conclusion their culture, Cultures that linked “ the Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet “ with the sad purpose of learn everything about white people and in that way destroy their aborigines heritage.

For the wrong polices and laws the Australian State made in the past, in 2008 the Prime Minister Kevin Rod, apologized to Australia’s indigenous people for the pain, the suffering and the loss caused to the stolen generation. This speech of sorry was very touching because more than words he purposed to act, giving equal opportunities to these minorities through education, housing, employment, and diminishing mortality rates, with the intention of filling the gap, creating and crossing the bridge that divide indigenous from non-indigenous Australians. Is important to highlight, that the State needs to get into their position, in order to understand them better and knowing what are their really needs, because maybe they could have different ones.

This is only one of many examples of discrimination against indigenous, but it is remarkable because in this case was the government who promoted it and is a recent one (XX century). Looking at history, the cases where this kind of discrimination was evident is in the colonization processes all around the world, where a culture came to a territory and wanted to impose their one tradition, religion and language. Actually there are many examples; in Colombia are some cases where the government violated some native communities’ rights for creating projects, such us the government’s authorization for creating an hydroelectric in part of a territory where live three indigenous communities: Emberá-katio, Zenú and Tule. They flooded ancestral lands, destroyed sites of spiritual value for them. Other example was in 1999 when Colombian government approved the exploitation of the Gibraltar’s well in an ancestral territory of the U’wa community.

In general minorities’ present discriminatory issues that can be diminish with the help of organizations and the private sector. Organizations, such as the excellent work that do the United Nations in promoting the rights of the minorities around the whole world, NGO’S of each country that are aware of the cases of minorities’ discrimination and can make them known to the population. In respect of the private sector, is important to highlight that for companies, profits are their principal objective but they need to be conscious about the rights natives has and the importance that has for them its territory.

http://www.internationalrivers.org/files/embera_kids2.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://kenoath.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/
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