Australian History and English

...

earth. By stating “the earths heart” the composer gives a human characteristic to the earth by doing so the author promotes the audience to sympathise with earth as it is being harmed, by the miner who is assumed to be the European settler exploiting earth for it minerals. When Europeans first settled in Australia they claimed land impulsively taking away from the Aboriginals using it for other purposes inclusive of agriculture, property, grazing land, and mining. In this poem Noonuccal focuses on the mining of the land and emphasise on the damage caused by this action of white man. ”Piling the mountainous minerals high” Indigenous Australians had a very close relationship with the land and there was respect for what the land provided for the Aboriginals and what they gave back, many Aboriginal people stated that they were a part of the land and this was a common belief and had been passed through generations of the dreamtime and an essential rule was only take what you need. By using the word ‘piling’ and ‘mountainous’ the poet describes the overabundance of resource the Europeans were extracting from the earth. The fact that the aboriginals were a part of the land becoming disconnected and watching the land be abused and it resources bring taken in abundance may have deeply affected much of the indigenous society emotionally; this was not only injustice to the indigenous people of Australian but also the land, only because it was socially acceptable to do so. During this time Aboriginal had no power and were totally disregarded from society and made a minority. The poet than further states in the second stanza “For the sake of the filthy dollar” the second stanza continues to emphasises the pain and destruction the earth has gone through and then describes the miner using negative connotation. “For the sake of the filthy dollar” ‘sake’ means in purpose of or for something desired. During the time of the indigenous trading, a bartering system was put into place, but as the Europeans came in, this changed. The bartering system was replaced with money that was worthless, to the Indigenous Australians. But for the Foreigners it meant everything that they desired, so much so, that they were willing to destroy the earth that belonged the indigenous, for the aboriginals it came as a shock abusing the sacred land in desire for something worth less was seen as ‘filth’. But this again was socially accepted by all Europeans as their leaders had confirmed it to be correct, and the opinions of the Indigenous Australians were completely ignored as they were made the minority, again these actions were made to seem acceptable because the leaders of the area allowed it, ignoring the on the basis of skin colour.

The theme of social injustice is also apparent when comparing the two visual texts “The Conciliation” by Benjamin Duterrau, 1840 and the recreation “The National Picture” by Geoff Parr, 1985. The two Images completely contrast one another in several ways. “The Conciliation” is considered one of the first historical paintings in the Australian colonies; it is an idealised image of the British protector of the Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson, placed in the centre of a group of Tasmanian aboriginal people. Duterrau central placement of Robinson and the mystical gestures of his hand towards the heavens, make Robinson seem like a Christ like figure, the aim of the image is to refer to Robinson as a conciliator and hero between the white settlers and the Indigenous Australian. The aim during the 1840’s was to Christianise and ‘civilise’ the aboriginals. Duterrau aim was to create a national picture, to emphasise that equality, and justice are both being served rather than dwelling on the issue of segregation in community that was present. The differentiation between "the conciliation" and "the national picture" is great. The posturing of all the avatars are exact to