The Emergence of the Eugenic Movement, and Aborigines

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The Emergence of the Eugenic Movement and the Aboriginal People of Australia

Aborigines

[1], or Aborigines, are descendants of the first known human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands. The term "Aboriginal" has traditionally been applied to indigenous inhabitants of mainland Australia, Tasmania, and some of the other adjacent islands. The use of the term is becoming less common, with names preferred by the various groups becoming more common. As there were many different clans living for long years without improvement ideals, they were able to accumulate totaly different history from rest of the world. All clans/families created their own culture and language, and were able to perpetuate great variety of lives and stories on their homeland. However, because of those clans' living seperately along with the british settlers and all those colonization armies that invaded native people, most of those cultures, languages and people who should have continued their generation does not exist anymore. Although, it ls known that the island was being occupied by indigeniouses, near future has changed completely. While the earliest evidence of human habitation is estimated as 30 to 40.000 years, it is believed that "aborigines" were far more older than that.

Although they were less in population compared to the settlers by the time of expeditions, their historical past and the way they were examined bring us to a result that states their importance as a historical icon or being human. As most of the other indigenous people, from different continents or countries, they were also routed out of their own houses and used for different purposes. They were used as subjects of experimental colonialist studies and never got respect for their lives and the past they had for thousands years. As the history books wrote it, their children were taken to end aborgenious blood and breed "new children" and this led to the term, stolen generations, be used in order to illustrate what happened. As a result, their history was written far beyond what they were and how they lived. For many years, even after the projects came to an end, effects of assimilation and eugenic studies continued to have an impact on their lives.

Eugenics

The Eugenics movement can be traced back to the time the Renaissance had started and the innovations grew in numbers. Geographic expeditions were triggered by nations to gain resources needed in Europe by bypassing Islamic countries. Even though the intention was political and military based, the broad opportunities of commanders led them to use their power on the indigenous inhabitants of many continents.

Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. If a clear definition should be given, we could say that eugenics is about improving the human herd; for needs of a "better future", it meant to create healthier, stronger and more intelligent people, to save resources, and to lessen human suffering while achieving racial perfection. Harry H. Laughin used a picture in his book to illustrate what the eugenics movement: He pictures a tree, and added Eugenics to the top. Eugenics draws its materials from many sources (any source to use as improvement) and organizes them into a harmonious entity, which will become a "new" human at the end. However, the idea itself is not that simple to achieve in real world and it is not even necessary to create new human gene; if thinking improvization as creating completely new human in totally superior working order world.

Altough Eugenics today considered as impossible or something not should be done because it would be harmful, is mainly because of the way the idea is tried to be constructed; to create the power to rule. However, when the first time Francis Galton expressed this word and the idea, it seemed positive and harmless and something the civilization was looking for years. Galton says, "Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage." As he mentions

Following colonization of the new lands by the settlers, many new ideas were being developed, and it was not hard to find "subjects" that the experts were in need of. There were thousands of people waiting for their "execution," who could be used as subjects of experiments that has been devised for years. This was despite the fact that there was no overwhelming support and opponents to these experiments were still active. In spite of pressure from opposers, many nations tried to involve in these experiments. As a result, history witnessed populations from different races or countries suffering this pain, which changed the course of their lives and denied them a future.

When, Where, How

Eugenic ideas were first introduced as a positive branch of genetic studies, which can also be named as a study of "improving human genetic qualities." It is sometimes broadly applied to describe any human action whose goal is to improve the gene pool. Although the main idea and intention was revolutionary and somewhat logical, it was in conflict with the concept of a civilized world in addition to morals and ethic values of humanity. Because of its normative goals and historical association with scientific racism, as well as the development of the science of genetics, the Western scientific community has mostly disassociated itself from the term "eugenics" intentionally to avoid scathing criticisms on their way to build up "handmade" being. However, some professors continued to express their opinions to clarify the subject and help the community understand the movement better.

The modern field and term were first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, drawing on the recent work of his cousin Charles Darwin. From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent people, including H. G. Wells, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, William Keith Kellogg, Margaret Sanger, Winston Churchill, and Sidney Webb.

Because of its normative goals and historical association with scientific racism, as well as the development of the science of genetics, the Western scientific community has mostly disassociated itself from the term "eugenics" intentionally to avoid scathing criticisms on their way to build up "handmade" being and continue the experiments. However, some professors continued to express their opinions to clarify the subject and help the community understand the movement better. Some of them believed that eugenic studies should be considered as normal and that is the only way to improve ourselves and our future in broad prospect.

The biggest barrier against the experiments was choosing the right people, in other words, subjects, whose nonexistence was not going to create a big devaluation in society and public order would not be disrupted. Generally, logic stands in front of experiments were its involving humans and the possibility of causing public discomfort. The desire to achieve the scientifically impossible led professors to overlook logic or morals. On the other hand, the emergence of the movement led a lot of science people to debate the issues within it among each other to find more appropriate ways of engaging with it. On the other hand, not all the professors who shared their knowledge and opinions were considering Eugenics as the best possible way of developing the human race; this divided the scientific community into two groups. Those who expressed their disapproval did so according to their ideologies and drew attention to global norms that humanity should pursue and maintain. They believed that the negative aspects of the movement would top any the positive ones of its scientific aspect and this would deny the human, or subject, its freedom. The Eugenics movement, with its perceived scientificity, created a moral discomfort in society and consequently damaged the trust in science.

Why did they choose Aborigines and how the things developed

Residents of Australia were living alone and "wildly," compared to Europe in terms of technology and military; this gave the settlers the subjects they had been looking for. Because of European settlers, the condition of the indigenous populations worsened rapidly, which was also explained as their being "inferior people." The social environment in Europe at that time was conducive to labeling people into groups, and create a hierarchy to command easily over and set the rules upon people; settlers labeled the indigenous people as "half-castes", mixed blooded, uncivilized inferiors, who needed be "taken care of" in order to culturally assimilate mixed-descent Australians and create a "full-blooded" population as superior as Europeans. One way of achieving this purity, for instance, was removing Aboriginal children from their parents; this policy emerged from opinions and theories on which Eugenics theory was based.

Stolen Generations

The Stolen Generations is the term used to describe those children of Australian Aborigines who were removed from their families to stop continuance of the Aboriginal blood, by the Australian and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments.

In 1915 A.O. Neville was appointed the second Western Australia State Chief Protector of Aborigines. During the next quarter-century, he presided over the now notorious 'Assimilation' policy of removing mixed-race Aboriginal children from their parents. This policy in turn created the Stolen Generations and set in motion a grieving process that has become known as the[who?] concept of trans-generational grief,[citation needed] and would affect many generations to come. In 1936 Neville became the Commissioner for Native Affairs, a post he held until his retirement in 1940.

1934, he defended the policies of forced settlement, removing children from parents, surveillance, discipline and punishment, arguing that "they have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon's knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patients will."

In his twilight years Neville continued to actively promote his policy. Towards the end of his career, Neville published Australia's Coloured Minority, a text outlining his plan for the biological absorption of aboriginal people into white Australia.[66] [67]

After all those years past with "insan yasaminin alet edildigi vahsi experiments", many things changed in aspect of valueing human life. In 1962, with the impact of world war, holocoust, and the many ideas about "racial perfection" and cleanup of unfit" members of societies, Australian aborigines got their apologie. By the influence of Bagimsiz-Individual groups' call to stop wars and massacre over human in the world, Australian government apologized from the Aborigines and law enforcements that protects Aborigines left in those lands to secure their lives. Of course it was not enough, but at least, it was a positive answer to not forget what happened and what it caused. By the 90s, movies about the Aborigines and the Stolen Generations was filmed in order to show the bloody history to whole world and to draw attention.

Bibliography