Aboriginal Healing, Historical Trauma
Sharing Culture |
|
“The bureaucratic interventions of the state - the processes of law, social welfare, and health care - have not addressed the core issue of human traumatisation. These issues, in many cases, compounded the trauma by creating and increasing dependency on the state, which, while intensifying the feelings of victimisation, also enforces the beliefs of being powerless to change destructive circumstances.”
Judy Atkinson: Trauma Trails - Recreating Song Lines |
What occurred“Studies on the impact of colonisation on Indigenous groups in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa show three distinct periods in the relations between coloniser and colonised.
These periods are: invasion and frontier violence; the intercession of well-meaning but often ethnocentric and paternalistic philanthropic and religious groups; and the reassessment of government responsibility to Indigenous needs around the 1930s to 1960s... ...this last period has proven to be as damaging as the first two, as state interventions have increasingly intruded into Indigenous lives, creating dependencies and dysfunctions that have re-traumatised Indigenous people. Within these three periods, principles 0f systemic power and control of others prevailed, facilitated by three main types of power abuse or violence: overt physical violence, covert structural violence, and psycho-social domination.” Judy Atkinson The Stories of the child removals in Australia - the so-called Stolen Generation - has been extensively documented in Bringing them home, the Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children From Their Families details the impact of child removals: “multiple and profoundly disabling” layers of abuse in the lives of all those affected, causing “a cycle of damage that is difficult to escape unaided”:
|
The impact of historical trauma todayA series of quotes from Judy Atkinson:
“Trauma leads to fragmented and fractured identities that in turn contribute to the escalation of violence between people. The future feels meaningless, and people articulate their felt sense of powerlessness and lack of life purpose in violent acts on themselves and others. Relationships are destroyed and communities fragment. These problems cascade down the generations, growing more complex over time.” “The psycho-social dominance, or cultural genocide, by non-Aboriginals is considered by Aboriginal people to be the greatest violence, the violence that brings the loss of spirit, the destruction of self, of the soul. Cultural or spiritual genocide occurs when oppressors believe that the oppressed are non-persons, with no culture of identity as human beings, or with a culture and identity that is inferior. They deny the oppressed the right to a separate identity as a groups or as individuals within the group.” “By defining Aboriginal people as non-persons and to continue to do so across the colonising histories, the oppressors justified their behaviours, and in turn, the oppressed came to believe this about themselves. It was this belief that enabled author-ities to remove Aboriginal children from their families, among many dehumanising and oppressive acts.” “The bureaucratic interventions of the state - the processes of law, social welfare, and health care - have not addressed the core issue of human traumatisation. These issues, in many cases, compounded the trauma by creating and increasing dependency on the state, which, while intensifying the feelings of victimisation, also enforces the beliefs of being powerless to change destructive circumstances.” “Traumatisation leads to feelings of deep anger or rage. For Aboriginal people growing up in environments where there are multiple violations, this anger has no safe outlet (it can only be worked on and resolved in a safe environment) and is therefore stored in the body for expression under duress. This invariably occurs in unstructured and explosive violence (often towards people known by the perpetrator), aided by alcohol.” |
Please view from 17 min 40 secs until 28 mins 01 secs.
|