Summary

Australia's "Stolen Generations" resulted from Social Darwinism, leading to the forced removal of Indigenous children, with recent reparations acknowledging past wrongs.

Abstract

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison has established a reparations fund for the "Stolen Generations," Indigenous Australians forcibly removed from their families under a government assimilation policy between 1900 and 1970. This move comes 13 years after former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's formal apology, which recognized the removals as a profound moral failure. The article suggests that the ideological foundation for these policies was Social Darwinism, a misinterpretation of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories, which was used to justify the notion of European racial superiority and the subsequent subjugation and attempted assimilation of Indigenous peoples. Despite acknowledging the harm caused by these beliefs, there is hesitancy to directly attribute the atrocities to Darwin's theories, which continue to be taught.

Opinions

The author implies that Australia's past assimilation policies were morally wrong and grounded in the erroneous application of Darwin's theories, specifically the concept of "Survival of the Fittest."
There is an appreciation for the Australian government's courage in apologizing and attempting to rectify past injustices through reparations.
The article suggests that understanding the motives behind the forced removals is crucial to prevent similar atrocities in the future.
It questions why Darwinism is still taught despite its historical use to justify racist policies and the ongoing reluctance to fully confront its role in the genocide of Indigenous peoples.
The author cites James Bernard and Russell McGregor

How Social Darwinism Led to “Stolen Generations”

Australians condemned the act but ignored the cause

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced today a reparations fund for some members of the “Stolen Generations” — the Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their homes as children.

The Stolen Generations refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who inhabited Australia when Britain began colonizing the continent in 1788.

As part of an official assimilation policy that Australia pursued between 1900 and 1970, more than 100,000 Indigenous children were taken from their homes and put in foster care with white families.

The announcement came 13 years after former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, delivered a formal apology for what had happened, describing it as a “great stain on the nation’s soul.”

*Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples*, 2008 (Source: Parliament of Australia Website)

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologize for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologize especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

Indeed it takes a great courage to apologize for the mistakes of the past. And we should thank the Australian government and people for their courage and determination to make a better future for all Australians regardless of their origins. It’s as Kevin Hancock has put it: “Apologies aren’t meant to change the past, they are meant to change the future.”

But to ensure that “wrongs of the past” will not happen again, we should understand the motives for these evil acts.

What was behind the misguided belief that Indigenous children could only be properly provided for, cared for, or educated if they were separated from their families, traditions and cultures?

Why did the British settlers treat the Indigenous people with a profound lack of equality and respect?

Short Answer: It’s because of Social Darwinism and the theory of “Survival of the Fittest.”

In the early nineteenth century, British settlers viewed themselves as the “fittest and highest types of mankind” and the Aborigines as the “inferior and most primitive”. They used Darwin’s Evolution theory as a scientific justification for the destruction of the Aborigines.

According to James Bernard, Vice President of the Royal Society of Tasmania:

It has become an axiom that, following the laws of evolution and the survival of the fittest, the inferior races of mankind must give places to the highest types of man, and that this law is adequate to account for the gradual decline in number of the Aboriginal inhabitants in a country before the march of civilization.

Did Bernard misinterpret Darwin’s ideas? Did he misunderstand what Darwin actually meant?

No. Darwin was clear. In his book, On the Origin of Species, chapter 6, he says:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.

In his book, Imagined destinies : Aboriginal Australians and the doomed race theory, Russell McGregor, showed that White perceptions of Australia’s indigenous people and their future had been shaped by Enlightenment ideas about progress and Darwin’s theories on the survival of the fittest.

Darwin believed that the white race, especially the Europeans, were evolutionarily more advanced than the black races, thus establishing a racial hierarchy and differences.

In light of the above, why are Australians still reluctant to call out Darwinism as the root cause of the genocide? Why are we teaching his theory to our children? Do we still have any hope that someone would prove it true?!