A post as a result of discussion I had with a classmate, now an Aussie for about 30 years
Classmate: As for Australia and need for immigrants…. insufficient labor supply for the growing economy!
My reply::Plenty of Labor, the Indigenous Aborigines.
Why are they (First Aussies) not being educated, Racism ??
Classmate: Barr…you are clearly unaware of the reality..there is no simple solution to the barriers faced by Aborigines in integrating into the Australian economy.
My long reply, the crux of this Post
There are parallels of why Immigrants are preferred over Aus Aborigines and why the Brits got Indentured South Indian Labor for the Estates in Ceylon (Same as why Immigrants are preferred over African Americans in US too)
Indenture Estate Labor in Ceylon was essentially undocumented, i.e. not given any legal status (Residency ) or even Birth not recorded, The reason was simple, residency or similar would have meant Ceylon Labor Laws would have been applicable. Ceylon Labor Laws were pretty decent and reasonable for those times. So it was easier to control undocumented South Indian Labor. Sinhalese were notorious for NOT being docile and prone to Litigation. Just keep in mind only a select few Ceylonese got a decent education. Universal literacy (and Life Expectancy) only happened after Independence. Tamil were more prone to violent crime, but among themselves. Oppressed rarely fight the oppressor in this caste the high caste Tamils.
Similarly in Modern Australia it was easier and economical to get Immigrants, who were for the most part docile at least in the initial years. Plus they did not have extended families and all the social obligations that came with that.
The Aborigines on the other hand probably felt entitled to more than was economical. Worse not very docile and tendency to go on long vacations (walkabouts) for social obligations.
Because Ceylon Estate Labor was undocumented turned out to be a blessing after Independence. Estate Labor was almost 10% of the population. After the Srima Shastri Pact in 1964 and repatriation, Estate Labor dropped to 5%
Imagine if the LTTE/Jaffna Tamils were not ultra racists and joined hands with a 10% Estate Labor. SL would be divided by now. Same case with Eastern Tamils. While they were United with the LTTE there was no headway in fighting the separatism. When the North was subdued East was attacked. Only ended with Pillayan and Karuna Amman leaving the LTTE and siding with the Govt in 2005 or so. By 2009 the separatist was ended, militarily.
Examples of Sinhalese for not being Docile Employees
In November 1882, nearly 500 Ceylonese arrived by sea in Mackay, Queensland by the Ship Devonshire.
This was merely the start of their problems. The following day, sixty of the Ceylonese deserted their places of employment and this was followed by thirty more on the day after that.
The Planters were also disappointed with their new employees. They found that they were not plantation workers but “blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, barbers, house servants …” and even a couple of schoolmasters, all unemployed townsmen fleeing from a period of depression. In total, about half of them were unsuited for the arduous task of clearing the jungle and planting sugar cane
“The class of Cingalese who have honoured us by their presence have souls above Chinese labour. In fact, they appear to be intelligent, well trained artisans whom it is as reasonable to restrict to the shovel and the hoe as it would be to yoke a high bred and spirited horse to a bullock dray. We cannot have that class of men.”
More details at link below
The ‘Devonshire’ reaches Queensland with 500 ‘Cingalese’ Coolies in 1882
Cocos Island Mutiny (1942)
The Cocos Islands mutiny was a failed mutiny by Ceylonese soldiers against British officers, on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands on 8 May 1942, during the Second World War.
I think many were Thomians, the school that I attended
Those who were executed (many others jailed with hard labor)
Bombardier Gratien Fernando (executed 5 August 1942)
Gunner Carlo Augustus Gauder (executed 7 August 1942)
Gunner G. Benny de Silva (executed 8 August 1942)
Interesting.
The British also took lots of indentured Indian labourers to the Caribbean (where they are now part of the social fabric) and Africa (where they were expelled in most places and went to Britain). Mauritius is the African exception.
The Ceylonese/Sinhalese as an Indentured labor in Aussie was a huge failure.
Prone to litigation
The Interpreter translates the evidence, and one of the seven replies in Cingalese that he made no agreement with anyone there; they all refuse to go to work with anyone present; they refuse to acknowledge the alleged agreement and their liability to be transferred. The sentence of the Court was that they go to Brisbane goal for one month
Great article!
Yes immigration is a way to “whiten” the New World against Black & Indigenous populations ..
Only Uganda were they expelled?
And in places like Fiji, Trinidad have become the economic power, displacing the indigenous.
Mauritius, Guyana as well.
Trinidad still 50-50 Indian-Black I think (tbh even Blacks are not indigenous in the caribbean).
Well they are unwillingly transported so they are not immigrants but functionally indigenous
Were blacks in the caribbean indentured labourers like Indians or slaves?
Cause this is not the US we are talking about and most of these places were under British rule who as far as I know did not have slavery.
If they were indentured labourers then both them/Indians are functionally indigenous.
Slaves. They even had slave riots and freed themselves into Haiti.
The Africans were salves. When slavery was abolished in England then they got down Indian Indentured worker, slaves in all but name
I disagree with this. One of the worst atrocities of slavery is the stripping away of the past, children were unmoored from their culture. The freed slave has a christian name, a white Jesus to pray to and vestigial roots, this was a deliberate act of barbarism to prevent escape and revolt.
It is only now with genetic testing can people know where they are from.
Indians across south america and the carribean took their culture and tradition with them. Their names, their language, their memories remain.
Trinidad still 50-50 Indian-Black I think
Not a clear demarcation.
In all of the Caribbean its mixed and almost all families have a mix of Black, Indian, White Chinese (yes Chinese) and Taino (the original AmerIndian native population) .
If you had Caribbean friends in the uS they would say that.
Even Bob Marley was half Irish
Tanzania too I think. Freddie Mercury being the most famous British Indian ever came from this wave.
was that Zanzibar and the takeover?
Yeah
Are aborigines plentiful? Do they still go walkabout nowadays, apart from as an attempt to recapture a cultural practice? I don’t know how their society has ended up.
I also think the situation is far more complex than this article. Hunter gatherer societies have a horrible time integrating into agrarian based civilizations. Their language and intelligence is finely tuned to nature and the wider environment. In some ways it has a stark incompatibility with enclosure, they see and recognise colours not visible to agrarian societies, their global spacial awareness is on another level. Some languages do not even have words for left and right, only north, south, east, west.
The racism might be ours, in not recognising the differences.
I think they are circa 5%?
Are aborigines plentiful?
3.8% of the population
The racism might be ours, in not recognising the differences.
Maybe the racism is saying Aborigines cannot learn and adapt to modern societies. We all were hunter gatherers for many centuries, some a few hundred years.ago
Hunter gatherer societies have a horrible time integrating into agrarian based civilizations. Their language and intelligence is finely tuned to nature and the wider environment.
Much of the arguments above have similarity to what was made against African Americans till about 1960. Essentially at that time and the past the claim was Africans were sub human.
Or that their lives are improved by adapting to modernity. I’m not saying they can’t learn, but what is the cost of losing that culture? We place no value on it and that has been an enduring evil.
Or that their lives are improved by adapting to modernity.
Kind of like those from South Asia who go to the west and extol the virtues of home.
I lived in the US for 25 years and now back home in Rural SL and love it.
However, I always say go abroad but dont cut your ties. Leave that choice till at least middle age.
Let people decide what they want to do, we shouldn’t dictate and talk down. Give them the tools, education and opportunity to make a choice
Isn’t Sri Lanka “almost” a first world country. I think by mid-century they will have living standards close to East Europeans.
Isn’t Sri Lanka “almost” a first world country.
Not anymore, we are behind Thailand and Malaysia,
Too many people. The population went from 7 million at Independence (1948) to 21 million now.
The economy did not keep pace.
However, health and education are comparable to even the west.
It isn’t so simple. In the same way that they did not have resistance to diseases, it is quite likely that they have susceptibility towards addictive behaviour, something alcohol brewing societies would have weeded out (in part) with evolution.
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/first-nations-people/first-nations-use-alcohol-drugs
The society they are expected to succeed in has honey traps too.
Race is very complicated, both the actions of discrimination/blocking people from society and forced/coerced or even unfettered integration can have severe negative consequences.
I have no answers for this beyond saying that casual observations and dogma about what is right and just and what society should do is currently not backed by any settled science.
I don’t know about aborigines, but I do know about Andamanese Jarawas and the best solution there has been to leave them alone as much as possible. It has been 100+ years, there have been almost no successful integrations into ‘modern’ society.
it is quite likely that they have susceptibility towards addictive behaviour,
I hope you realize that is a racist comment.
They say that same of the South Indian Estate labor, derisively called Sakkili. Many who have escaped the Ghetto of the Estate are doing quite well. Specially the ones who become Christian.
I too am a alcoholic, but functional because of a solid foundation, family, education etc
Most of alcoholism and addiction is because of dysfunctional society, marginalization, and poverty.
400 years of slavery did that to the African Americans
If you shut down a line of possibility by labelling things ‘racist’ then truth is lost. Every race has people with genetic disposition to addiction. It is racist to say all such people are addicts.
For instance it is perfectly fine to say Indians have a genetic predisposition to heart disease.
The science is very clear on genetic links to addiction. The racial components of this is unpublishable because scientists are terrified of being labelled racist. (like you just did)
https://nida.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/2023/03/new-nih-study-reveals-shared-genetic-markers-underlying-substance-use-disorders
Anyway, looks like someone did the research, but good luck putting it out in an easily readable format.
You have to look at both the studies together.
But very simply Whites, Hispanics, East Asians (quick adverse reaction to alcohol), Blacks all have genes protecting against alcoholism.
2nd study is Native americans don’t
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5568932/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3603686/
Yes it is probably all very ‘racist’. But sometimes it is better to look at an uncomfortable truth in the face.
Stud: Eric Jorgenson: et 1917
We examined two statistically independent phenotypes reflecting subjects’ alcohol consumption
I hope you know the difference between Genotype and Phenotype.
Cindy L Ehlers1, Ian R Gizer 2014
Study does not say how Native Americans are identified. Genetically or self Identified.
Let us take my case, is my alcoholism because I am Sri Lankan (Tamil) or is it from my 10% Irish genes
I assume you are not a scientist or done science research. I got a training to spot the issues in a research paper, or else would spend days understanding a paper to find out it was useful.
Those scientists are peer reviewed and that is a prestigious journal.
In case you didn’t read the study before dismissing it.
Conclusions
Substance dependence has a substantial genetic component in Native Americans, similar in magnitude to that reported for other populations. The high rates of substance dependence seen in some tribes is likely a combination of a lack of genetic protective factors (metabolizing enzyme variants) combined with genetically mediated risk factors (externalizing traits, consumption drive, drug sensitivity/tolerance) that combine with key environmental factors (trauma exposure, early age of onset of use, environmental hardship/contingencies) to produce increased risk for the disorder.
i.e combination of genes and environment.
The contribution of genetic factors to the development of alcohol and other drug dependence has been consistently supported by numerous family, twin, and adoption studies in general population samples. Although the mode of transmission of this increased risk is unclear, most investigators favor a model where a genetic predisposition interacts with environmental variables to produce an overall risk for the disorder. It is also likely that complex disorders like substance dependence are influenced by a large number of genes of small effect. While many of these genes may be specific to the etiology of these disorders, others likely overlap with other psychiatric and metabolic disorders. For example, substance dependence and obesity both occur more frequently in some Native American populations. One theoretical assumption concerning Native people is that the long history of dependence on foraging and subsistence agriculture may have led to selective enrichment of traits that improve genetic fitness, so called ‘thrifty’ or ‘fat sparing’ genes. It has been suggested that this same selective pressure may have enriched for genetic variants that increase the risk for consumption of alcohol and perhaps other drugs of abuse providing another potential pathway that could give rise to shared genetic influences between these traits
i.e twin studies show genetic link to substance abuse.
Native Americans being hunter gatherers are speculated to have addiction problems due to genetic selection of traits.
Same would apply for aborigines.
The point is these are very valid questions/ speculations.
Also I’m going to leave it here. Your personal experience are your own, I have no input to make on them. Feel free to reject the science if it does not suit your views. I just don’t want to be trivially labelled a racist.
Those scientists are peer reviewed and that is a prestigious journal.
I too have published peer reviewed journal articles.
Put in 8 years a s Grad student as I enjoyed research
So I do know hot evaluate a article quickly to see if it answers a question.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sereno-Barr-Kumarakulasinghe
The science says that there is no clear link.
As you say The point is these are very valid questions/ speculations.
No direct evidence
From the conclusions you posted
Although the mode of transmission of this increased risk is unclear, most investigators favor a model where a genetic predisposition interacts with environmental variables
If you want to make policy based on speculation be by guest. It is not SCIENCE
Just to drive it home
Note the word Environmental Variables. That is dysfunctional society, marginalization, and poverty are environmental variable. So maybe if those environmental variables are removed the most of alcoholism and addiction are minimal
Once again I repeat you misunderstanding science to justify your inherent racism.
why this Kolaveri di?
I’m just wading into this discussion but presumable it’s about Aboriginal-Native metabolising alcohol and sugars..
I think it could be said that external powers did a lot to exploit that
But Australian immigration has been happening for a century . So Aboriginals may have been higher.
For instance the Black population % in 1776 USA was fairly high!
Genocide. Take many forms including death by disease., Like the Native American being intentionally killed by Pilgrims by throwing smallpox infected clothes.
Most of Pacific Islanders and Aussie Aborigines did not have resistance to Old World (Europe Asia diseases)
From Wiki
In the 150 years that followed, the number of Aboriginal Australians fell sharply due to introduced diseases and violent conflict with the colonists that many scholars argue included acts of genocide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Indigenous_Australians
Regarding “aboriginal” assimilation there is a case right in my back yard. The Veddas.
During the time I was growing up, behaving like a Vedda meant unkempt, unruly and wild.
However in the past that was not the case, Robert Knox (1681) a English captive for 20 years writes
Excerpts
Of theſe Natives there be two sorts, Wild and Tame. I will begin –
with the former. For as in these Woods there are Wild Beasts, so wild men also
In his Land are many of these wild men;they call them Vaddahs,dwelling near no other Inhabitants.They speak Chingulays Language They kill Deer,and dry the Flesh over the fire, and the people of the Country come and buy it of them. They never Till any ground for Corn, their Food bēing only Flesh.
They are very expert with their Bows. They have a little Ax,which they stick in by their sides, to cut honey out of hollow Trees.
For portions with their Daughters in marriage they give hunting
Dogs. They are reported to be courteous. Some of the Chingulays
in discontent will leave their houses and friends, and go and live among them, where they are civilly entertained. The tamer sort of hem, as hath been said, will ſometimes’appear, and hold ſome kind
of trade with the tame Inhabitants, but the wilder called Ramba-Vaddahs never shew themſelves.
The population has dropped considerably by assimilation (couple of thousand now). There are a few remaining “wild”. They make decent living catering to Tourists local and foreign. Once the show and tell in mud huts are over they go to their brick houses with flat screen TV’s and Refrigerators.
It is easy for them to assimilate as they look no different from the majority population
Sri Lanka’s Last Indigenous People
https://youtu.be/rwlcIHpFs34
wow feels a mix of South Asians and Melanesians; presumably they are ASIs?
wow feels a mix of South Asians and Melanesians; presumably they are ASIs?
No different from most Sri Lankans including myself
The Uk wanted colonisation…quick. Read Robert Hughes – the Fatal Shore
Tony Blair’s era