Aboriginal Culture
Aboriginal culture is based on the Dreamtime philosophy, giving spiritual focus to the land and with a concept of time fusing past, present and future. The peoples now known as Australian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders crossed from South-East Asia more than 60,000 years ago. No one knows what the population was when the European invasion began in 1788, though it has been estimated that Aboriginals numbered at least 250,000.
It is only since 1971 that the general census has included the native population in its survey of Australians and their living standards. A couple of years before that, people of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Island origin were granted full citizenship rights, including the right to vote. Not surprisingly, Australia has been labelled the 'South Africa' of the Pacific. Supporters of this point of view describe white Australians as passive racists, only saved from being cast into the apartheid camp by the fact that the majority of the population is white.
Respectable white society is embarrassed at the ill-treatment of the black minority by the police and other whites.
An effort is being made to apply multiculturalism to Aboriginals - with positive results. Aboriginal culture has become the fashion, which is ironic given that many Aussie suburbanites who wear so-called Australian Aboriginal T-shirts, invest in visual artworks or attend concerts featuring Aboriginal dance and musical expression have little contact with the indigenous people.
