JDRAKE
Something that has excited me about living in Australia for a semester is the opportunity to learn how modern society interacts with penal colony infrastructure. Engaging with europeans back home in Florida, a common observation was how young the U.S feels. After living in Australia for a while I can see what they mean. A major topic in the Australian Political sphere is the upcoming Referendum. This referendum, simply put, will create a committee of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders within parliament to act as a liaison between Indigenous communities and Parliament acting on behalf of the interests of Aboriginal people. The reason this Referendum is needed lies in the devastating persecution that Indigenous peoples endured when the British were colonizing the continent.
The penal colony infrastructure and mentality didn’t just affect the prisoners that were shipped over here, it also affected the preexisting plethora of communities that inhabited Australia previously, via several massacres and other cultural warfare tactics. Known as the “Stolen Generations,” arguably one of the most detrimental strategies employed by the colonizers, children were removed from their homes to go to boarding school/orphanages in order to “modernize” the Aboriginal culture. Essentially trying to condition them into serving a meaningful role within society as if they weren’t inherently worthy of participation. This draws an eerily close comparison to the role that penitentiaries claim to serve. The ruling government putting social outcasts (regardless of if being an outcast was their own doing or not) into a place that is supposed to serve as a punishment and/or remedial course in being socialized.
Seeing modern society and technology ebb into this relatively new country founded upon an emphasized role that the government plays in an individual’s life, one can learn how things such as socialized healthcare and a higher minimum wage can be beneficial to society but it can also show how it can negatively impact those with the smallest voice.