This morning my body was feeling very lethargic. I'm now wandering if last nights footy training session was a good idea..
I had a great sleep in and then started the day doing my stretches. Sometimes I dread doing my stretches more then riding the bike, as the pain is often unbearable. I must admit the foam roller is perhaps the best thing I've brought on this trip.
In the morning after my mate went to uni I went into Perth city. I searched for aboriginal cultural centres but the only thing coming close was an aboriginal section in the West Australian museum. I went in the museum and had a good look at the natural world section. I am amazed at the amount of information this museum has, in particular on the stolen generations of our indigenous people's. The section describes the motives in detail, including letters from the actual policy makers authorising the abduction of children. This made my blood boil, I felt like punching a hole through the wall. Every time I am exposed to information on the treatment of Aboriginal people it's a nostalgic type feeling. Its as if I've known about it in the past and it flares up old memories. I don't know whether this is something inherited from my British Australian ancestors, perhaps a feeling of guilt on behalf of their ignorance, stupidness and inability to speak out against something so obviously wrong. Or perhaps a hidden bloodline I don't know about.
I looked around to see if anyone else is as angry as I am, or even anyone that I can vent frustration with. No one seems to be bothered, everyone in the museum just dawdled around, playing on their phone and taking photographs. The museum literally describes an attempted genocide - with a section specifically highlighting the UN definition of genocide and how the treatment from the Australian government on Aboriginal people fits in this definition. This genocide policy was terminated by government only in the 70s, nearly 40 years after World War Two. Despite the government policy being terminated records have shown further abduction into the eighties. The museum described the separation of children based on blood quantity e.g. one mission had half casts, another mission had quartets, and another quadroons. This was to ensure "breeding" wouldn't take place between their own kind. Depending on the colour of the quadroons they may sometimes be let out into white communities to try further exterminate the Aboriginal gene pool. The museum described that every Aboriginal community in Australia has been impacted one way or another from the government policy. The museum had stories from the people who were in the missions. It showed notes from fathers and mothers pleading the government agencies to give their children back, saying they couldn't sleep and that they were becoming permanently sick without them. Taken from the love of their mothers, forced into big dormitories with dreadfully dirty beds, bugs crawling all around them and freezing cold through winter. The deviates who managed the missions would sneakily change the sheets and put extra blankets on when photo times would come or when outsiders would inspect facilities.
I wander how different Aboriginal people would be now if these policies never happened.
After spending the whole day in the museum I headed back to my friends place to enjoy a nice risotto that he made up. Tomorrows plans are to head back to the museum, hopefully get past the Aboriginal section this time!
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