Part 1: In this part, according to the Australian class presentation, the reader would be able to understand certain aspects of the Australian culture and the importance of the culture for the adoption of the Reconciliation Action Plan by Australian companies, in order to achieve positive results.
Australia is known as a multicultural country that accepts people from different cultures and countries. The Australian culture is based on egalitarism in order to avoid differentiation and discrimination; also in openness, being a direct manner culture that believes in the importance of discussions for better achievements; and finally it is an individualistic culture.
Taken from: Getty images
The national culture mentioned before, influence the Australian corporate culture, where the egalitarism values and the open and direct manner culture influence in the way Australian companies tend to be decentralized encouraging employees to collaborate and participate in decisions making processes, also all the employees are considered important for the company. Companies are flexible, with more humanistic values, and the spirit of team collaboration allows the creativity. In addition, Australians and Australian companies are open, ready for changes and tolerate risk.
The Australian national and corporate cultures were important for the establishment and company´s adoption of the Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), which was created by the Australian government in order to provide indigenous equality. This was created, because in the past, Australians didn’t respect indigenous communities and removed Aborigine children from their families, training them as servants, in order to take them away from their “wild” community and finish with the Aborigines culture; this Australian action caused the lost generation, because children lose the connection with their families and their culture and they were not totally adapted to the Australian culture. Nowadays this period cause great pain in the Aborigines and Australians.
Taken from: Getty images
Consequently, Australian companies that make part of the Reconciliation Action Plan, apply the egalitarism, respecting aborigine’s culture, building good relationships with them, and giving them opportunities to participate and collaborate with the company. ANZ is one of the largest banking groups in Australia and in 2007 launched the RAP, and the obtained results continue being positive, because the company achieved more cultural sensitivity, gave work opportunities to indigenous communities, which helped the company to accomplished economic growth.
Part 2: According to the film: “Rabbit Proof Fence” (2002) and the class presentation about Australia, it would be answered the following question: When removed from their families, the children were prepared for “a better life”, how is that true or false when considering different perspectives?
The belief that by removing aborigine children from their families they were prepared for “a better life” can be analyzed considering aborigines, Australian and international community perspectives.
In the aborigines´ perspective it is not true, because for children a better life was with their families, hunting, sharing all the cultural traditions, speaking in their own language; and living without their family means losing the connection with the people they love and they admire, which cause a big pain that don’t allow them to be happy. In the film “Rabbit Proof Fence” (2002), it is evident that children didn’t want to be away from their families and culture, and some of them try to escape from the place where they are prepared for “a better life”, but it was difficult and risky, because when they were found they received strict punishments.
Source: Getty Images
Therefore, children were happy living with their families but after they were removed from their home they lose the connection with their culture and according to the class presentation about Australia, aborigine children were prepared to work as servants and needed to adapt to another culture, as an example, in the film “Rabbit Proof Fence” (2002), it is showed the way how aborigine women were prepared for a “better life” and to work for an Australian family, but they felt very scared because they had to obey and can’t do anything against the abuses they received. In conclusion, those children that were removed from their families lost their aborigine culture and didn’t feel part of the Australian culture, which is not “a better life”.
Australians had many false myths about the aborigine culture and believed that aborigines were a “wild” community.
Taken from: Getty Images
Then, some Australians thought it was better for aborigine children to live away from their “wild” families and culture and have a better life, making part of the Australian culture. They thought that they were acting in the correct way, preparing children to be servants.
For the international community, Australia is known as a multicultural country that accepts diversity. For that reason, the international community believes that Australians shouldn’t act removing aborigine children from their families, because they were not being prepared for “a better life”, but for a lot of pain and family suffering.
Image taken from: Getty Images
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Film “Rabbit Proof Fence” (2002) and the class presentation about Australia
Getty images, “Australian people”, [Online] Permanent URL: http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=2&language=en-US&family=creative&assetType=image&p=Australian%20people#. Last accessed: May 5, 2010.
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