As the racial discrimination act is to deny the existence of any members of certain groups like what is stated above, the Aborigines had gone through this
kind of treatment. They were denied to be part of the society by the white people that should also have the same rights as other any human race. This is proven as
many of the Aborigines remained unemployed or even if they were employed, they were paid with low wages or were not paid at all. It was done intentionally
by the whites so that the Aboriginal people would remain impoverished and under-developed. It is also revealed that when the Aborigines got jobs away from
the reserve, they still had to pay some fixed sum of money to the bank accounts
held by the protector https:www.greenleft.org.aunode17311. This kind of act
is definitely to deny the existence of the Aborigine society by the white people.
3. Review on the Resistance of the Aborigines
Resistance theory by Selwyn Cudjoe and Barbara Harlow is summarized by Stephen Slemon in Unsettling the Empire Resistance Theory for the Second
World in the book The Post-colonial Studies Readers by Bill Ashcroft and friends ―as an act to rid people of its oppressors, and it is so thoroughly infuses the
experience of living under oppression that it becomes an almost aesthetic principle 1995:
107.‖ People who show any reactions that help them getting rid of their
oppressors are said to show their resistance towards their oppressors. By getting rid of their oppressors could mean that the people who are oppressed are
struggling to get their freedom.
In another book, it is stated that ―resistance can also refer to a form of
insurgency denoted by the refusal of people to cooperate actively with, or express support for, the current regime or authority figures Selbin, 2010:
11.‖ Meaning that when people started to refuse in cooperating actively with the current
authorities it shows that they are showing their resistance towards the authorities. Authorities here could refer to the people who have power to take control of the
society. As in this context of the autobiography that the writer uses for this study, the authority belongs to the white settlers in Australia in the 19
th
century. In relation to the explanation of the resistance above, there were historical
events that involved the Aborigines who had shown their resistance towards the white colonization. The actions that were taken by some of the Aborigines to get
rid of their oppressors were direct and violent. Pemulwuy who speared Phillip‘s
gamekeeper, John McEntire, and Phillip, led the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars along with his son, Tedbury, in 1790. Another figure is Yagan who led the
Nyoongar resistance in 1831 in Western Australia for three years http:www.creativespirits.info.
Then the resistance still continued in early 19
th
century when a man named Jimmy Governor who was a part-Aboriginal killed 10 people in a rampage in
1900. However, on 18
th
January 1901, Jimmy Governor was captured and hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol, New South Wales http:www.creativespirits.info. So to
resist the dominant power over the Aboriginal people by the white people, many of the Aborigines took brave moves and even if it means that their lives were at
risks.
However, the resistance that the Aborigines showed not only in a violent form, but also in a form of protest as in 26 January 1938, which is declared as a
Day of Mourning, the Aboriginal conference was held in Sydney. In this conference, many of the Aborigines protested against the inequality, injustice,
dispossession of land and protectionist policies. Then a monthly newspaper was published in Sydney with the name Australian Abo Call. This newspaper demands
the equality of treatment as well as equal opportunities for the Aborigines http:www.creativespirits.info. These reactions proved that the Aborigines were
aware of all the unequal treatments and decided to protest against it and demand their rights back.
Another reaction shown by the Aborigines as an act of resistance was a mass strike called the Cummeragunja Walk-off on 4
th
February 1939. In this strike, there were 150 Aborigines who left Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station as a
protest for the cruel treatment and exploitation that the residents received from the management. These Aborigines walked off 66 kilometers and crossed over the
border from New South Wales into Victoria which was against the rules of the New South Wales Protection Board http:www.creativespirits.info. All these
kinds of resistance efforts made by the Aborigines were done to gain their rights back and that they would also have the same opportunities as other people should
have. Even though the forms of resistance may be different, but it all aims for freedom.
The examples above, most of them showed that the resistance reactions were performed in mass which is also known as the collective resistance.
