Saturday, March 26, 2011

How does ethnocentricity cause conflict?


When the British arrived to a place called ‘Walang’ which is now called as Sydney, they met a tribe of people. Hence, the British called them, the ‘First Australians’ and even called as the aboriginals. The First Australians were black, and believed in spirits of souls of the nature and had different lifestyles. They did not have clothes on but hold spears in their hands which seemed barbarous. The British’s target was to try to connect and interact with the native Australians wisely. However, their culture to Britain’s culture was totally different so they could not adapt to their settlement each other. Plus, British’s discrimination and bias perspectives, caused by ethnocentrism to the natives, leaded to the unsuccessful result of their achievement. Furthermore, many of the disrespectful British still thought that natives were violent and wild savages. Effects by these aspects were that British decided to push native Australians away from their homeland, Sydney. Thus, British dug all the native crops and replaced British’s familiar crops like corns and potatoes. On top of that the change in their living, caused by another effect, was unacceptable to British so they determined to set ethnocentric views. However, their ethnocentric views caused a huge problem. While Bennelong was gone to England, the balance of the tribe and power became weak. The First Australians were starving because of lacking food supplies. They could not eat other crops and could not have rights to plant their native crops. A man called ‘Pemulwuy’ could not ignore this situation so he took such a brave actions to revenge. His strategy was to set fire on British’s farms and crops. As this kept happening British was furious. They ferociously killed Pemulwuy and put his head in the beer jar, than sent it to their home country which showed their victory. Unfortunately, the First Australians could not give any of their traditional burial because his head was gone. After few ages, British execute a number of First Australians who lived around the surface of Australia and kidnapped their children. The British was also racism. For instance, they educated the native Australian children and got them married to whites so that they can be whiter. By their greediness to get settled on the lands, they forced some tribes of people to go over the fence so that they can never come back to their own land. Consequently, the British colonizers were selfish, violent, bias and unsympathetic to the culture of the First Australians. If they had ignored their ethnocentric views and accepted the different lifestyle of the First Australians, the war and severe relationships could be prevented. Ethnocentricity should be abandoned.



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