The Illuminations

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Native & Indigineous Populations of Australia

Beyond Genocide #14, completed 200X.

According to scholars of genocide history Australia is guilty of at least three and possibly four acts of genocide against its native populations, i.e.: the systematic destruction of the essential foundations of Aboriginal existence, as defined in the Genocide Convention’s Article II. First through physical killing committed by settlers, second and third, during the 20th century the official state policy and practice of forcibly transferring children from one group to another as well as attempts to achieve the biological disappearance of “half-caste” Aborigines, and fourth, a prima facie case that government actions established to protect Aborigines in fact caused serious bodily or mental harm.

This powerful illumination explores the extraordinary endurance of the lengthy history of the native populations in Australia and their potent expressions of creation, interconnection of tribal populations, protection of benevolent forefathers as well as the destruction and near extinction experienced at the onset of colonization in the 18th century and lasting until well into the 20th century.