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The Population






 

 

The population includes approximately 200 nationalities. Australia is one of the least

populated countries in the world. Its population is over 20 million people. Most

 

 


Australians live in cities along the eastern and south-eastern coasts. The population of

the country is mainly of British origin. For many years Australia was a place where criminals and political offenders were sent from Britain. However, after World War II many other Europeans, especially from Greece and Italy, came and changed the character of the population. The immigration policy has always been based on the " White Australia" concept.

 

 

The brown-skinned Aborigines (native Australians) are an ancient people with a rich

cultural inheritance. They established the life style, very different from the European culture. The natives did not practise agriculture or keep domestic animals other than the dog. They supported themselves by hunting, gathering and fishing. The land has always been very important for the Aborigines as they believe that the land was granted to them by the Ancestral Beings. They also believe that man shares a common life principle with animals, birds and plants.

 

 

The mythological period of creation is called Dreamtime. In the Dreamtime, spirit

beings are believed to have travelled through the land, shaping the country, providing water, creating people and other living beings and things. These spirits also created the rituals, legends and songs of each Aboriginal tribe. Every Aborigine is spiritually linked with a special figure of the Dreamtime, his totem (the emblem of his family or

 

 


clan, his ancestry), which is usually a local animal (a kangaroo, a koala, etc.) So the

Aborigines evolved a way of life, where they aimed to live in harmony with their environment. Of course, when the Europeans arrived, the Aborigines were doomed, for the European settlers never treated them as human beings. Now the Aborigines are a dying race: they are in danger of being destroyed, and they are in danger of destroying themselves. Alcohol and leprosy are their biggest killers at present.

 

The contemporary Aborigines still remain " economically disadvantaged". Like the

American Indians, they are strangers in their own land. No Aborigines are doctors, only a few of them have become lawyers! The Aborigines have been struggling to survive and resist the official policy, demanding local autonomy, language, land and rights. This struggle is of great political significance in Australia, and one of the modern political issues is a push for an official government apology for the injustices suffered by the generations of Aborigines. Unfortunately, many Aborigines continue to live in deplorable conditions even nowadays.

 

 

8. The Languages: English, Aboriginal tongues.

 

 

English is the official state language. Some other European languages are spoken all

over Australia, and there are books, radio and TV programmes produced in these languages.

 

 

Before the British colonization, almost all the Aboriginal tribes spoke their own

Aboriginal languages. But the problem is that the native tribes never developed writing, for their languages were handed down from one generation to another by speaking. Fifty or sixty Aboriginal languages are still spoken by groups of native people now. But these groups range between fifty and three thousand people only. So, if no effort is made to keep these languages alive, they may be in danger of dying out.

 

 

In 1980 an Aboriginal language was taught for the first time as a second language to

Aboriginal children, living in cities. The reasons for introducing this education programme were firstly to save the language and secondly to make both black and white children interested in the Aboriginal culture.


9. The Religions

 

 

Australia has no state religion. Most of the Australians are Christians: Roman

Catholics, Anglicans and other Christians.

 

 






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