Short+answers

__Religious Expressions in Australia__

Describe the Change in the religious population in Australia from 1945 on.

After the Second World War in 1945, Australia's religious population started to change from being almost totally Christian, to a much various one. Some aspects that help to change and shape this religious population were: migration, war, growth of new age movements, Change in government policies etc. Some of the most notable events were, the Second World War, Vietnam War and rebellions and conflicts such as the Hungarian Revolution, the expulsion of the Jewish people from Egypt, Civil War in Lebanon and the Iraq War. All of these movements left millions of homeless people with no option but to migrate to other countries like Australia.

Due to the change in government policies to increase Australia's population and the devastation of the second world war. 3 millions of immigrants arrived in Australia within tree decades after the Second World War. Most of these immigrants came from Britain, but also from Yugoslavia, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and other parts of Europe. In 1947 almost 80% of the population was Christian (39% Anglican, 21% Catholic and 21% Presbyterian/Methodist). In the next decades after the Vietnam War, approximately 120 000 Indo-Chinese people arrived in Australia boosting the Buddhist religion (0.2% of Australia's population) in the country. By the year of 1996 the Hinduism growth rate was 120% with a population of 148 000 adherents.

Islam was first introduced in Australia in 1882, when the thousands of Afghanistan and Pakistan arrived to work on the telegraph line. However most of overseas-born Muslims arrived post 1945. Turkish and Lebanese Muslims arrive in Australia in the late 1960s fleeing civil war. In 1976 the total Muslim population reached the 0.3% of Australia's population. Within the next decades many refugees from Bosnia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq arrived in Australia. Despite the fact the many of those refugees were Christian, the Muslim population reached the 1.7% of the overall population in 2006.

Between 1945 and 2006 Australia's religious population suffered a drastic change. Australia's Christian population decreased from 70.9% to 63.9%. Hinduism increased from 0.4% to 0.7% and so did Islam and Buddhism from 1.1% to 1.7% and 1.1 to 2.1% respectively. Judaism maintained its population by 0.4%.

__FAQ's Change in the religious population in Australia post 1945.__ Q1. What were the main causes of immigration to Australia after 1945. Q2. What are the most common religious expressions in Australia and what percentage of the overall population do they represent according to the census held in 2006? Q3. What impact does this have on Australia's society. Q4. What are other causes of immigration to Australia.

Answers

Q1. The main causes of immigration to Australia were; the Second World War, which brought millions of refugees to Australia. The Vietnam war, which caused that hundreds of thousands of Indo-Chinese and Vietnamese refugees entered Australia. and also conflicts in the Middle East such as the Lebanese civil war, the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan which brought many Muslims to Australia.

Q2. The most important and common religious expressions in Australia are as follows; Christianity with 63.9%, Buddhism with 2.1%, Islam with 1.7%, Hinduism with 0.7% and Judaism with 0.4%.

Q3. Australia's multicultural society is constituted by many different cultures from all over the world. This affects the way in which people interact with members from different cultures. The presence of different and variety of languages and religions, traditions and rituals enriches Australia's population with an extended knowledge and appreciation of the different cultures that make up Australia.

Q4. One of the most important causes of immigration to Australia was the need of people in the country to create a sustainable economy. This led to the change in government policies to allowed people to come to Australia with more facilities and opportunities. This brought hundreds of thousands of engineers,workers manufactures, etc. from Britain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Western Europe. This also brought people from Asia and the Middle East.

__Contemporary Aboriginal Spirituality__

__ FAQ – Dispossession of the land and the stolen generations __ Q1. What is term “dispossession of the land”? Q2. What are the stolen generations? Q3. Why is the land so important for Aborigines? Q4. What was the impact from the separation of the land? Q5. How did the stolen generations change Aboriginals lifestyle? Q6. Why did the separation of kinship groups destroy the Aboriginal culture? Q7. What was the Mabo case? Did this resolve any conflict regarding the aboriginal land dispossession?

Answers:

Q1. Dispossession of the land, is when the aboriginals have forced too been taken their land away from them. The Europeans once settled in declared that their land wasn’t their which is also known as “Terra Nullius” – land belonging to no one.

Q2. The stolen generations are a period when the Europeans had forced action to take the aboriginals children away from their home and assimilated into the white Australian community. The children had lost their social and cultural identity from this and started new life’s within the white community.

Q3. Land is very significant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It provides the basis of their social, cultural and economic well-being. Aboriginal peoples do not ‘own’ the land, the land ‘owns’ them. There is a mutual belonging to land. The land belongs to the people and the people to the land. Land cannot be transferred from one person to another.

Q4. The impact from the separation of the land from the aboriginal people was quite serveley. Loss of land had effectively meant that they had lost everything that was associated with it. The loss of the dreaming, cultural heritage, loss of identity not understanding where to belong. Taking the most precious but yet meaningful land had mirrored as their home being taking away

Q5. The stolen generations was the most negative aspect of Australian history. The aboriginals who was segregated from the land and assimilated into the white Australian community had impact aborigines. Having no identity and understanding their cultural heritage it had changed their lifestyle. Through this, aborigines have now been adopted and learnt to do things that they have never encountered before. They were learnt to clean, cook, be educated in school, and mostly labour work; work that they have never done before and now is adopted into their “new” culture.

Q6. Dispossession broke up aboriginal nations and distributed their religious and cultural beliefs and practices around them which their life’s had been centred. Language were often lost or severely restricted in their use. Ceremonies related to kinship were not passed and so were lost. The place and role of tribal elders were damaged and much cultural information regarding kinship obligations was also lost. Aboriginal people had lost their sense of identity and belonging to their land and each other.

Q7. In 1992 the Mabo case was introduced to the High Court of Australia to introduce “Native title”. Simply, native title had meant that they can grant land rights back to the indigenous Aboriginals – before colonisation that had existed. When the Mabo decision was successfully introduced and implemented by the high court, we cannot say that is had 100% resolved any conflict towards the aboriginal culture and the white Australian culture, however this had changed the attitudes and perspectives of aboriginals where now they were finally recognised and given rights to their land.

** Short Answer Question: Discuss ** the importance of the Dreaming and the land for the Aboriginal people.

We can arguably discuss the fact that the dreaming and the land carries quite significance for the Aboriginal people. Over many centuries the connection towards the land also drawn by the dreaming is quite significant because it is the foundation that brings the Aboriginal Culture alive.

The Dreaming, in the aboriginal folklore the earth and its surroundings was dreamt by their ancestors in the “dreamtime”. Their dreaming is the connection to everything that the aborigines have. The dreaming is the concept which underpins all beliefs and practices in Aboriginal communities, and thus is important because it defines all relationships and responsibilities for all Aboriginal people. The Dreaming explains why land is critical to the expression of Aboriginal spirituality, as it is through the land that the Dreaming is activated. In other words, the land is where the dreaming and its stories take place, and is the resting place for the ancestral spirit beings, and hence is like a mother for the people. A person's identity is inextricably linked to the land, because an understanding of the land enables them to understand their totemic responsibilities. The Dreaming is also important because it explains the Aboriginal notion of time which is met temporal, a concept which presents the past, present and future as a complete and present reality. The fact that for Aboriginal communities the telling and learning of the Dreaming stories is a lifelong process is a reflection of its centrality to Aboriginal spirituality. Similarly, the fact that the Dreaming is frequently communicated through art, song, dance, story and ritual shows that despite the enormously diverse nature of Aboriginal spirituality the Dreaming is the concept that underpins them all.

For Aboriginal Australians, the land has a special significance that is rarely understood by those of European descent. Land is fundamental to the wellbeing of Aboriginal people. The land is not just soil or rocks or minerals, but a whole environment that sustains and is sustained by people and culture. For Indigenous Australians, the land is the core of all spirituality and this relationship and the spirit of 'country' is central to the issues that are important to Indigenous people today.

As discussed above the “dreaming” and the land plays a pivotal role in the aboriginal spirituality. These effectively pass down the traditions that keep the aboriginal culture alive through stories, ceremonies and rituals. The land for every aboriginal pertains to their cultural heritage of where they belong. Aboriginal spirituality is immensely derived from the dreaming where the basis and foundation of their culture began.