In the finalised convention, cultural genocide was largely ignored except for a part in which it states that it is prohibited to forcibly remove children from a group and place them in another. It was strongly acknowledged that the removal of children was fundamentally destructive, both physically and biologically. They also recognised that attempting to impose customs, language and values of a foreign group upon children was “tantamount to the destruction of the [child’s] group, whose future depended on that next generation.” 66 What happened to the Indigenous in Australia? When British colonists entered Australia in 1788, the indigenous population had had almost no previous outside contact. They were met with hostility from the British who forced the indigenous out of their homes, attacked them regularly, poisoned or shot them, and confined them to the most inhabitable areas of Australia. In the 120 years that followed the actions of the British colonisers led the indigenous population to near extinction. 67 In 1871-72 Anthony Trollope, a novelist visited the British colonies in Australia. He declared the indigenous population was ‘incredibly savage’ and doomed to extinction. Unfortunately , his prediction did come true in part when the ‘full blood’ Tasmanians died out. In the late 19 th century the indigenous population was plummeting with many British colonisers claiming that the co- called ‘lower races’ were simply unable to withstand ‘civilisation’, much like the unfortunate indigenous inhabitants of the Americas before them. Despite being extremely violent towards the Indigenous Australians, British colonists and British Australians were adamant to blame disease and dislocation in an attempt to free them of any blame associated with the 66 David Nersessian 67 Brett Stone, " Report Details Crimes against Aborigines - World Socialist Web Site ", Wsws.org, 1999 <https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/09/geno-s07.html> [accessed 28 April 2016].
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