Produced and directed by the Australian based journalist John Pilger, Utopia is a feature documentary which explores the prejudice that those of Aboriginal heritage experience in modern Austrailia. The title itself Utopia, is gotten from the Aboriginal homeland community of Utopia, Northern Territory. This region is one of the poorest and most desolate areas found in Austrailia.
Prior to the European invasion of 1788 the black Aboriginal people had been living on the lands of what is now Austrailia for thousands of years. Those who invaded the land showed little regard for the rights of these natives and throughout the years destroyed their tribes through the means of violence, concentration camps and the spreading of devastating diseases.
To this day there is still a strong sense of discrimination for the native Aboriginal people. Utopia highlights this fact by revealing some shocking truths, Aboriginal Australians are currently imprisoned at a rate which is 10 times higher than seen in South Africa with black people under apartheid rule and rates of rheumatic heart disease and trachoma among Aboriginal Australians are some of the highest in the world and suicide rates are increasing, especially among youths.
At the end John said that other countries have done modern treaties. However……the land grabs continue. Here in Canada we are in the fight of our lives to save our land and water from the destruction of big oil and gas, and mining corporations, and like Standing Rock in the Dakoda’s we will fight till the end. This land, and I am guessing it is the same in Australia under the common wealth…….the land was never ceded, meaning it was never given away, and it was not won by war. The original treaties were that our people would get a share of all resources taken from the land. If those treaties were honored……..every aboriginal person would have been a millionaire and there would have been no poverty. Great Britain left a trail of death and destruction in every country it came to, and broke every promise it made. But that was not enough, it committed genocide to every group of aboriginal peoples by taking their children away and beating and torturing them, and committing sexual abuse, and yes killing thousands of children. Our children, they are out greatest gifts…and it will be a few generations still for the pain to heal. The australian government should be put in jail for human rights violations.
This was a great documentary. Very well done and very enlightening for me.
I’m not even going to bother watching this video before making a comment.
The Australian aboriginal receives tax payer funded programs and benefits ‘far exceeding’ that given to any other group in Australia. Aboriginals literally never have to work for anything nor are expected to do anything for themselves. Everything they require is paid for by the Australian tax payer.
All of the aboriginal problems exist because Aboriginals themselves are unwilling to do anything for themselves, but instead expect everybody else to do it for them. No surprise that they have become a culture of lazy drunkards.
The best thing we can do in Australia, is end the welfare discrimination, by treating Aboriginals like everybody else.
May be you should “bother watching this video”. Then you would realise your hostile and ignorant rant is completely mis – informed and racist, bitter rubbish. You are clearly an un-educated man that needs to be beaten to death by a woomara … When whites were sniffing their arses freezing to death in caves, Aboriginal’s were the first sea navigators to find the land 50,000 years ago – called Australia. Whites came over 250 years ago…erm whose land it is then ? They did fine out welfare for 50,000 years… When i lived there the biggest “lazy “drunks were the whites.
Perhaps you should reconsider what country YOU come from cos it aint Australia Dave the Brainless –
Your opening statement tells me you are prejudiced towards aboriginal people. It’s people, with uneducated attitudes like yours, that should really watch this film. You are exactly who this film is made for. Watch the doc, so you can learn the truth of the injustices and see the source of their pain and struggle. Maybe you will come away with a different attitude, show some compassion. It would be great if you would then treat aboriginals like you treat everyone else. I think they’d be happy with that.
or like in america, making their own living enclaves into independent nation states, which would enable them to have ownership of their land development, etc..