Wednesday, March 30, 2011

How Does Ethnocentricity Cause Conflict?


On the 26th of January, 1788, the British arrived to the place where is now known as Sydney to find the land to colonize and start their new life. Seeing the First Australians, the British thought they were just animals because their skin tone, behavior and manners were totally different from the British. Therefore, the British took over their land without permission. First, the British wanted to make a good relationship and colonize together with the aboriginals in order to keep stable lifestyle between British and First Australians. Eventually, driven by bias and inconsiderate views of the British caused by their ethnocentrism, the consequence was in vain exerted and resulted in conflicts and misunderstood among them. When the colonists first came to Australia, they were unsatisfied with savage manners and appearances that First Australians had. With their bias view, the aboriginals' actions were not understandable. Their first attempt was to eliminate all the crops that the First Australians used to eat and plant their own crops such as corn and potato because they were not comfortable with the lifestyle with those barbarous people. Due to the difference in the food supplies, the aboriginals suffered from starvation. Seeing this terrible situation, the man named Pemulwuy realized that their land was being taken by the evils. As a consequence, he started burning all the crops and food supply in rage which caused a conflict between aboriginals and the British. Eventually, Pemulwuy was killed. At that time, Bennelong, who went England to experience new things, has returned and found out his land was in misery. He lost his wife, family and trust with the aboriginals. He decided to leave England and live in Australia in his savage lifestyle. At this point, the British reported that in spite of their benevolent treatment towards Bennelong, these could not warp his menacing and barbarous manners with their ethnocentric view. The British and the First Australians were no longer in an amiable relationship. Although the British's first request was acceptable, their ethnocentric views towards the aboriginals could not overcome the cultural conflicts between two countries.