SEM

GRAMPEAR

Mdulo: Ingls - Professor: Anthony Rosenberg Class 10 Summary Analysis

In the summary on page 3 and in the original text below (pages 1 and 2), accompany the analysis on
extracting the most important information and some techniques for paraphrasing.
Aboriginal People Struggle For Citizenship Rights, written by Kate Cameron.
1 One of the remarkable strands of Australian history which has been omitted from most orthodox history books until
2 quite recently has been the struggle by Aboriginal people to gain citizenship rights. The Aboriginal struggle for
3 land rights is quite well known, but less is known about their earlier struggle for citizenship rights.
4 Aristotle gives a clear and concise definition of a citizen: a citizen is someone who shares both in ruling and being
5 ruled. To many, the right to vote and the responsibility to obey the law are central to a concept of citizenship. Others
6 believe that citizenship involves more than this. Thomas Marshall, for example, believes citizenship involves
7 having, and being able to exercise, three kinds of human rights: civil rights necessary for individual freedom e.g.
8 freedom of speech, freedom of movement, the right to own property; political rights necessary for taking part in
9 political processes e.g. the right to vote, the right to stand for election; and social rights necessary to share in
10 society e.g. the right to education, the right to a decent standard of living.
11 At different times, these rights were withheld from Aboriginal people by federal, state and local government
12 authorities. The strong desire for the type of rights referred to by Marshall was frequently and clearly articulated by
13 Aboriginal organisations and individuals in their struggle for citizenship in their own country. The first denial of
14 citizenship rights for Aboriginal people was the declaration of terra nullius as this negated all existing Indigenous
15 Australians legal rights such as native title and customary law.
16 Legally, Aboriginal people, like other Australians, were British subjects from the beginning of European
17 occupation. In practice, however, they were treated quite differently. Aboriginal ownership of the land was not
18 recognised, no treaties or agreements were made and no compensation was paid. British law did not recognise
19 Aboriginal laws and practices or their right to own property. Aboriginal people could be tried summarily
20 for a range of criminal offences; they could not press charges at law and were not permitted to give
21 evidence in court. Frequently they were held corporately guilty for the crimes of others. Few white Australians
22 were ever tried for the murder of Aboriginal Australians.
23 Some shocking colonial legislation includes the 1816 Martial Law. This proclamation declared Martial Law against
24 Indigenous Australians who could then be shot on sight if armed with spears, or even unarmed, if they were within a
25 certain distance of houses or settlements. In Tasmania in 1824, settlers were authorised to shoot Aboriginal peoples,
26 and in 1840, in the state of New South Wales, Indigenous Australians were forbidden to use firearms without legal
27 permission. Then, in 1869, in the state of Victoria, the Governor was empowered so as to order the removal of any
28 Aboriginal child to a reformatory or industrial school, and in 1890, human rights for these people were completely
29 denied when the Aborigines Protection Board was given the power to forcibly take children off reserves and
30 "resocialise" them.
31 Colonial governments, aware of the effects of violence, of introduced diseases and of dispossession, believed that
32 Aboriginal people were doomed to extinction and deserved protection during their remaining years. The colonies
33 passed laws, usually called Aboriginal Protection Acts, which set up authorities to place indigenous Australians on
34 reserves to look after them. Protection laws reduced the legal status of those on reserves from British
35 subjects to wards of the state, with members of the Protection Boards as their legal guardians. The aim of the
36 Acts may have been protection, but in practice they gave the Boards complete power and control over the lives of the
37 Aboriginal people under their care.
38 At the same time, many Aboriginal people took the initiative and asked for and received land where they
39 could live and support themselves independently. The authorities agreed and set aside land "reserved

1
40 for Aboriginal use". Significantly, however, Aboriginal people were not given legal title to this land. Historian
41 Heather Goodall estimates that at the turn of the century around 25% of the Aboriginal population of NSW lived on or
42 in direct association with these independent reserves. By 1911, there were 115 Aboriginal reserves in NSW and 75 of
43 them were independent, providing self-sufficiency for most of their residents.
44 Circumstances varied for Aboriginal people outside the reserves. Some married into white society;
45 others lived in communities on the fringes of towns. Many worked for wages, usually lower, alongside
46 other Australians. Some worked on rural properties for rations and the right to keep their families
47 together in their own country, and some were itinerant workers. Others lived and worked under
48 conditions close to slavery.
49 Aboriginal people's access to citizenship rights varied. Between 1856 and 1900, all colonies had given Aboriginal men
50 the right to vote; however, in Western Australia and Queensland, there was a property qualification that few would
51 have been able to meet. South Australia was the only colony to give the vote to women, including Aboriginal women,
52 in 1894. This right to vote was often very difficult to exercise due to restrictive conditions on registration.
53 The hopes of Aboriginal people in improving their plight through Federation were wiped out when they
54 were deliberately excluded from the federal sphere in the Constitution. Section 51 made Aboriginal
55 affairs a matter for the States, empowering the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to the
56 "people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any state". Section 127 directed that when
57 counting the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal
58 natives shall not be counted."
59 When the Commonwealth Electoral Act was passed in 1902, it gave women the vote in federal elections,
60 but it still negated the right to vote in federal elections from those Aboriginal peoples not enrolled to
61 vote in State elections. Section 4 of the Act states: No Aboriginal native of Australia, Africa or the Islands of the
62 Pacific except New Zealand shall be entitled to have his name placed on an Electoral Roll unless so entitled under
63 section 41 of the Constitution.
64 The Act was interpreted very narrowly with reference to Aboriginal people, so that only those Aboriginal
65 people already on the electoral roll for their State elections would be able to vote in the Commonwealth
66 elections. This right would die with them, because their children's names could not be added to the roll.
67 If for some reason their names were removed from the State electoral roll, for example for serving a
68 prison term or for being dependent on welfare, then they would be struck from the Commonwealth
69 electoral roll.
70 These conditions were not accepted without protest. Aboriginal people used the same methods that
71 other Australians use when they want to object to unfair conditions: they wrote letters to members of
72 parliament, they sent petitions, they held demonstrations and formed political organisations to agitate
73 for reform.

Some tips for summary writing

- identify and summarize ideas in paragraphs, by writing a sentence or a phrase that covers the main ideas in each
one [paragraph];
- use synonyms for words in the original text (avoid text lifting it is heavily penalized!);
- identify important information in the entire text. Avoid discarding too many ideas;
- plan the outline of the summary (much like an essay intro, body, conclusion);
- follow the order of the original text. Avoid inverting too much information;
- write the summary as if it were your own text;
- do not include ANYTHING that is not in the original text; and
- make no reference to the original txt (the author says).

2
Write a summary in your own words not over 200 words in length of the following text adapted
from the Aboriginal People Struggle For Citizenship Rights, written by Kate Cameron.

Little is known (1) about the Aboriginal hardships in attaining citizenship rights (2) which include individual freedom,

political rights and social rights, according to Thomas Marshalls definition (6-9). Although they were legally entitled to the

same rights as other Australians under British occupation (16), in practice this was a dead letter (18-19 - a law that has lost

force). Aboriginal people have suffered restrictions on their rights to have property (19), to defend themselves against

criminal accusations (20), and even to preserve their physical integrity (21-22).

The Aboriginal Protection Acts have downgraded the legal status of Aboriginal people in public reserves to total

subordination to the will of the State (34-35). However, many who asked for it were granted the use but not the property

of land where they could live at their own expense, called independent reserves (38-40). Other Aboriginal individuals

have integrated into white society, but often under fragile socio-economic circumstances (44-48).

Political rights have remained an unfulfilled pledge. Even if colonies have conceded the right to vote to Aboriginal people, it

was frequently halted by conditions for registration (53-61). Commonwealth laws have brought no brighter perspectives for

them since Aboriginal affairs were excluded from the federal sphere (64-69). Reasonably, Aboriginal people have protested

against these unjust conditions by means of demonstrations and petitions, among others (70-73).

3
Identify the most important information in the original text below (what you would include in the
summary).
Adapted from Andrew Anthonys Afghanistan's propaganda war takes a new twist
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/bibi-aisha-afghanistan-disfigured-taliban).
1 In 1985, at the height of the Soviet suppression of Afghanistan, National Geographic ran a cover photograph of a stunning Afghan

2 girl, capturing a story of suffering that went far deeper than the experience of just one girl. Twenty five years later, Time magazine

3 ran a cover of another beautiful Afghan girl. She too had a captivating and striking expression. However, what gave the photograph

4 its narrative and political power was something that was missing from her attractive physiognomy: her nose.

5 In its place was a yawning hole, a hideous second mouth in the very centre of her face. If those eyes in that now famous National

6 Geographic cover spoke so eloquently of a forsaken nation's plight, then what did this grotesque wound say about the state of the

7 country in 2010? For Time, the answer appeared to be in the cover line: "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan". There was no

8 question mark.

9 The girl without the nose was Bibi Aisha, an 18-year-old from southern Afghanistan. In 2009, she had fled her husband's house,

10 complaining of maltreatment and a life, not uncommon among women in Afghanistan, that amounted to abject slavery. She had

11 been given to her husband when she was 12, as payment to settle a dispute a practice in Afghanistan that goes by the fitting name

12 of "baad".

13 After six years of torment and abuse, she escaped back to her family home. The Taliban arrived one night and demanded that the

14 girl be handed over to face justice. She was taken away to the mountains, where the local Taliban commander issued his verdict. She

15 was then held down by her brother-in-law, while her husband removed her ears and nose. According to Time, the Taliban

16 commander who awarded the punishment, later said that Aisha had to be made an example "lest other girls in the village try to do

17 the same thing".

18 With the help of the American military, aid workers took her to a women's refuge in Kabul. Aisha required counselling and therapy

19 before she could give her informed consent to the gruelling series of operations that surgery would entail. She is now comfortable

20 with her appearance. She has a professional prosthesis that is a work of art. She is encouraged to wear it, but she doesn't always put

21 it on.

22 In an obvious sense, Aisha's story conforms to a traditional feminist reading of the struggle of women against patriarchal society.

23 Consigned to the status of a domestic slave, she rebelled and felt the brutal force of male-dominated tribal society. And there is no

24 doubt that this is the context in which this vicious crime against a teenage girl took place. However, it's not the only context, and for

25 many critics of the Time cover, it's not the most significant context, because, of course, Afghanistan plays host to tens of thousands

26 of foreign troops, most of them American, and as such any efforts to remove the troops are seen by critics of the occupation as all

27 part of a legitimate anti-imperialist cause. From this perspective, to put it crudely, national liberation always trumps female

28 emancipation.

29 Thus, for those who wished the Nato troops to remain, the photo of Aisha acted as a symbol of what they were fighting against, and

30 for those who wanted to see them withdrawn, it was a piece of emotional propaganda or "war porn".

31 Writing on the Guardian's website, Priyamvada Gopal, who teaches English at Cambridge University, viewed the Time cover in terms

32 of a "cynical ploy" to justify the occupation. "Misogynist violence is unacceptable," argued Gopal, "but we must also be concerned by

33 the continued insistence that the complexities of war, occupation and reality itself can be reduced to bedtime stories." Esther

4
34 Hyneman of Women for Afghan Women (WAW) certainly agrees that it's wrong to focus on Aisha's case, "as if she's the only woman

35 who's suffered this treatment. People need to realise that she represents those women who are already dead, or under threat of

36 attack or face being stoned to death." For Gopal, though, these issues are simply handy levers for empty western moralising. She

37 concluded that America has nothing to offer Afghanistan except more war and "bikini waxes". The notion, fashionable in radical

38 circles, that Afghan women are better off without American protection or influence is one that Hyneman is particularly keen to

39 contest. "Contrary to what most people in the developed world seem to believe, progress for women has occurred in Afghanistan,

40 and against overwhelming odds."

41 There are indeed several achievements that cannot be easily disregarded. Under the Taliban girls were not allowed to go to school

42 after the age of eight. Now there are more girls attending school in Afghanistan than at any time in its history. Under the Taliban,

43 women's voices were banned from radio (TV was completely forbidden) and now they take up a leading role in the broadcast media.

44 Before, sports were off-limits to women, now there are female athletes competing in international events. Adultery was punishable

45 by being stoned to death, and women were beaten on the street for anything short of total enshrouding. Now, while the informal

46 dress code remains restrictive, 25% of parliamentary seats are allocated to women.

47 The picture is far from perfect, and there are powerful forces within a weak and corrupt government that still wish to turn back the

48 clock. There is currently an attempt under way to close down women's refuges because religious conservatives, without any

49 evidence, have accused them of operating as brothels.

50 No amount of foreign troops can change the status of Afghan women. An enormous amount of work must be done to shift culturally

51 and religiously sanctioned codes of behaviour, and then to raise life expectations. But it's hard to imagine that such efforts could be

52 waged without the protection of the Nato troops. Even then, many Afghan women may still see security in tradition, no matter how

53 unkind it has been to them.

54 In 2002, National Geographic tracked down the girl with the green eyes. They found her living near the mountains of Tora Bora,

55 which had been targeted by American bombing. Her name was Sharbat Gula. She had lived a life almost permanently disrupted by

56 war and dreamed of her daughters one day attending school. But Gula also said that "life under the Taliban was better. At least there

57 was peace and order".

58 The Taliban, who have minimal support in Afghanistan, understand the deep yearning for peace in the country after decades of

59 fighting. That's why they are prepared to commit the most monstrous violence, particularly against women, to force the Afghans to

60 submit to their order. Human Rights Watch has collected letters sent by the Taliban to intimidate and terrorise women.

61 Anyone who is serious about challenging misogyny in Afghanistan is required, at the very minimum, to acknowledge this depressing

62 reality. Equally, regardless of whether the troops stay or are withdrawn, it's important, if only for the sake of honest debate, to state

63 clearly what's at stake. Aisha's experience is not the whole story, but it does symbolise a critical subplot that ought not be neglected.

64 That much, at least, is as plain as the nose that is missing from her face.