Dieses moderne Bühnenstück aus Australien erzählt die rührende Geschichte von fünf Aborigine-Kindern, die aus ihrem Familienkreis geraubt, entführt, in einem repressiven Kinderheim erzogen und als Hausangestellte ausgebildet werden. Die Auswirkungen auf ihr späteres Leben sind verheerend ... trotzdem scheint eine Versöhnung nicht unmöglich.
Stolen is a contemporary Australian drama dealing with one of the darkest and most atrocious aspects of recent Australian history, i.e. the "Stolen Generations".
The drama "tells of five young Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their parents, brought up in a repressive children´s home and trained for domestic service and other menial jobs. Segregated from society in their earliest years, not all of them successfully manage their lives when released into the outside world. The pain and sheer desperation of their lives is seen through the children´s own eyes as they struggle to make sense of a world where they have been told to forget their families, forget their homes and forget their language. This tender and moving story is a superb contribution towards reconciliation." (from the back cover)
Historical Background:
In order to "absorb" and "assimilate" Aboriginal children and thus dilute their aboriginality thousands of children were forcibly removed (stolen) from their families by the Australian government and placed in missions or welfare institutions. Others were adopted by white foster parents who often did not know that the children they adopted were "stolen" Aboriginal children. In the 1920s more than 80% were girls, because on the one hand they were needed as domestic servants and on the other hand it was regarded as an adequate means to prevent them from giving birth to indigenous babies. However, after World War II the situation was different as more boys than girls were removed for fear of increasing juvenile deliquency, with the intention of educating them and turning them into useful industrial workers.
These practices had a disastrous effect not only on the children but also on their Aboriginal families. As a consequence a lot of these children suffered serious psychological damage, for those who lived in prison-like institutions never experienced love or affection but a ruthless discipline, physical, psychological and sexual abuse instead. Therefore these children not only lost their links to their past, but also suffered chronic depression, were traumatized or became alcoholics. A lot of them ended up in prison or committed suicide.
With the referendum of 1967 the Aborigines became Australian citizens with equal rights to vote. As revelations about the fate of Australia´s indigenous population led to vast agitations about this scandal in the history of Australia in the late 1980s, a National enquiry into the "Stolen Generations" began in 1995. Two years later the final report entitled "Bringing them Home", gave proof of the harmful social, physical, and psychological effects that the official policy of "assimilation" had had on Aboriginal children and their families.
Didactical Evaluation: "There can be no doubt that this play will be of interest to the education market. It is the most successful play so far to deal with these issues. It does so in an imaginative way. Being written from the children´s point of view, it is able to make the complex and powerful issues highly approachable for secondary students. There may be some resistance, however, towards exposing younger secondary students and older primary students to the issues. The play is not overtly political, it does not preach, it is not dogmatic - it simply shows us how the children themselves experience their lot in life and how they attempt to make sense of it."1) Indeed, Harrison´s play is neither dogmatic nor extremely passionate, but it simply helps us to overcome intolerance, clichés, prejudice, snobbery, and racial discrimination that are based on cultural ignorance and misunderstandings preventing people from living together peacefully and happily and without fear of the "other".
1) Printed by kind permission of Currency Press Australia.
Stolen is a contemporary Australian drama dealing with one of the darkest and most atrocious aspects of recent Australian history, i.e. the "Stolen Generations".
The drama "tells of five young Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their parents, brought up in a repressive children´s home and trained for domestic service and other menial jobs. Segregated from society in their earliest years, not all of them successfully manage their lives when released into the outside world. The pain and sheer desperation of their lives is seen through the children´s own eyes as they struggle to make sense of a world where they have been told to forget their families, forget their homes and forget their language. This tender and moving story is a superb contribution towards reconciliation." (from the back cover)
Historical Background:
In order to "absorb" and "assimilate" Aboriginal children and thus dilute their aboriginality thousands of children were forcibly removed (stolen) from their families by the Australian government and placed in missions or welfare institutions. Others were adopted by white foster parents who often did not know that the children they adopted were "stolen" Aboriginal children. In the 1920s more than 80% were girls, because on the one hand they were needed as domestic servants and on the other hand it was regarded as an adequate means to prevent them from giving birth to indigenous babies. However, after World War II the situation was different as more boys than girls were removed for fear of increasing juvenile deliquency, with the intention of educating them and turning them into useful industrial workers.
These practices had a disastrous effect not only on the children but also on their Aboriginal families. As a consequence a lot of these children suffered serious psychological damage, for those who lived in prison-like institutions never experienced love or affection but a ruthless discipline, physical, psychological and sexual abuse instead. Therefore these children not only lost their links to their past, but also suffered chronic depression, were traumatized or became alcoholics. A lot of them ended up in prison or committed suicide.
With the referendum of 1967 the Aborigines became Australian citizens with equal rights to vote. As revelations about the fate of Australia´s indigenous population led to vast agitations about this scandal in the history of Australia in the late 1980s, a National enquiry into the "Stolen Generations" began in 1995. Two years later the final report entitled "Bringing them Home", gave proof of the harmful social, physical, and psychological effects that the official policy of "assimilation" had had on Aboriginal children and their families.
Didactical Evaluation: "There can be no doubt that this play will be of interest to the education market. It is the most successful play so far to deal with these issues. It does so in an imaginative way. Being written from the children´s point of view, it is able to make the complex and powerful issues highly approachable for secondary students. There may be some resistance, however, towards exposing younger secondary students and older primary students to the issues. The play is not overtly political, it does not preach, it is not dogmatic - it simply shows us how the children themselves experience their lot in life and how they attempt to make sense of it."1) Indeed, Harrison´s play is neither dogmatic nor extremely passionate, but it simply helps us to overcome intolerance, clichés, prejudice, snobbery, and racial discrimination that are based on cultural ignorance and misunderstandings preventing people from living together peacefully and happily and without fear of the "other".
1) Printed by kind permission of Currency Press Australia.