A. O. Neville
Auber Octavius Neville, better known as AO Neville ( born October 20, 1875 in Northumberland, † April 18, 1954 in Perth ) was an official in the public service of Western Australia and most recently head of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
Life
AO Neville was born in England but emigrated in childhood with his family to Australia. In 1897 he moved to Western Australia and became an officer in the public service. He quickly made there career and in 1915 was Deputy Chief Protector of Aborigines for Western Australia. Originally, the task of protector to protect the Aboriginal rights and to implement and abuses and violence was fend against them. Over the years, however, the work was transformed in some states of Australia towards the " social control" of the Aborigines. The Protectors certain now, where and how the Aborigines had to live up to the decision whether and whom they were allowed to marry. Until his retirement in 1940 AO Neville certain henceforth life, especially the half-breed children, children of whites and Aborigines. By law he was now the guardian of all Aboriginal descendants and collected them against the will of their families in boarding schools, where they were very conservative, educated under the control of most church organizations. The aim of this measure was the alienation of children from their families and their Aboriginal traditions to make them better integrate into the "civilized life of the whites " can, however, mostly as domestic servants and farm hands.
Neville was a staunch supporter of popular at that time, especially in the western world eugenics. He believed that the breed of the Aborigines could be displaced slowly by perpetual mixture of " white " blood. In front of a committee of inquiry in 1934, he vehemently defended his policy of forced relocation, separation of children from their families and the conservative methods of education with surveillance, discipline and punishment by arguing that " they must be [ the Aborigines ] protected against themselves whether they like it or not. You can not understand how they are. However, the pathological need out of a body, so that healthy people can survive, even against the will of the patient. "
Towards the end of his career, AO Neville published in his book "Australia's Coloured Minority " his views of the " biological absorption of Aborigines in the white race " and was until his death a proponent of this theory. His practice was continued until the early 1970s. The term " The Stolen Generations" (English for the stolen generations ) of this chapter of Australian history was a synonym for racism against the indigenous people of the fifth continent.
Media
Appeared in 2002 with Long Walk Home is a film about the issue of Aboriginal children and half-breeds. The Northern Irishman Kenneth Branagh embodied here the AO Neville. About the person Neville, he said: "He was the classic product of the British Empire in its final stages. As a true bureaucrat, he was convinced of the patriarchal, interventionist policy. Top priority was to educate him, so-called inferior races by compulsive assimilation better people. "