How Does Ethnocentricity Cause Conflict ?

When the British arrived and colonized the First Australians land, they're ethnocentric views on the aboriginal race tore the two communities apart causing conflict. The Aboriginals were barely clothed which made the colonizers implicate that they were savages. The British could only state the differences between them and the Aboriginals. When Aboriginals first saw the British they were open minded and didn't judge or fight back they dance and celebrated their arrival. The Australians accepted the welcoming but still thought of them as barbaric. The British described them as savages and animals with no rights. The British were very biased and only looked at the Aboriginal’s culture and rules through their own eyes ignoring the words of the people and basically treating them like animals. The colonizers believed that they were the superior race; they wanted the aboriginal race to be extinct. They tried to remove the native out of Bennelong, they took him to their land so he could grow accustom to their culture. Bennelong did not enjoy living outside his own land and he later on decided to go back to Australia. Bennelong returning back to Australia made them loose hope in the aboriginal race as ever being civilized. In Bennelong obituary they constantly use words like 'barbaric' and 'savage' they also showed how disappointed they were and how the aboriginals could never be equals with them. In the Book "The Rabbits" it says how more of colonizers came which is true, more settlers arrived and claimed more of the aboriginals land. The British took away the aboriginal plantation such as yam and planted their own food. The removal of their crops upset the aboriginals which made them start a war. The goal was to wipe out the aboriginals so they targeted women and children. When the war ended the aboriginals were still perceived as savages and animals and known as very primitive people. At first If the British had looked at the aboriginals as equals, the lives lost by countless wars and act of violence would have been reduce and they culture might have been secured instead of slowly fading away. There were no advantages that came out of the prejudicial acts by the British.