Tonight’s film, Rabbit-Proof Fence, was about children who in the 1930s were forcibly taken away from their aborigine mothers under Australia’s half-caste “education” program. Two sisters their cousin, ages 8-14, were taken to a boarding school 1200 miles away from their home. Despite seeing firsthand the cruel punishment meted out to captured runaways, the girls quickly decide to leave and make their way home.
Through a combination of cleverness and luck, they must try to avoid the tracker who normally has no finding capturing runaways, and the police assigned to help capture them. On their arduous trek they encounter some people willing to help, and others who want to turn them in.
The film is a vivid demonstration that that which is legal may still be evil. The official “Chief Protector of the Aborigines”, A.O. Neville (played by Kenneth Branagh) repeatedly states that the aborigines must be protected despite themselves. His matter-of-fact attitude regarding separating children from their families is arguably more terrifying than any sociopathic criminal character seen in film. It never ceases to amaze me how much evil man can do to his fellow man, with the justification that it is for his fellow man’s own good.
The intent of this Australian policy was to separate half-caste children, train them to fit into white society (as servants), and breed the aborigine genes out of the descendents. The state had complete authority over every aspect of the half-caste’s life, including where he or she would live and work, and whether and whom he or she would marry. The program lasted until the 1970s, and was responsible for what are referred to as the “Stolen Generation“.