Word: australian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...islanders. Britain ceded sovereignty over the islands to Australia in 1955, and Canberra simply assumed that the Malays were content with Clunies-Ross rule. No one knew for sure, of course; the present ruler, John Clunies-Ross, a fifth-generation descendant of the islands' original settler, forbade the Australian administrator to set foot on Home Island, which he considers his private domain. Canberra's comfortable ignorance was jolted three years ago when a group of Malay headmen on Christmas Island, where the overpopulation from the Cocos was resettled after World War II, told Australian officials that their friends...
...Australian government sent an investigator to the Cocos, but his report was kept secret until last month, when it suddenly surfaced as a political issue. The report compares the Malay workers to slaves of a benevolent plantation owner in the pre-Civil War U.S. South. "Although they appear happy and contented," the report says, "they seem to be very servile." The Malay workers call Clunies-Ross "Tuan Besar," meaning "Big Master." For their labor, the Malays are paid six Cocos rupees a week (about $2) in plastic tokens redeemable only at Clunies-Ross's own store. Clunies-Ross...
...Education is voluntary, but "school days may end abruptly," notes Clunies-Ross. "Anyone who doesn't respond or is lazy gets sacked." Children go to work at 14, usually as apprentices in a trade. Clunies-Ross said that he did not want the Malay children to have an Australian standard of education because it would lead to a brain drain...
...Australian government, meanwhile, was not quite sure what to do about the Cocos. As the Melbourne Age observed: "There will undoubtedly be a feeling that perhaps we should leave all this alone: that the last thing a peaceful and happy people deserves is the dubious benefits of our civilization. However the situation is not that simple. The islands cannot be left in the past and their future cannot be planned on the assumption that Clunies-Ross rule will always be benevolent...
...Malays to continue without the rights of citizenship and the protection of its laws. Last week Minister of External Territories Andrew Peacock visited the Cocos. After two days of negotiations with Clunies-Ross, he achieved an agreement, subject to Canberra's approval, under which Clunies-Ross conceded Australian sovereignty and agreed that the island be ruled by an elected chief executive, presumably himself. Included in the agreement were provisions for Australian teachers, an appeals system for major crimes, and transportation to Singapore and Christmas Island. The currency in which the Malays are paid and their freedom of movement will...