Australia says sorry to Stolen Generations

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Every Breaking Wave

Every Breaking Wave

Religion is a club
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CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia apologized on Wednesday for the historic mistreatment of Aborigines, heralding a new era in race relations and moving indigenous people to tears as huge crowds cheered across the nation.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd led the parliamentary apology to members of the Stolen Generations of aborigines, who were forcibly taken from their families and communities when they were young children under old assimilation policies.

In unprecedented scenes for Australia's parliament, a huge crowd of more than 7,000 people gathered on the lawns outside to watch as the apology was broadcast live to giant screens, with Aborigines and supporters cheering as Rudd said "sorry."

"It makes the indigenous community feel, for the first time in a real long time, really feel part of Australia, that it's embraced by the whole Australian nation," Stolen Generation elder Mark Bin Bakar told Reuters.

"It's about us coming together as a country, acknowledging our past and moving on, accepting each other as brothers and sisters of this nation," he said.

Others paused at city squares, town halls and schools around the country to watch the speech, which is expected to open a new era of reconciliation between indigenous and white Australians.

In Sydney's inner-city suburb of Redfern, home to a large aboriginal community, hundreds stood in heavy rain and cheered each of the three times Rudd said "sorry."

"Sorry heals the heart, and it goes deep," said Redfern aboriginal activist Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor.

The parliamentary apology comes 11 years after a report into past assimilation policies found between one in three and one in 10 aboriginal children had been taken from their families between 1910 and 1970.

The report urged a national apology to those affected, known as the Stolen Generations, but the then conservative government under prime minister John Howard rejected the finding and offered only a statement of regret.

"Today, the parliament has come together to right a great wrong," Rudd said.

"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians."

SORRY

Rudd made the apology the first item of parliamentary business for centre-left Labor, which won power in November last year, ending almost 12 years of conservative rule.

He said "sorry" three times to the Stolen Generations and their families, saying the old policies were a stain on Australia's soul which would never be repeated.

About 100 members of the Stolen Generations were in parliament to hear the government apologize, some wiping away tears as Rudd spoke.

Howard, who lost his parliamentary seat last November, did not attend the celebrations, but the other four living former prime ministers did attend, including conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who governed from 1975 to 1983.

"I just wish the idea of an apology had been put before me," Fraser told Sky television.

Australia has about 460,000 indigenous Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who make up about 2 percent of the 21 million population. There are no aboriginal members in the national parliament.

Aborigines are the most disadvantaged group in Australia, with a life expectancy 17 years less than other Australians, and far higher rates of infant mortality, unemployment, imprisonment, alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence.

Rudd promised to end the gap in life expectancy within a generation, and to work to end aboriginal inequality. He announced a plan on Wednesday to ensure all young aboriginal children are enrolled in pre-school.

Rudd also announced new plans to improve indigenous housing, and give aborigines constitutional recognition as the original owners of Australia.

(By James Grubel. Additional reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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I never knew that Aussies were mean to Aborigines. At least they'll treat 'em better. :D
 
Yeah, there was something called the Sufferage and that's mainly the time when they were abused and discriminated. We're learning about it in SOSE right now; coincidentially - yesterday being National Sorry Day.
 
Cheese said:
I never knew that Aussies were mean to Aborigines. At least they'll treat 'em better. :D
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Many Aboriginal and half-cast children were taken from their families (most of them faslely interpreted as needing government care) and weren't allowed to see them. Thus the term "Stolen Generations" being coined. The evening before the event 100's of candles were laid out to spell "Sorry is only the beginning", not in malice, but to acknowledge working with the Rudd government to right the wrongs, which I whole-heartedly agree with.

When opposition leader Dr. Brendan Nelson took his turn to speak, it was not met with grace. Many of the crowd watching turned their backs on the screen outside parliament when he turned the apology into a justification.

In my opinion, he has every right to try and justify the acts, but yesterday was a day of apology. He spoke of things that were brought up in the debates against an apology and he had no right to. He had agreed to apologize to the Stolen Generations for past actions, and while he did that, he was making excuses, something that both governments should have been finished with a long time ago. Saying sorry, and then effectively saying "even though some of them deserved it..." is, in my opinion, a far worse sign of disrespect than refusing to apologize at all.
 
Æsahættr said:
Many Aboriginal and half-cast children were taken from their families (most of them faslely interpreted as needing government care) and weren't allowed to see them. Saying sorry, and then effectively saying "even though some of them deserved it..." is, in my opinion, a far worse sign of disrespect than refusing to apologize at all.
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What I left of what you said was very saddening. 'Even though some of them deserved it.' That is just BS. D:
 
They weren't his words, but it's what he meant by them. Even if it were true, an apology speech is the worst time to bring it up.
 
Æsahættr said:
Many Aboriginal and half-cast children were taken from their families (most of them faslely interpreted as needing government care) and weren't allowed to see them. Thus the term "Stolen Generations" being coined.
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And the extent to which the government tried to 'purge' the Aboriginal people goes a bit beyond that as well. In an attempt at full blown assimilation, the original plan to deal with the Aborigines meant to integrate them into white social classes through intermarriage wiping out their distinctive Aboriginal features. Early studies showed that within 3 generations of intermarriage, the features that defined the Australian natives all but disappeared. This is the main reason why those half-casts were stolen and separated from their heritage -- taken just so they could blend in with the coastal society while forgetting about who they were and where they came from.

The Aborigine cases are much like North America's Native Indians. Our government can't do enough to make up for past crimes, and nothing will ever compensate for the return of what they once had. Sorry isn't good enough for these people either, but acknowledgment of government wrong doing sure is a step in the right direction.
 
Maybe what's left of the Native Americans, Ainu, and Aborigines can get together and take over the rest of the world together?
 
Hell, the way most minorities have been treated, they'd probably be more compassionate leaders.
 
YEAH, LET'S PUT ANUTHUH SHRIMP ON THUH BARBEE!!!!1!

*ahem*

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were turning serious issues trivial with overused Australian slang. My mistake.
 
I wonder when us whites get an apology from them for stabbing us in car parks, or breaking into our houses?
 
Brendan Nelson did what Kevin Rudd did not: Give an HONEST apology. He expressed sympathy for them, and yet did it with out making US, Generations X and Y, feel guilty for it, as we played no part in it, as this sad situation occured many years ago. The rudeness shown by the many that turned their backs on his speech was simply childish.

Also, how many people are going to ask for compensation now. I'm not looking forward to it. How about these people that have already started asking for compensation focus on the troubled communities in the north, as the Howard Government attempted to do with its intervention. Time's a wasting.
 
Glinn Mgraw said:
Brendan Nelson did what Kevin Rudd did not: Give an HONEST apology. He expressed sympathy for them, and yet did it with out making US, Generations X and Y, feel guilty for it, as we played no part in it, as this sad situation occured many years ago. The rudeness shown by the many that turned their backs on his speech was simply childish.

Also, how many people are going to ask for compensation now. I'm not looking forward to it. How about these people that have already started asking for compensation focus on the troubled communities in the north, as the Howard Government attempted to do with its intervention. Time's a wasting.
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You are possibly the first person I've seen on any web forum to come out and say that, besides myself. :thumbu:

Was it a horrible thing to have happened? Yes. Did some of the families deserve it (in the sense that, would their children have been taken away from them by social services if everything about them was the same except they were white)? Yes. Do they deserve compensation? Case by case basis (Some were mistreated. Some weren't, and have ended up as well educated and well to do members of society, and leaders of the aboriginal community). Is it the fault of the current generation that it happened? Hell no.

Really, any "sorry" from a government is just words. What matters is actions, actions like the Howard intervention, like more funds towards education and healthcare. Moving funds to there is the best compensation, not lump sum handouts to people who, statistically speaking, are more than like to just waste it all on booze (bad stereotype, but sadly statistically accurate).
 
"Well, some of them would have been taken away anyway"?

Since when do you sink to childish apologism, Arcy?

Whether or not these children would have been taken away by social services, the simple fact is they were NOT taken by social services. They were, to all practical effects, legally kidnapped for the "crime" of being born to Aborigines.

IF you recognize such actions were inherently wrong (regardless of any good that may have come from them), and feel guilty of them (and the Australian NATION and its representatives - not the individuals living there - certainly should), then apologize, and don't try to assuage your own guilt with pithy little excuses.

If, on the other hand, you consider the actions were in some way justified (and again, you actually represent a group, party, or nation that was actually involved in doing this), then don't bother with apologies: "I'm sorry" imply you actually feel sorry for something.
 
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You make it sound as though it is impossible to be sympathetic without apologising for something you didn't do.

Yes itaking them away was wrong, yes I feel sympathy for some of them who were very poorly treated, but do I need to apologise for that? Absolutely not.
 
I didn't consider it apologism, Damian. It's simply a fact that a lot of people don't consider when touting statistics about this case, something which is going to become very important as soon as the court cases for compensation start. Call me heartless if you like, but my tax dollars should not be paying for compensation for the mistakes of the government before I was born. This whole thing is actually setting a very bad legal precedent, where children who are legitimately taken away from bad parents (I'm not talking just about members of the "stolen generation" here, but any child taken from their parents in this country for the past several decades) are going to be able to sue the government for damages for "mental anguish".

Like I said, that children were stolen from their homes is certainly a bad thing, and I am certainly sorry that it happened. But I do not feel personally responsible or guilty for it having happened. It was not something I had any involvement in, and I do not subscribe to the idea of national shame or national guild, especially not with the fact that I do not identify myself personally as a member of society.

As far as the nation is concerned, yes, the nation should certainly be sorry that such a thing happened, but Australia today should not have to apologise for what is really the "sins of our fathers", as it were. If the Australia as a nation does feel guilt for what happened then, words like this are meaningless, and it should devote actual funds to actual workable solutions to improve the lot in life of the Aboriginal people.
 
Arcy - if you want to use it as an argument in court over compensation, then by all means, do so. Personally I consider it questionable : the issue is not simply that they were taken from home, but that they were under a particularly illegitimate policy.

Regarding personal guilt, certainly, neither of you have reason to feel personally guilty ; you weren't there. However, your country remains guilty - even if all children affected, and all people responsible for the law were dead, your nation would still be guilty - or of the need to apologize.

Which is what your government did. As was proper ; the government represent the nation, and the nation is guilty of this crime.

And I definitely agree that joining action to word would be a marked improvement over simply apologizing, but an apology - one that does not come with a series of "but..." - is a good start.

Apology without money might be empty ; but money without apology sounds like trying to buy off complainers.
 
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