History

"But who will be able to move on after (the) apology? Most white
Australians will be able to move on (with the warm inner glow that
will come from having said sorry), but I doubt indigenous Australians
will. Those people stolen from their families who feel entitled to
compensation will never be able to move on.
"Too many will be condemned to harbour a sense of injustice for the
rest of their lives. Far from moving on, these people -- whose lives
have been much consumed by this issue -- will die with a sense of
unresolved justice.
"One of my misgivings about the apology has been my belief that nothing
good will come from viewing ourselves, and making our case on the
basis of our status, as victims.
"We have been -- and the people who lost their families certainly were
-- victimised in history, but we must stop the politics of victimhood.
"We lose power when we adopt this psychology. Whatever moral power we
might gain over white Australia from presenting ourselves as victims,
we lose in ourselves."
Noel Pearson.


Wherever you're from, agree or disagree, yesterday was an historic moment in Australian life; the formal aplogy to the indigenous people. It will mean different things to different people, and hard truths will not be confronted. Our own happy days, far off, mean nothing in the clamour of competing woes. There are multiple ironies. The courts and the child protection authorities went about their corrupt, dishonest business, behind closed doors, in secrecy, proudly removing parents and pretending they're acting in the best interests of children, while now politically acceptable victims around the country make the front pages; all day, everywhere. It was an occasion and the country stopped. There were giant screens set up in Redfern, in Martin Place, and around the country. Almost everyone watched it on television. Almost everyone was moved. They turned their backs on Brendan Nelson, perhaps because it was the wrong time for uncomfortable truths. And history has been written in terms of the victors of the culture wars, the left now ascendant from one side of tHe country to the other; the conservatives in shambles while John Howard retreats to his two million dollar residence in Wollstonecraft.

"A comfortable, established suburb", one site describes it as. Where everything is established, eveyrthing is comfortable, untouched by the public pain of so many. There was much to be gained by resisting the fashionable shibboliths of the day; but those days have passed and the conservatives were utterly hopeless at explaining their objections. They sat on the fence, and were cut to ribbons. Again. As they did on so many other issues. Parliament has opened with a new Prime Minister, with the sounds of didgeridoos, and the consequences of yesterday wil be unknown for a very long time. I'd love to telescope forward five years, even ten, and see how the debate stands now. Will they still be dying in custody at higher rates than anybody else. Will there still be more aborigines in jail than any other ethnic group. Will life expectancy have got worse. Will it all have proven to be a mass charade; or did we really see history being made.

It is the left's policies that have left such chaos in the remote indigenous settlements, cut off from the mainstream, with no obligation to work; essentially bands of practising alcoholics, with nothing to do, no reason to be, isolated from all the benefits of modern life. They were meant to be places where an ancient culture would be protected from the corrupting influence of modern Western life. That's not what happened. Will the cynicism, if not resentment, of the toiling poor be even greater, and relationships even more troubled? Or will, for once, things go right; and the day really represent a step forward, all those fine words really be a breakthrough in the poisonous, curdled debate.

We get up and go to work and pay taxes for circuses. We pay taxes to support an already wealthy political caste; paying them many times the average wage. Cruelty was subborned inside. Magnificent gestures writ large. It was a day we knew was history, that would be much referred to in years to come, as a high water mark, as the breaking of a dam, as the day we began to hold hands and walk confidentally into the future. Or the day when style over substance peaked; and the nation believed there was hope, there was a future. A new prime minister and a new country has changed the landscape totally. There is boundless optimism as a new generation takes up the batton. Everyone in the street looks young, untroubled, healthy, happy, they chat cheerfully on their phones as if maintaining friendships was important, and they move confidently as if the world was theirs. We were once like that, we were once in the day, we once felt that our actions, our beliefs, were the core of the culture, would advance our society, were important.

It's not like that now. Core beliefs get blown away, fragile in the new winds. We were never optimistic, but yet here they all are, happy, shouting to each other, brave, all convinced with the certainty of their set of beliefs, the confidence that the past was wrong and they are right; confident that the versions of history they have been told were correct, never questioning, never inflicted with existential guilt or even so much as a doubt. Handsome, beyond handsome, physically attractive, warm in the flesh and warm in their approaches, they grasp the world we gave them as if it was rightfully theirs, never even thinking that someone went before. The nation said sorry and we're all going to move on. But only history will be able to tell what it all really meant.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23209842-661,00.html

KEVIN Rudd opened a new era in Aboriginal reconciliation with a historic apology to the stolen generation yesterday.

The Prime Minister vowed to put indigenous affairs beyond politics, inviting Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson to co-chair a commission to tackle key problems facing Aboriginal people.

Mr Rudd ended more than a decade of waiting by Aborigines by saying sorry for the pain and suffering inflicted on tens of thousands of indigenous people taken from their families.

Aborigines in Federal Parliament's public gallery wept as he delivered the formal apology -- the first official business of the new Labor Government.

It was followed by a standing ovation.

In city squares and parks across the country, and on the lawns outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australians cheered, applauded, hugged and cried after the apology was delivered.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/apology-flashes-around-the-globe/2008/02/13/1202760398990.html

THE Government's apology to the stolen generations has made news around the world, with The New York Times heralding "a new chapter in Australia's tortured relations with its indigenous peoples".

The article called the apology "comprehensive and moving" and recorded Kevin Rudd's "call for bipartisan action to improve the lives of Australia's Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders".

In Britain, all the main dailies previewed the event, focusing on the traditional welcome to country included for the first time in Tuesday's opening of the new Parliament.

"The didgeridoo took precedence over the mace yesterday when Aboriginal customs melded with British political tradition on the eve of Australia's apology to the 'stolen generations'," The Times wrote.

The Daily Telegraph said: "A century of Westminster-style pageantry and pomp took a back seat in Australia's capital, Canberra, as Aborigines smeared with white body paint and playing didgeridoos opened Parliament for the first time."

In an editorial titled "The Courage to Right a Historic Wrong", The Independent praised Mr Rudd for "bringing a liberating breath of fresh air into Australian politics".

"Politicians who match their words to their deeds are hardly 10 a penny these days," the editorial began. "And, even when they do appear on our horizon, their words and deeds are all too often designed to court cheap popularity. So it is heartening to find a recently elected leader who is so quickly and determinedly putting his campaign pledges into practice, even those that may not have appealed to every voter."

China's official English-language paper, China Daily, ran a photo of dancers from Galiwnku Island on its front page and promoted a page five story as "Australia to say sorry to its Aborigines". In Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post headed its story "Day of atonement arrives for Stolen Generation" and profiled a surviving member of the stolen generations.

In the United States, the cable news channels were pre-occupied with the three latest primary races in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC. But most of the network and newspaper websites were carrying wire reports.

The CNN International, BBC World and Al-Jazeera cable news channels all covered the story. Indian and Canadian newspaper websites carried wire reports of the apology.

In New Zealand, The Dominion Post took a more parochial approach to the moment, talking to a Maori Party MP, Hone Harawira, who was in Canberra listening to the Prime Minister. "It was a very emotional experience," Mr Harawira told the Post. "I'm bloody glad I'm here."




My son Sam