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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lElders seek royal apologyby Chris Griffith 5 January 2002 - INDIGENOUS leaders want the Queen to apologise during her Australian tour because Aborigines were used as human ornaments during a royal tour of Queensland at the turn of the last century. Photos gathered by Brisbane historian Duncan Waterson show Aborigines with spears standing on an arch in George Street, Brisbane, with an arrangement of ferns, tea-tree bark and a stuffed emu and kangaroo forming the Queensland coat-of-arms.
Aborigines stood on each side of the arch and, at each end, there were two gunyahs with women and children seated inside wearing emu feathers and kangaroo skins. The Aboriginal structure was built to impress the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, later George V and Queen Mary, as they rode through Brisbane in May 1901. But Brisbane Ngugi elder and Brisbane Citizen for 2001 Bob Anderson said the arches were "patronising, bloody demeaning and condescending" and depicted Aborigines as "ignorant native savages". Dr Anderson said the Queen could apologise both for the arches and the suffering Aborigines endured under the British Empire. ATSIC deputy chairman Ray Robinson also said the British monarchy should apologise for what he said was the "genocide" suffered by Aborigines. Bob Weatherall, FAIRA Aboriginal Corporation's cultural officer for repatriation of remains, said the Queen also could play an influential part in promoting legislation in Britain to allow its Natural History Museum to return more remains of Aborigines "hunted down by the British for their body parts". The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, which represents descendants of extinct Tasmanian Aborigines, said a formal royal apology would be welcome but was sceptical it would carry much weight. Historian Ross Fitzgerald said he found Waterson's photos while researching his book, The Federation Mirror, which compares Queensland in 1901 with 2001. Clip from The Courier-Mail
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its one year on from the Australian Governments controversial intervention into NT Indigenous communities
action Roll back, listen to Indigenous community voices speaking about the intervention |
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