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Australia finally says sorry for breaking Aborigine families

Story by CHEGE MBITIRU

18 February 2008 - Daily Nation Kenya - Australia last week gave meaning to a concept politicians avoid: nations have historical responsibility and can say sorry. That’s thanks to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Earlier, Queen Elizabeth, inheritor of an empire that colonised Australia and now its head of state and former Prime Minister John Howard missed an excellent opportunity.

The issue of the Stolen Generation played big. However, implicit in Mr Rudd’s bipartisan “sorry motion” last Wednesday was an apology for the wrongs white Australia has inflicted on Aborigines and Torres Straight Islanders.

The Stolen Generation refers to once official policy of removing by force or tricks Aborigine children from their families. The removals became what Mr Rudd described as “a great stain.”

Ostensibly, the policy ended in 1967. A constitutional amendment granted Aborigines citizenship. Laws of flora and fauna ceased to apply to them. However, the removals continued for three years, official recognition of the “stain” waited nearly another 28.

Media reports portrayed euphoric scenes in Canberra, the capital. The Guardian newspaper reported Aborigines in loincloths and ochre body paints danced. Ms Matilda House, Ngunnawal tribe elder, walked barefoot and wore a cloak made from possum skins – another way of saying “They aren’t halfway down the tree yet.”

Anyway, Ms House gave “welcome home” greetings to the legislators. After all, European settlers stole the land where Canberra stands, as they did Australia.

Incidentally, it wasn’t until 1992 when Australia’s High Court ruled Aborigines and Torres Straight Islanders owned Australia before Captain Cook arrived in 1770. Before the ruling, the legal notion remained Australia was empty before the captain arrived. Maybe he was blind.

The removal – beginning with mixed race ones – began in 1869 with the Aboriginal Protection Act in the colony of Victoria. By 1950 Aborigine protection officers crawled all over Australia, grabbing children deemed not under proper care. There were Aborigines galore.

The removal policy

Underlying the removal policy were what passed as reasons – more accurately mythologies. To begin with, mixed-blood was a threat to civilised races, Europeans – read racism. Additionally, a “full-blood” aboriginal population was doomed to extinction. Well, Aborigines have lived in Australia for some 40,000 years and white folks have been around for a mere 220.

The logical conclusion of the removal policy would have accomplished what nature hadn’t – extinction. This wasn’t lost to some Aborigine protection officers. Mr Rudd referred to one who said “all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine” would disappear in five or six generations.

Some Australians have denied the Stolen Generation exists. However, an official report, Bringing Them Home, in 1997 ended all that. “Nationally,” the report said, “we can conclude with confidence that between one in three and one in ten indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970.” Overall estimate, due to poor records, is 100,000.

Received the report

Mr Howard received the report. It recommended, among other measures, an official apology. Mr Howard said current generation shouldn’t be “required to accept guilt and blame for past actions and policies.” Opposition leader Brendan Nelson reiterated that position but supported a state apology.

Both are right. Individuals shouldn’t take responsibility for acts not personally committed unless they so wish the indulgence.

The Bringing Them Home report also recommended reparation, a dubious proposition. After all, the removals were legal. In any case, how is the agony of a person’s past being obliterated translated into cash? That’s why Mr Rudd’s litany of what the state needs to do so that Aborigines – some 450,000 – cease to be Australia’s les misérables makes sense.

While in office, Mr Howard could have done the same thing Mr Rudd, who opposes reparation, did and earned similar kudos. The Queen would have earned additional respect had she said, “Britannia apologises to Aborigines for unforeseen suffering due to the Empire’s policies.”

As Mr Nelson observed, no generation can foresee long-term consequences of its decisions and actions. Generations pass. Nations carry the generations’ burdens. Repayment of national debts hammers the point home.

Source: Daily Nation Kenya

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