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Sorry Day to become a National Day of Healing

18 March 2005 -The National Sorry Day Committee has decided that Sorry Day, 26 May, should become a National Day of Healing - for all Australians.

The healing needed among Aboriginal Australians is clear. And healing is needed too among non-Indigenous Australians, from the wounds of a bruising history which has left many unwilling, even unable, to feel the pain of the Indigenous community. We will only build respect and trust between us as we all recognise our need for healing.

On the National Day of Healing, we hope that everything that has happened on past Sorry Days will happen, and more yet.

This is a day to open up the whole relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Any gathering which brings people together across this divide can contribute, whether it is a march or a barbecue, a concert or a meeting. Much of the problem is that we don't know each other, so we think in stereotypes rather than in realities.

Healing has many aspects. Sir William Deane, when Governor- General, said: 'We will not achieve reconciliation until the life expectancy and future prospects of an Aboriginal baby are in the same realm as those of a non-Aboriginal one. We have no prospect of reaching that stage until we address the terrible problems of the spirit as well as those of the body - the effects on the self-esteem of Australia's Indigenous peoples of all that has been taken and destroyed since the arrival of the First Fleet.'

Physical healing is a vital aspect of the Day. Indigenous people die 20 years younger than non-Indigenous. This has many tragic effects. The loss of loved ones is devastating to family and friends. The loss of elders in their fifties, at the time they are best equipped to give leadership, is socially disruptive.

And the Third World levels of disease in many communities make attempts at economic self-sufficiency almost impossible.

The Australian Medical Association has asked that $400 million more per year go into Indigenous primary health care.

If we did that, health experts say, we would reduce the death rate by a third in ten years. Last year on May 26, the AMA issued a media release headlined, 'Every day's a Sorry Day for Indigenous health'.

We hope that many medical experts will speak out this year. In a national health budget of $60 billion per year, $400 million is possible. Why do we as a nation tolerate the tragic health conditions of Indigenous Australia when the experience of Canada, the USA and New Zealand show that dramatic improvements are well within our grasp?

Physical health cannot be separated from emotional and spiritual health. Why have we ignored most of the Bringing Them Home report when we know that its recommendations could do much to enable the stolen generations to overcome the problems they face? Why do Indigenous Australians face more racism than any other group? Why is addiction, abuse and violence rife in some Indigenous communities?

The answers to these questions are vital to our future. In the 1990s we were opening up to them, but since then momentum has been lost. The National Day of Healing aims to restore this momentum.

Healing comes through people who care.

Individuals and organisations all have a part to play - Indigenous bodies, churches, universities, schools, hospitals, bookshops and many more. We need to look honestly at where we are. And we need stories that give hope - of which there are many.

With those two elements, we will move towards creating a nation which stirs the pride of every Australian, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Ray Minniecon
Co-chair, National Sorry Day Committee

Source: National Indigenous Times

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