editorial

australian apology
An apology to the aboriginals has a positive psychological impact but Australian society remains divided.

he Australian governments apology delivered recently by prime minister Kevin Rudd in parliament for the thousands of aboriginal children who were forcibly taken away from their families between 1910 and 1970 by the state supposedly to protect them from abuse, puts the spotlight on many aspects of mainstream societys attitude towards tribals, aborigines and those minorities whose lifestyle and cultural values are markedly different. In those 60 years, infants and children of mixed lineage were simply whisked away from their families by a state that had no doubt it was playing saviour. They were farmed out arbitrarily to churches of various denominations and to non-governmental organisations, and grew up to be literate and docile labour, steeped in the white mans norms. The Northern Territory Protector of Natives unambiguously said that the problem of our half-castes will be quickly eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white. Known as the stolen generations, the psychological and socioeconomic damage suffered by these men and women has been painstakingly documented in a report of a national inquiry titled Bringing Them Home (BTH). The testimonies and 54 recommendations were tabled in the Australian parliament in 1997 and the date (May 26) was declared the National Sorry Day. While every state parliament in the country tabled and passed apologies (one of the 54 recommendations), the previous federal government led by prime minister John Howard refused saying he did not want to take a black armband view of history (a view focusing on the dispossession of indigenous Australians by historians wearing a black armband mourning the indigenous peoples treatment by the white settlers). Rudds speech dealt with two questions that are debated whenever the issue of apologising for historical injustices comes up: why should the past impinge on the present and why should the present generation apologise for what its forefathers did. Until the Australian nation faced the cold, confronting and uncomfortable truth a shadow would hang over the future and they would

never be a fully united, fully reconciled people, he said and added that we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must be the bearer of their burdens as well. However eloquent Rudds apology, two highly contentious issues remain unaddressed. One, the recommendation of the BTH report to set up a national compensation scheme for the stolen generations has not been implemented and two, the intervention in the Northern Territory (NT), the aboriginal homelands started by the Howard government has been toned down but not withdrawn. Last year, the Howard government decided to tackle child abuse and alcoholism in this region on a war footing with measures like a six-month ban on alcohol and pornography, restrictions on welfare payments and compulsory medical check-ups of indigenous children. This action followed reports that child and domestic abuse coupled with alcohol and narcotic addiction had increased in this area. This is a sensitive issue that has no easy and simple answers. Howards critics like feminist Germaine Greer have denounced this whitefella mentality of first tyrannising the aboriginals out of their land and livelihood and then penalising them for selfdestructive behaviour. She points to the high suicide rates in the aboriginal communities and that if the government really cared it would have curbed the white bootleggers who flooded the area with illicit liquor even during the ban. Australias opposition leader Brendan Nelson, on the other hand, quoted in parliament a recent survey that showed that child abuse was found in every one of the 45 aboriginal communities in NT. Ironically, a day before Rudds apology, aboriginal communities led by the Aboriginal Rights Coalition (ARC) marched to Parliament House to demand an end to the federal governments racist intervention in the NT. A controversy is now in the making. The government assumes that the apology, the assurance that the past will not be repeated and measures like improving housing and educational facilities by the aboriginal affairs ministry are major steps forward. The 4,00,000 aboriginals, however, are looking for more tangible and practical applications of the apology.

Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

march 8, 2008