Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

Australia's 'sorry day' marked  

(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41185000/jpg/_41185755_player203afp.jpg)
Ceremonies across Australia have marked National Sorry Day, which remembers the government's removal of Aboriginal children from their families.
Between 1910 and the 1970s thousands of youngsters were taken from their homes, a policy perceived by many to have been an attempt at cultural assimilation.

An inquiry into the phenomenon in 1997 instituted Sorry Day, to allow Australia to acknowledge its effects.

But Prime Minister John Howard himself has repeatedly refused to apologise.

He says that today's Australians were not responsible for the policies of the past.

Mr Howard's government has, however, expressed regret for the so-called Stolen Generation and committed itself to addressing indigenous disadvantage and reconciliation.

Members of the Stolen Generation have said the experience of being wrenched from their families at an early age has left very deep scars.

They talk of a loss of identity after being brought up by white foster parents or in institutions, oblivious of their indigenous heritage.

Campaigners believe the policy was designed to eradicate Aboriginal culture by severing ties to family and tribal land, as well as destroying language and customs.

They see the Stolen Generation as the victims of a monstrous crime that needs to be formally acknowledged by the government.

An official apology was one of the key recommendations of a report that investigated the forced removal of thousands of Aboriginal children.

It said an apology would help to reconcile the indigenous and non-indigenous communities.

The first National Sorry Day was held in 1998, a year after the report by Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission was released.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4581477.stm

This 'sorry day' is just another one of methods used to try to pacify Black people, while continuing damaging attitudes and policies. It should be clear that they really are not sorry for continued oppression and exploitation of the indigenous people. After centuries of genocidal practises, the best the Australian government could come up with is a 'sorry day', while the Prime Minister John Howard  refuses to apologise. Insulting sham!!!

Excerpts and links that deal with the Australian Aboriginal Experience

"Ever since the invasion of our country by English soldiers and then colonists in the late eighteenth century, Aborigines have endured a history of land theft, attempted racial extermination, oppression, denial of basic human rights, actual and de facto slavery, ridicule, denigration, inequality and paternalism.  Concurrently, we suffered the destruction of our entire way of life--spiritual , emotional, social and economic.  The result is the Aboriginal of twentieth century Australia--a man without hope or happiness, without a land, without an identity, a culture or a future."

-Kevin Gilbert
http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/australia-bib.html

"We have taken away their land, have destroyed their food, made them subject to our laws, which are antagonistic to their habits and traditions, have endeavored to make them subject to our tastes, which they hate, have massacred them when they defended themselves and their possessions after their own fashion, and have taught them by hard warfare to acknowledge us to be their master."

English novelist Anthony Trollope,
in the late 1800s, after visiting Australia

STOLEN CHILDREN

This story's right, this story's true
I would not tell lies to you
Like the promises they did not keep
And how they fenced us in like sheep
Said to us come take our hand
Sent us off to mission land
Taught us to read, to write and pray
Then they took the children away.
Took the children away,
The Children away
Snatched from their mother's breast
Said it was for the best
Took them away

From Aborigine singer Archie Roach's song, "Took the Children Away"

"The loss, grief and trauma experienced by Aboriginal people as a result of the separation laws, policies and practices can never be adequately compensated. The loss of the love and affection of children and parents can not be compensated. The psychological, physical and sexual abuse of children, isolated among adults who viewed them as members of a 'despised race' cannot be adequately compensated. The trauma resulting from these events have produced life-long effects, not only for the survivors, but for their children and their children's children." -Link-Up, an organization which helps victims of the government's removal policies

"I never saw my mother's face. I don't speak my mother's tongue...Police, clergy, anyone with a social standing had the legal right to come into a home, to decide that the children were neglected and to take them. It was genocide, just genocide." --Julie Wilson, one of those now known as the "stolen generation"

"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." - From the 1997 National Inquiry report
Source:Injustice Down Under (http://rwor.org/a/v22/1070-79/1072/aborig.htm)


Writers like Aboriginal poet Jack Davis have described the pain of centuries with deep clarity.

You propped me up with Christ, red tape,
Tobacco, grog and fears.
Then disease and lordly rape
Throughout the brutish years.
Now you primly say you’re justified
And sing of a nation’s glory,
But I think of a people crucified -
The real Australian story.

Giant Jigsaw Puzzle (http://www.newint.org/issue186/giant.htm)

Echoes of history (http://www.newint.org/issue186/echoes.htm)

HEROIC RESISTANCE: THE BLACK PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA (http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/austra.html)

Australia: Palm Island’s Dark History
Of Aboriginal Repression (http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-zimmer020305.htm)

Rabbit-Proof Fence  (http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2002/11/18review.html)