Archive for February 13th, 2008
One very big word: sorry
February 13, 2008Australia’s top leaders officially said “sorry” today to the “stolen generation” and their families. All over the continent Indigenous people and the non-Indigenous gathered in crowds to listen, applaud, and shed tears of both happiness and sorrow.
For outsiders living here, it was like being present for a family event almost too personal for the eyes and ears of guests. One felt honoured to be able to listen and watch.
Kevin Rudd, elected Prime Minister in part because he promised to say the word his campaign opponent, John Howard, refused to say, “sorry,” spoke solemnly and without great flourish, but his message was powerful.
It is time, he said, to “deal with this unfinished business of the nation,” to “remove a great stain from the nation’s soul and in the true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land Australia.”
He said: People of European descent took Aboriginal and Torres Strait children forcibly from their parents and put them into institutions or foster homes and they did so for much of a century, finally ending the practice only in the 1970s. (Yes, the nineteen seventies.)
He said: Laws passed by previous Parliaments permitted this to happen and we, the Parliament of today, must say we are sorry. The resolution he offered used that word three times.
With 100 invited Indigenous leaders present and all major Read the rest of this entry »