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| Candles set up outside Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra spell “Sorry, the first step.” They refer to Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd’s apology to Aborigines, planned for Wednesday, for decades of forced assimilation. Some say Aborigines deserve
payouts for their hardship. Mark Graham/AP |
Australia to apologize to Aborigines for injustice: how helpful?
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the gesture will remove a "blight on the nation's soul."
from the February 12, 2008 edition
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"I was 18 months old when I was taken away, and I didn't meet my mum until I was 20. I grew up not even knowing her name – the authorities wouldn't tell me," she recalls. "Eventually I tracked her down but by then she was gravely ill. We met twice, but two weeks later she died."
She says there was no evidence of neglect in her family. The policy "was bizarre, and very cruel," she adds. "Perhaps it was a deliberate attempt to breed out the Aboriginal race, by splitting up families."
A member of a lobby group, the Stolen Generations Alliance, Hocking believes the government's apology is of great symbolic importance. "In just a few minutes Rudd will change the history of this country. It will open the eyes of a lot of Australians and people around the world."
Not all Aborigines agree, arguing that the apology won't improve their often appalling living conditions.
In what has been described as a national disgrace and international embarrassment, the life expectancy of Australia's 450,000 indigenous people is 17 years shorter than the rest of the population. They suffer shocking levels of alcoholism, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence.
The apology will be a largely meaningless gesture, says Leo Abbott, a community leader and member of the Aranda tribe in the Northern Territory. "The proper way to say sorry is to fix up health, education, employment, and housing for Aboriginal communities," he says.
Australia's political leaders are also divided over the apology, with some conservative MPs uncomfortable with the label of Stolen Generation. They maintain that many mixed race children were removed for their own safety from violent or neglectful families.
The opposition's spokesman on Aboriginal affairs, Tony Abbott, insists that many of the removals were carried out with the best of intentions. "Yes, some kids were stolen and this is shameful, but many were helped and some were rescued," he said.
The issue of compensation is also highly contentious. Some Aboriginal leaders have called for the setting up of a compensation fund of about $900 million or more, but the government has so far refused. Reconciliation Australia hopes the government will eventually accept the idea of payouts, as some Australian states have done. "These people were done a grave injustice. Compensation is considered to be part of any reparations process," says Mr. Glanville.
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