sorry day

nothing more important today than the following wonderful speech from kevin rudd, prime minister of australia -

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future. Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time. That is why the parliament is today here assembled: to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia.

Last year I made a commitment to the Australian people that if we formed the next government of the Commonwealth we would in parliament say sorry to the stolen generations. Today I honour that commitment. I said we would do so early in the life of the new parliament. Again, today I honour that commitment by doing so at the commencement of this the 42nd parliament of the Commonwealth. Because the time has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great Commonwealth, for all Australians—those who are Indigenous and those who are not—to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation.

Some have asked, ‘Why apologise?’ Let me begin to answer by telling the parliament just a little of one person’s story—an elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her 80s, full of life, full of funny stories, despite what has happened in her life’s journey, a woman who has travelled a long way to be with us today, a member of the stolen generation who shared some of her story with me when I called around to see her just a few days ago. Nanna Nungala Fejo, as she prefers to be called, was born in the late 1920s. She remembers her earliest childhood days living with her family and her community in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek. She remembers the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night. She loved the dancing. She remembers once getting into strife when, as a four-year-old girl, she insisted on dancing with the male tribal elders rather than just sitting and watching the men, as the girls were supposed to do.

But then, sometime around 1932, when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men. Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide. What they had not expected was that the white welfare men did not come alone. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman on horseback cracking his stockwhip. The kids were found; they ran for their mothers, screaming, but they could not get away. They were herded and piled onto the back of the truck. Tears flowing, her mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away to the Bungalow in Alice, all in the name of protection...

A few years later, government policy changed. Now the children would be handed over to the missions to be cared for by the churches. But which church would care for them? The kids were simply told to line up in three lines. Nanna Fejo and her sister stood in the middle line, her older brother and cousin on her left. Those on the left were told that they had become Catholics, those in the middle Methodists and those on the right Church of England. That is how the complex questions of post-reformation theology were resolved in the Australian outback in the 1930s. It was as crude as that. She and her sister were sent to a Methodist mission on Goulburn Island and then Croker Island. Her Catholic brother was sent to work at a cattle station and her cousin to a Catholic mission.

Nanna Fejo’s family had been broken up for a second time. She stayed at the mission until after the war, when she was allowed to leave for a prearranged job as a domestic in Darwin. She was 16. Nanna Fejo never saw her mum again. After she left the mission, her brother let her know that her mum had died years before, a broken woman fretting for the children that had literally been ripped away from her.
I asked Nanna Fejo what she would have me say today about her story. She thought for a few moments then said that what I should say today was that all mothers are important. And she added: ‘Families—keeping them together is very important. It’s a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed down the generations. That’s what gives you happiness.’ As I left, later on, Nanna Fejo took one of my staff aside, wanting to make sure that I was not too hard on the Aboriginal stockman who had hunted those kids down all those years ago. The stockman had found her again decades later, this time himself to say, ‘Sorry.’ And remarkably, extraordinarily, she had forgiven him.

Nanna Fejo’s is just one story. There are thousands, tens of thousands of them: stories of forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their mums and dads over the better part of a century. Some of these stories are graphically told in Bringing them home, the report commissioned in 1995 by Prime Minister Keating and received in 1997 by Prime Minister Howard. There is something terribly primal about these firsthand accounts. The pain is searing; it screams from the pages. The hurt, the humiliation, the degradation and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on our senses and on our most elemental humanity.

These stories cry out to be heard; they cry out for an apology. Instead, from the nation’s parliament there has been a stony, stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade; a view that somehow we, the parliament, should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong; a view that, instead, we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side, to leave it languishing with the historians, the academics and the cultural warriors, as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon. But the stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities. They are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments. But, as of today, the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end.

The nation is demanding of its political leadership to take us forward. Decency, human decency, universal human decency, demands that the nation now step forward to right an historical wrong. That is what we are doing in this place today. But should there still be doubts as to why we must now act, let the parliament reflect for a moment on the following facts: that, between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30 per cent of Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers; that, as a result, up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families; that this was the product of the deliberate, calculated policies of the state as reflected in the explicit powers given to them under statute; that this policy was taken to such extremes by some in administrative authority that the forced extractions of children of so-called ‘mixed lineage’ were seen as part of a broader policy of dealing with ‘the problem of the Aboriginal population’.

One of the most notorious examples of this approach was from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who stated:

Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian aborigine are eradicated.

The problem of our half-castes, to quote the protector—

will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white...

The Western Australian Protector of Natives expressed not dissimilar views, expounding them at length in Canberra in 1937 at the first national conference on Indigenous affairs that brought together the Commonwealth and state protectors of natives. These are uncomfortable things to be brought out into the light. They are not pleasant. They are profoundly disturbing. But we must acknowledge these facts if we are to deal once and for all with the argument that the policy of generic forced separation was somehow well motivated, justified by its historical context and, as a result, unworthy of any apology today.

Then we come to the argument of intergenerational responsibility, also used by some to argue against giving an apology today. But let us remember the fact that the forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970s. The 1970s is not exactly a point in remote antiquity. There are still serving members of this parliament who were first elected to this place in the early 1970s. It is well within the adult memory span of many of us. The uncomfortable truth for us all is that the parliaments of the nation, individually and collectively, enacted statutes and delegated authority under those statutes that made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully lawful.

There is a further reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation—and that value is a fair go for all. There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all. There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs. It is for these reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology—because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible.

We, the parliaments of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves. As has been said of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well. Therefore, for our nation, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia’s history. In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate. In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul. This is not, as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth—facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it.

Until we fully confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people. It is time to reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together.

To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the parliament of Australia, I am sorry. I offer you this apology without qualification. We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted. We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied. We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments. In making this apology, I would also like to speak personally to the members of the stolen generations and their families: to those here today, so many of you; to those listening across the nation—from Yuendumu, in the central west of the Northern Territory, to Yabara, in North Queensland, and to Pitjantjatjara in South Australia.

I know that, in offering this apology on behalf of the government and the parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally. Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that. Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing. I ask those non-Indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you. I say to honourable members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive. My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation, in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia. And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.

Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot. For us, symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong. It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history. Today’s apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs. It is also aimed at building a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt. Our challenge for the future is to cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives. But the core of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities. This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and, within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous in overall life expectancy.

The truth is: a business as usual approach towards Indigenous Australians is not working. Most old approaches are not working. We need a new beginning—a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership, on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote and regional Indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible, tailored, local approaches to achieve commonly-agreed national objectives that lie at the core of our proposed new partnership; a new beginning that draws intelligently on the experiences of new policy settings across the nation. However, unless we as a parliament set a destination for the nation, we have no clear point to guide our policy, our programs or our purpose; we have no centralised organising principle.

Let us resolve today to begin with the little children—a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations. Let us resolve over the next five years to have every Indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs. Let us resolve to build new educational opportunities for these little ones, year by year, step by step, following the completion of their crucial preschool year. Let us resolve to use this systematic approach to build future educational opportunities for Indigenous children to provide proper primary and preventive health care for the same children, to begin the task of rolling back the obscenity that we find today in infant mortality rates in remote Indigenous communities—up to four times higher than in other communities.

None of this will be easy. Most of it will be hard—very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear goals, clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding principles of this new partnership on closing the gap. The mood of the nation is for reconciliation now, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on Indigenous policy and politics is now very simple. The nation is calling on us, the politicians, to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point-scoring and our mindlessly partisan politics and to elevate this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide. Surely this is the unfulfilled spirit of the 1967 referendum. Surely, at least from this day forward, we should give it a go.

Let me take this one step further and take what some may see as a piece of political posturing and make a practical proposal to the opposition on this day, the first full sitting day of the new parliament. I said before the election that the nation needed a kind of war cabinet on parts of Indigenous policy, because the challenges are too great and the consequences are too great to allow it all to become a political football, as it has been so often in the past. I therefore propose a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and implement—to begin with—an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years. It will be consistent with the government’s policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap. If this commission operates well, I then propose that it work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians, consistent with the longstanding platform commitments of my party and the pre-election position of the opposition. This would probably be desirable in any event because, unless such a proposition were absolutely bipartisan, it would fail at a referendum. As I have said before, the time has come for new approaches to enduring problems. Working constructively together on such defined projects would, I believe, meet with the support of the nation. It is time for fresh ideas to fashion the nation’s future.

Mr Speaker, today the parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched. So let us seize the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection. Let us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest level of our beliefs, the real possibility of reconciliation writ large: reconciliation across all Indigenous Australia; reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the Dreamtime a thousand generations ago and those who, like me, came across the seas only yesterday; reconciliation which opens up whole new possibilities for the future.
It is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us—cultures that provide a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet. Growing from this new respect, we see our Indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that Indigenous Australia faces in the future.

Let us turn this page together: Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state, and write this new chapter in our nation’s story together. First Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let’s grasp this opportunity to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House.

death and a funeral

nz put on a state funeral for sir edmund hillary yesterday
which was broadcast live on national tv a-la a royal wedding
it was all done as expected in a very dignified manner
i wasn't glued to the tv set for the number of hours it went on
but i gave it my due attention and respect at a couple of points
firstly when i was drawn to the eulogy given by an old friend of sir ed
a gentleman from nepal named ang rita sherpa
who spoke with such dignity, eloquence and respect
about what sir ed had done for his country and people
that it brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye
especially when he summed it all up by uttering
his loss to us is bigger and heavier than mt everest
he was followed in turn by another nepalese man named norbu tenzing norgay
son of the late sherpa tenzing noray who scaled mt everest with sir ed
he similarly spoke of the love and respect his people had for him
when sherpas heard the news of his death
their grief spiralled into mourning only comparible to the death of a parent
there were more speeches and some rather sombre music
but the second thing that caught my ear and eye
was the performance of a haka as the casket was taken to the hearse
beautifully and passionately performed it also stirred the emotions
giving an indication of the esteem the man was held within maoridom
the whole thing kind of hung in my head most of the day
this morning i did the usual scan of a few online news sites
and got some impression of the international significance of his passing
especially turning to the online site for the melbourne age
where michael leunig had made his unique kind of comment on the ocassion
as today went on i also helped my own family prepare for a funeral
and learnt that another death had occurred on the other side
then tonight the evening news brought the sad story of heath ledger's death
so it's been a strange old day or 2 really with death looming large
thank goodness for the likes of michael luenig (above)
and some beautiful words from some humble people
to lead the way in respect of those who have moved on

barack obama wins (part 1)

man he can give a speech
it was like he had won the ultimate prize
not just the first state in the first part of the process
to select the candidate that will stand in the november election
some interesting statistics out of the iowa caucus election (as they call it)
an underwhelming 12% of registered party members bothered to vote
something like 230,000 people in total on the democrat side
though a huge increase on the numbers in 2004
37% of the democrats voted for barack obama
so about 85,000 people gave barack the nod
the most interesting statistic is that iowa is 95% white
so from that you would assume he has overcome the race barrier
some other interesting facts about the man of the moment
he is aged at just 46, born in honolulu, kenyan father, american mother
spent a number of school years in jakarta, indonesia
and has travelled extensively throughout other parts of the world
has lobbied for legislation regarding climate change and arms control
on democracy now tonight they played all the speeches
from the main contenders in each of the 2 main parties
all the same stuff really - america will be great again, etc
but if the next president is elected on oratory skills
which let's face it is a huge factor on the day
then barack obama will romp it in
it was all quite impressive speech-making
it seemed to be straight off the cuff
no specifics mentioned about his policies
just a lot of rousing united we stand kind of talk
and a few lines about hope that may well reverberate historically
i can't remember the last time i watched a u s president
give a speech that seemed even slightly sincere
it made the other guys (and girl) sound flat and rehearsed
hillary did well with 30% - apparantly iowa likes blokes in charge
have never elected a woman to any significant office
so maybe she can claw it back in other states
the other good news from the day is bye-bye rudi
giuliani came 6th in the republican vote
maybe they don't like divorcees in iowa either
not sure about this huckabee dude
he who won the republican vote in iowa
he who has made some startling comments
mainly in reference to who one chooses as a sexual partner
and other issues that were discussed in some past century
before anyone had even heard of climate change
and other slightly more significant challenges today
not sure what barack obama will do about those problems
but you have got to suspect his age for one is a factor
they say as in the recent australian federal election
the so-called youth vote is now of huge significance
they want someone with some long term planning
seems the youngest candidate from either party
may well win the ultimate prize
it's going to be a long year
lots of barack-ing yet
as per the big speech
we live in hope

freedom next time

is the latest book by australian john pilger
i haven't read it yet but i will be doing so as soon as i can get my hands on it
tonight as i try to most evenings i tuned into the internet based show democracy now
hosted by amy goodman the woman i admire most above all others
amy is a lady of enormous integrity, intelligence and courage
she is unstoppable in her drive to expose the truth and present the facts
and always with no apparant personal opinion or bias
this i suspect is because she credits her audience with the intelligence to figure it out
now of course these days the show can be relentlessly depressing
for there is not much good news in the world today
but she loves a good story, a good story-teller and downright truth and honesty
from time to time the hour long show will be dedicated to one interview or one speech
a very memorable guest from some time ago was a very politically active harry belafonte
tonight's show featured a speech given by john pilger at a socialism conference in america recently
the title of the speech as with his latest book is freedom next time
i must admit i sat listening to the speech and was floored by the clarity of what he had to say
this is one very articulate, intelligent, brave and concerned citizen of the world
he has spent his life as an author, film and documentary maker and journalist
this particular speech was about journalism, war by journalism, propaganda and silence
it started out with a historical perspective on the way journalism has developed
he makes a blistering attack on the concept of professional (read corporate) journalism
and his fellow australian rupert murdoch gets a less than flattering mention
he now lives in england and obviously has had a lot of exposure to the bbc which also cops a lashing
amy gets a look in occassionally during what would be tv ad breaks
she loves this kind of stuff and has a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye
before cutting to some very cool and appropriate music while the tv ads roll
it seems john pilger spent some number of years in vietnam and cambodia
and obviously has a first-hand take on what occurred on the ground there
he tells us this as a background to the reference to some american war films
including a funny story about a 1968 film showing of the green berets starring john wayne
he is not a fan of this actor and in a showing of this film in america's deep south
was chased by a bunch of rednecks after daring to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of the film
he goes on to talk about a documentary (one of many) he made called year zero
about america's contribution to the rise of pol pot in cambodia
seems the film has never been shown in america the land of the free and free speech
as you would expect he is also not a fan of the current president of the u s of a
but he sees no difference in the likes of blair, brown and clinton
for he believes they have all played their part in american imperialism
in another ad break amy tells us that his latest documentary titled war on democracy
is yet to be picked up by a distributor in the u s
john pilger then proceeds to very clearly talk about and define liberalism and democracy
before then laying down some more very sobering facts and figures
of america's participation in war-mongering, regime change/support and outright genocide
the point of his talk being the complete denial and silence of journalists
he scarily points out the restart of the cold-war under the banner of 'reliable weapons replacement'
specifically to blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons
so what is the answer?
he sees no hope in the democrat alternative and their drivel (as he puts it)
he strongly believes real and subversive information is the most potent power of all
and he has a very strong optimism in the growing public awareness
that has to be propelled forward by real and honest reporting
it's a great speech
i watched it through twice
check it out at democracy now