TheBanyanTree: Saying sorry

[Peter Macinnis]

Tomorrow, in the Australian Parliament, the Australian Prime Minister 
will offer an apology to the stolen generation, Aboriginal people of 
paler skin who were deemed to be part white, and who were "rescued" from 
their Aboriginality.

Note: they were not taken because they were badly treated or abused, or 
their parents were alcoholics: they were taken because they appeared to 
be part of the superior white race that was destined to replace the 
blackfella. This is how people thought, back in the 1960s.

Institutionalised, cut off from their families and their culture, these 
young children were at best treated without much love or affection, 
trained to be servants and menials.  Their crime?  To be able to pass 
for white.

The people who did this are now mostly dead.  Many of those who are 
still alive can now see the harm they caused, and they are heart-broken 
by it.  A few still cannot see the harm they did, and repeat, over and 
over again "but we did it for their own good".

This is true, in a sense.  They meant well, but they did untold harm.

Yes, a few of the kids did well, but I have to suspect that they would 
have done brilliantly if they had not been stolen.

Some 15 years ago, I worked in the Australian Museum, where one of my 
colleagues was employed to introduce children to Aboriginal art styles. 
We shared an office, and so I often met activists and artists in a 
social setting. From time to time, we nattered, as humans do.

One morning over coffee, my colleague told me about her experiences as a 
child. Growing up, she was fair of skin, not because she was "part 
white", but because some Aboriginal people have fair skin. Why not? Some 
Caucasians have dark skin, she explained, but there was a stereotype 
that because northern Aborigines are almost coal black, then all "pure" 
Aborigines should be very black.

She was about my age, but she told me about how her grandfather kept a 
small hole in the ground with a piece of corrugated iron over it, and 
how he taught her to hide in there, every time "the Welfare" came 
around.  And so she stayed with her family. Her cunning old grandfather 
saved her from being stolen.

 From time to time, other Aboriginal artists and writers dropped in, and 
I acquired a sense of the outrage they had undergone.  They weren't out 
to convert me, it was just little things that added together.

Some years later but some years ago, I was one of 400,000 Sydneysiders 
who walked over the Sydney Harbour Bridge as my own way of saying sorry. 
I am still sorry. Not for genocide (there were murders and massacres, 
but no genocide), not for bastardry (it happened, but that is not what I 
am discussing).  The people who stole the kids really thought they were 
doing the right thing. I am too steeped in 19th century literature not 
to recall the Victorian social Darwinism which said the blackfella was 
dying, and we should gently ease his passing.

I am sorry for the blind stupidity of those people who acted for good 
motives and did so much harm. There is not a lot we can do to undo the 
harm, but we can at least have the decency to admit that mistakes were 
made.  My mob have been here since the 1820s, so it is quite likely that 
one or more of my ancestors caused direct harm or dispossession to 
Aboriginal people, but I have no way of knowing that for sure.  I know 
it happened, and see the historical material at 
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/syd/quotes.htm#indig for some 
evidence of past white attitudes.

Up until 1967, I had no idea of the way we were short-changing 
Aboriginal people by depriving them of the vote.  I should have known, 
as I had a strand of political science under my belt and knew the 
Constitution of Australia Act, but it had escaped me.

By then, I had enough training in genetics to know that race is a 
ridiculous concept: the thing that defines us and differentiates us is 
culture. Over time, culture changes, and I now have little left of the 
culture that shaped the thinking of my great grandparents (and Amen to 
that, for they were voracious and dour Calvinists!), but there has 
always been a culture there.

Stealing a generation was more than stealing children from their 
families, it was stealing a culture from those kids, throwing them into 
a cultural void. I can say sorry for that. Right now, I am listening to 
Charlie McMahon on dij — it's not really part of my culture, but I 
support it and enjoy it and hope to see fusion music grow. Anybody who 
wants can take up ownership of it, without ever taking away from my 
enjoyment.  Over time, people's culture grows and changes and adapts, 
but they have to be allowed free choice.

Facebook is a cultural shift that has passed many older people by.  My 
children live under the opprobrium of having both their parents on 
Facebook — and not only that, their parents are among their Facebook 
friends.

As a consequence of that membership, I became aware the other day of a 
new group, "One Million Australians Feel Sorry".

So far, it only has 24,000 members, but it's a start, and I added to the 
momentum.  As in so many social evils, so many conflicts, the best way 
out of the mess is for people to agree that bad things have happened in 
the past, and they have to stop.  That may not be a remedy, but it ends 
the heartache and starts the healing.  On both sides.

In 1967, 90% of Australia voted to give Aboriginal people the vote, and 
we were proud of ourselves. About 10% of Sydney walked over the bridge 
-- it took a fair amount of organisation to get there, and those of us 
who did it felt a certain pride in doing so, in being counted.  A 
majority of Australians will applaud tomorrow, but some will still feel 
sour and mean and spiteful, because they have been lied to.

My own MP, a failed priest known to his many detractors as the Mad Monk 
is the opposition spokesman on Aborigines, and he keeps harping about 
all the stolen kids who did well.  No names, of course, no examples, but 
you can see why he failed his vocation.  I think he truly believes that 
Jesus said "Suffer, little children" and stopped there.

I will listen, I will cheer young Kev and all his words.  I will stamp, 
I will whistle, I will hang out bunting -- because the Mad Monk and his 
coteries of savages will never be able to retract the apology, should he 
ever get into power.

We have closed a chapter and started a new one.

peter