I had a bit of a sob this morning, as I sat and watched television. Today, in Parliament House, our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised to the Stolen Generation of indigenous Australians. It was a truly moving thing to witness.
For all my international visitors and fellow bloggers, from the early part of last century, until the 70's (the 70's, can you believe it?) between 10-20% of Aboriginal children were taken from their mums and dads in the name of welfare. (13,000 people all up!) Apparently too, in the name of 'getting rid' of the aboriginal race. For years this topic has been swept under the rug and not recognised in any shape or form. Prime Ministers have come and gone, but it was our (farily new) Prime Minister, who apologised to indigenous Australians for what has happened in the past and to recognise what did happen. You can read one of those child's accounts here.
Love or hate Rudd, I thought his speech was brilliant. It was heartfelt and honest and got the point across. You can read his speech here. It made me cry to hear it. As Rudd said, to imagine that happening now, to you. Being taken from your parents, for your children to be taken from you. I can't. It would break my heart as it did to those indigenous Australians decades before.
The young children were rounded up like a herd of cattle, thrown in the back of trucks and driven hundreds of miles from their homes. They never saw their parents again. They were divided into rows and were instantly told what religion they were and seperated from brothers, sisters, cousins and taken away to live in missionaries of their 'new' religion. A lot of children were then placed into 'white' communities and made to be 'domestics', stockmen etc., for little or no money. Many of these children were consequently raped. Many too ended up marrying a sibling, or a cousin, because they did not know they were seperated as children when they stood in those inital lines.
Our former Prime Minister, John Howard, refused to apologize to, what is now known as the Stolen Generation, saying that it really had nothing to do with us of today and it should've been the people who did those acts to do the apologising. For years there have been protests against John Howard and his govenment for not recognising the reconciliation process. One of Kevin Rudd's policies was to officially say 'Sorry' within the first week of Parliament and today was that day.
It was long overdue in my eyes.
There is a lot of work to be done in Aboriginal communities and I think from this day forward, non-indigenous Australians will become more aware of what actually happened decades beforehand. The Government are trying to get Aboriginal History to be taught in Schools. When I was in High School it was all about the European Settlement of our wonderful country. But the Aboriginal race is one of the oldest races in the world. Aboriginals were never discussed in my history classes.
For all my international visitors and fellow bloggers, from the early part of last century, until the 70's (the 70's, can you believe it?) between 10-20% of Aboriginal children were taken from their mums and dads in the name of welfare. (13,000 people all up!) Apparently too, in the name of 'getting rid' of the aboriginal race. For years this topic has been swept under the rug and not recognised in any shape or form. Prime Ministers have come and gone, but it was our (farily new) Prime Minister, who apologised to indigenous Australians for what has happened in the past and to recognise what did happen. You can read one of those child's accounts here.
Love or hate Rudd, I thought his speech was brilliant. It was heartfelt and honest and got the point across. You can read his speech here. It made me cry to hear it. As Rudd said, to imagine that happening now, to you. Being taken from your parents, for your children to be taken from you. I can't. It would break my heart as it did to those indigenous Australians decades before.
The young children were rounded up like a herd of cattle, thrown in the back of trucks and driven hundreds of miles from their homes. They never saw their parents again. They were divided into rows and were instantly told what religion they were and seperated from brothers, sisters, cousins and taken away to live in missionaries of their 'new' religion. A lot of children were then placed into 'white' communities and made to be 'domestics', stockmen etc., for little or no money. Many of these children were consequently raped. Many too ended up marrying a sibling, or a cousin, because they did not know they were seperated as children when they stood in those inital lines.
Our former Prime Minister, John Howard, refused to apologize to, what is now known as the Stolen Generation, saying that it really had nothing to do with us of today and it should've been the people who did those acts to do the apologising. For years there have been protests against John Howard and his govenment for not recognising the reconciliation process. One of Kevin Rudd's policies was to officially say 'Sorry' within the first week of Parliament and today was that day.
It was long overdue in my eyes.
There is a lot of work to be done in Aboriginal communities and I think from this day forward, non-indigenous Australians will become more aware of what actually happened decades beforehand. The Government are trying to get Aboriginal History to be taught in Schools. When I was in High School it was all about the European Settlement of our wonderful country. But the Aboriginal race is one of the oldest races in the world. Aboriginals were never discussed in my history classes.
I live in an area where there is a greater percentage of Aboriginals, than other parts of the country. There are a few who give the rest a bad name, due to alcohol addictions, petrol sniffing, incest. I'm not making excuses for the Aboriginal communities but I only recently found out that when they have 2 beers they are 'full-on' drunk. Their bodies were made to not handle alcohol. (I know mine isn't either, but I am fortunate enough to have a body that does not get excessively drunk after 2 beers, but as an 8 year old I would have been.) There are laws in this part of the country where casts of wines can't be sold before 4pm. (A cast of wine is an Aussie invention, 4 litres of wine in a box basically.) There are some parts of the country up here, where you are not allowed to carry alcohol, mainly in Cape York and parts of the Northern Territory. Also the Aboriginal community south of Cairns called Yarrabah.
We visited the community back in July (on one of our Sunday drives). It was about 30-odd kilometres south-east of Cairns, in a gorgeous area, surrounded by rainforest and a golden beach. The housing was terrible though - cyclone fencing, broken windows, dozens of stray dogs roaming the dusty streets. You get the picture. Since we were driving around, having a look (as you do) we saw Police at a house trying to stop a fight of some description. There were people driving around in banged up old Fords and Holdens and we saw overloaded bins of empty VB (beer) cans. For a place which was meant to be 'dry', I don't think it is policed very well.
Lyndon has many Aboriginals working for him. He claims they are the funniest most lovely people he has worked with and they work 'bloody hard'. That's the true Aussie spirit, right there in those workers. It is a pity that a few of them give them all a bad name.
Sorry.
We visited the community back in July (on one of our Sunday drives). It was about 30-odd kilometres south-east of Cairns, in a gorgeous area, surrounded by rainforest and a golden beach. The housing was terrible though - cyclone fencing, broken windows, dozens of stray dogs roaming the dusty streets. You get the picture. Since we were driving around, having a look (as you do) we saw Police at a house trying to stop a fight of some description. There were people driving around in banged up old Fords and Holdens and we saw overloaded bins of empty VB (beer) cans. For a place which was meant to be 'dry', I don't think it is policed very well.
Lyndon has many Aboriginals working for him. He claims they are the funniest most lovely people he has worked with and they work 'bloody hard'. That's the true Aussie spirit, right there in those workers. It is a pity that a few of them give them all a bad name.
Sorry.
I hope from this day on that Australia becomes more reconciled and helps make this country the best one there is.
(And I'm sorry to you for such a long post. All facts and figures and statements may not be 100% spot on, but this is my view and take on the happenings of today.)
(And I'm sorry to you for such a long post. All facts and figures and statements may not be 100% spot on, but this is my view and take on the happenings of today.)
Posts
13 comments:
Hard to believe isn't it, that all this was happening as short a time ago as the 1970's. I can't begin to imagine the hurt those families went through.
I may not agree with everything the new PM says, but I am glad that we can be proud of him for this.
This is very touching. I watched Rabbit-Proof Fence a few years ago and was moved to tears. You should be proud of your PM.
Raelha - yeah, I agree with you. I think the majority of Aussies are proud of him. So far into his term, he is doing okay. I'm glad the people have spoken. (Down with Howard!)
That was quite interesting Melody. And it was a bit of history I knew nothing about. Not that I remember learning any Australian history in school. Even so, by the 70's I was an adult raising my own children and I still never knew about it.Some of the Sates have apologized for slavery and some people who are descendants of slaves are looking for rperations. And I believe there are similar concerns in Europe regarding the Holocaust.
100% spot on, Melody.
This was a great post Melody. You don't need to apologize for a second! It is always shocking to me how some human beings can treat other human beings in such inhumane ways----like they are NOT human beings, at all...! The "treators" are the ones who are less than human and certainly don't even understand what the word "humanity" means.....
The whole thing is a true tragedy beyond understanding, I must say.
And it is so obvious that this is out and out racism....HELP! For most people to condemn a whole "people" because of a few that are alcoholics, etc...Well, this is about as racist as you can get. I think your new Prime Minister is terrific! And though one speech does not an apology make, nor make-up for years and years of mistreatent and horrors unimagineable---No one else has done what he did in your Parliment! So, I say Bless him for his words.
Thank you for a great post, I had heard just a tiny bit of this in thepast, but in my country, we never learned of this in our history classes either. Sadly, similar things happened in different countries for similar reasons. Hopefully we as humans will finally start learning from the horrible mistakes of the past.
Thankyou for educating us about this today...a truelly good post Melody.
But that is the way of "tribes" isn't it - a few tar the rest. Take the Lebanese in parts of Sydney - now they are all referred to as young males of middle-east appearance. Take the lasses who walk the streets with their hijab - people avert their eyes and cross the road. Take the Westies out Penrith way with their thongs, yakkas and mullet - we derisively refer to them as Bogans and utter "duh" when referring to their brain-power. And yet all of the above are simply stereotypes based on an extremely small sample.
The same goes for Aborigines.
Good post, Melody!
Offspring #1 wanted to know why ABC Kids wasn't on tv yesterday morning and why all the stations were playing the same thing so we had a talk about what Sorry Day was and why this one was so important. When I was chatting to his teacher later in the afternoon she asked me about our conversation. Apparently that morning she'd said to the class "Who can tell me what today is?" expecting them to call out "Wednesday". Instead my little boy stood up and informed the class that it was a special day because our PM ("who isn't John Howard anymore" LOL) was telling all the aboriginal people that he was sorry that they got taken away from their mums and dads and that the old PM was wrong and you should always say sorry when something bad happens. I was very proud of him for listening so carefully and really having a big think about our conversation.He's a sensitive wee soul and this clearly struck a nerve with him.
RDM - Oh you have every reason to be proud. You brought tears to my eyes!
Great post.
(But I think you mean cask of wine, not cast)
Anonymous - yes, you are right. *another* Melody slip-up. (I'm not perfect *heehee*)
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and this is proof. I am sure the people that did these thing thought they were helping ! It is horrendous what humans will do to each other.
Kudos to your PM and thanks for the history lesson!
Post a Comment