Topic: The Times they are a changin Thank goodness its time
- Feb 12, 2008 12:02am by NRG - livin the art that is life !
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[size=18:0fb8393f7e][b:0fb8393f7e]Australia apologizes to Aborigines [/b:0fb8393f7e][/size:0fb8393f7e]
By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago
Australia's apology to Aborigines for decades of racist policies drew an outpouring of emotion Wednesday. But attention quickly turned to what many consider the inevitable next step: paying compensation to victims of past injustices.
"The job's not done; it's only the beginning," said Lowitja O'Donoghue, 75, who has campaigned for almost a decade for a government apology.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ruled out compensation, and lawyers say the apology passed by Parliament on Wednesday does not add anything to Aborigines' chances of successful legal claims.
But Aboriginal leaders say the injury can never be fully repaired until the victims receive reparations for being taken as children from Aboriginal mothers. From 1910 until the 1970s, an estimated 100,000 children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws based on a premise that Aborigines were dying out.
O'Donoghue, who was among 100 members of the so-called "stolen generations" invited to witness the apology motion passed unanimously, regretted that her mother had not lived to share the experience.
"I felt very emotional; I was thinking about Mother," said O'Donoghue, who was reunited with the tribal Aboriginal woman shortly before her death.
Hundreds waited for hours to enter Parliament House to hear the apology, many traveling thousands of miles from remote Outback camps to get there.
Millions more witnessed its national broadcast in living rooms throughout Australia, on giant screens erected in city parks, and on televisions in schools and workplaces.
"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry," Rudd said, triggering tears and applause throughout Australia.
Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson agreed that the stolen generations deserved compensation.
"Any group of people who have been treated badly under laws ... deserve to pursue compensation judicially, legally or politically and they deserve our support," Dodson told the National Press Club.
Several have attempted to sue governments for taking them from their families but have achieved limited success, largely because of the difficulty of proving the cases.
The most successful was Bruce Trevorrow, who this month was awarded $700,000 in damages and interest from the South Australia state government for taking him from a hospital without his parents' knowledge 50 years ago.
Australia's smallest state, Tasmania, is the only government to establish a compensation fund for the stolen generations.
The state government announced last month that it has paid 84 forcibly removed children and 22 of their descendants. Each victim received $52,000 and each descendant $4,500.
Aboriginal leaders including O'Donoghue expect that the official acknowledgment of past mistreatment will inspire more litigation.
But the top lawyers' association in Australia's most populous state, the Law Society of New South Wales, said the apology did not add weight to any claim for compensation.
"This apology will not lead to the floodgates opening or a rash of compensation claims," the society's president Hugh Macken said. "The legal landscape is no different to what it was yesterday or will be tomorrow."
Rudd's predecessor, Prime Minister John Howard, had refused to apologize for past policies, arguing that contemporary Australians should not be held responsible for mistakes of the past.
Senior members of Howard's center-right Liberal Party had argued that an apology could leave the government liable for claims of compensation.
While Rudd's apology without compensation had been criticized as a hollow gesture, the government has responded by promising to inject far more spending into improving Aborigines' standard of living.
Today, there are about 450,000 Aborigines in Australia's population of 21 million. They are the country's poorest group, with the highest rates of jailing, unemployment and illiteracy. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than that of other Australians.
[color=yellow:0fb8393f7e]an this from about week ago same reporter[/color:0fb8393f7e]
CANBERRA, Australia - Aborigines in white body paint danced and sang traditional songs in Australia's national Parliament on Tuesday in a historic ceremony many hoped would mark a new era of race relations in the country.
The ceremony was the government's symbolic recognition, for the first time, that the land on which Australia's capital was built was once owned by Aborigines, and was taken away without compensation by European settlers.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will offer a formal apology to thousands of Aborigines who were taken from their families as children under now discredited assimilation policies abolished in 1970 — an act that many people view as a vital step toward reconciling black and white Australians.
With faces and bodies white and a digeridoo — an ancient wind instrument — blowing a deep drone in the background, Aborigines of the Ngunnawal tribe called on their ancestor spirits to welcome newcomers to Parliament in a ceremony held in a hall of the national legislature.
Rudd accepted the gift of a traditional "message stick" of welcome from Ngannawal elder Matilda House.
"A welcome to country acknowledges our people and pays respect to our ancestors, the spirits who created the lands," said House, who crossed the hall's marble floor barefoot and draped in a kangaroo pelt cloak to give her speech. "This allows safe passage to all visitors."
Former Prime Minister John Howard had steadfastly refused to make an apology on behalf of the government for the policies, arguing that today's generation should not be made to feel guilty for mistakes of the past.
Rudd defeated Howard in elections last November.
"I hope this will be a new start — a new way," said Mike Williams, 55, an Aborigine from the southern Pitjantjatjarra desert area who rode a bus to Canberra to witness this week's ceremonies.
Rudd has invited more than 100 Aboriginal leaders to attend Wednesday's apology speech, and other dignitaries from business leaders to former prime ministers were also due to attend. A giant television screen was being set up outside Parliament House so people who could not fit into the legislature could watch the proceedings.
A big screen was also going up in Sydney so people could watch the national live broadcast of Rudd's speech. Smaller, more private events were planned across the country.
From 1910 until 1970, some 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws that argued the race was doomed and the children were better off being integrated.
A government-funded inquiry 10 years ago found the policies caused extreme trauma to those affected, and many suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from their loss of family and culture. It recommended a formal apology to those taken, along with compensation.
Aborigines lived mostly hunter-gatherer lifestyles for thousands of years before English colonial settlers landed in Sydney in 1788.
Today, Aborigines number about 450,000 among Australia's population of 21 million and are the country's poorest ethnic group and are most likely to be jailed, unemployed and illiterate. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than other Australians.
nrg note:
When will we make an end? can we honor each other? can we the people of the earth work together to 1. heal the planet 2. support each other's healing from all the "inhumanity to man" will we ever trust each other/our governments. this story has been done over and over
now. . . . . . . witness, finally a poltice placed on a big gapping wound by parliment in austraila today.
blessed be.
united states needs to give it on up right now so folks can get on with it
- Feb 12, 2008 06:53am by phism
i think formal apologies from governments are important. aren't china and korea still waiting on japan to do that?
i think the fact that newspaper articles can't discuss certain ethnic groups, etc. without being condescending doesn't make me feel a whole lot better about the state of the world, though.
