The Australian Prime Minister apologised to indigenous Australians today for all the hardships visited on them by the rest of us. I’m of mixed feelings about this. My own feeling is that an apology offers nothing, especially coming from people who weren’t involved in the key wrongdoings such as Aboriginal hunting in the early nineteenth century and the stolen generation a few decades ago. I’ve said the same about China waiting for an apology from Japan.
Surely actions are more important than words and we seem to have done as much harm as good even in recent times. Rudd made new promises of bringing indigenous Australians’ life expectancy, standard of living and education into line with the rest of us, but is that really the right thing to do and can he manage it anyway? Time will tell.
I was surprised to find that while some Aborigines staged demonstrations in the lead-up to the apology, demanding Rudd to revoke the interventions in the Northern Territory, most seem to have taken the apology to heart and see it as the first real step to resolving our differences. So much that Aboriginal leaders officially welcomed white Australians to this country for the first time in recorded history. And here’s the real surprise. That action – those words – touched me far more than I expected.
If I’m touched by such words, I can understand how Aborigines and other indigenous Australians must be touched by the official apology. Perhaps Japan and China / Korea / Taiwan apologising to each other will have positive effects too.
That’s interesting to hear. What surprises me is that despite the power that these words have and the ease of saying them, some nations still refuse to make those apologies.
They might have similar concerns to past Australian governments – that an apology will open them up to legal action with a view that they’ve already pleaded guilty. Members of the stolen generation are even now banding together to demand compensation of the order of $1 million each.
Again, I can see this two ways. They’ve been wronged and deserve some compensation. If the government’s apology paves the way for this, great. But then, any funds put to compensating individuals can’t be directed towards solving the problems, which should be the priority.
In understanding indigenous culture symbolism or ‘words’ are an extremely important part of their culture. It is the way that they make sense of the world…through dot painting, symbolic tales or dance. One of the most significant aspects of the apology for me in it coming to fruition is that we bridged a small gap in cultural understanding.
The Australian Government acknowledged that culturally this is important to our indigenous people. While the previous Australian Governments have enforced their European based culture on indigenous people this is the Australian Governments first gesture of understanding and working within an indigenous culture. So perhaps some wept at the words but I believe that some wept at finally being understood.
As for other nations apologising to each other, I think we still have a long way to go in looking at ourselves first. Will the Australian Government ever apologise to the people of Papua New Guinea for the colonial period of 1906 to 1975 which was so destructive to their traditional way of life and has changed their direction forever? Will they ever apologise to the people of Vietnam for our involvement in the Vietnam War that still today sees innocent Vietnamese stepping on landmines laid by us or generations of children born with defects from the deadly Agent Orange? Will we ever say ‘Sorry Iraq’?