Australia apologizes to Aborigines

I would be perfectly happy with the Australian Government spending a large sum of money on compensation for anyone who was ripped from their mothers arms as a child, regardless of race. It'd be money better spent than most of the rest of it, and hardly bad for the economy - as with most transfer payments, it would just circulate round, and probably benefit those communities that need it most. Maybe they could get some of the mining companies to chip in some...

On another note - I thought this would be appropriate since I was awed by Sermsah Bin Saads' audition for "So You Think You Can Dance Australia". Aboriginal Dancer from Perth, Western Australia. I hope he gets further into the competion - he already made it into the top 20. Would be a great motivation for others and a excellent role model for the Aboriginal Community.

Sermsah Bin Saads' profile

After a little help from his family chipping in for his plane ticket, Sermsah, 30, began his emotionally testing trip to the Top 20. An avid fan of all the arts while at school, Sermsah's journey into dance began in earnest when he was 17, when he left home to attend the Aboriginal Dance Development Unit in Perth. Whilst living there he kept in contact with the Nyoongar Theatre Yirra Yaakin, and spent time teaching acting and dance workshops with all primary and secondary schools.

He then attended the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association in Sydney for nine months, before continuing his training at Brisbane's Aboriginal Centre of Performing Arts. After this, the dedicated Suri got into Broome's Notre Dame University where he undertook the Aboriginal Performing Arts course.

Oh btw, I love that show!



[edit on 13/2/2008 by Im a Marty]

Aboriginal children were not the only children taken from their families, white children were taken as well.

What is going to change because of this apology? Are aboriginal people and white people going to start treating one another better?

I'm sorry that something terrible happened to the aboriginal people all those years ago, just as I am sorry that the person down the street lost all their belongings in a fire. I'm sorry it happened, but there's no chance I am ever going to say sorry as if I am some way responsible for what happened.

A couple of years ago 2 of my cousins were waiting for a train at a station in Adelaide. They were attacked and robbed by a group of aboriginal people. Both of them were hospitalised. I don't blame the entire aboriginal race for what happened, but if I see an aboriginal on the street tomorrow do I have a right to demand an apology for what happened? Even though they had nothing to do with it and would probably think it was a very sad thing to happen?

Sometimes when I walk to work in the morning there's a group of aboriginals in a gazebo in a park I walk through. They are always surrounded by Bundy rum cans and stare at me as I walk past, and I won't lie to you, it scares the hell out of me. I won't even walk through there after a night shift. After Mr. Rudd's apology, should I now be able to walk past them and throw them a friendly smile and wave and expect the same in return? Maybe even join them for a couple?

[edit on 13-2-2008 by Toy_soldier]

It's a big ask to explain social conscience to a generation who've only ever know John Howard's Australia. So many seem oblivious to any other way, and this is a real worry for the future. Social conscience affects the way we pull together, or apart in a society.

You can respond to a social problem with fear and negativity, and it will only ever get worse. At best you can try to band-aid the symptoms. This is the worldview of Howard, Bush, Murdoch, and worse. It always ends in tears.

Or you can look at a social problem with compassion, and you can begin to understand how to address the root cause. This is the worldview of the greatest humans who have ever walked this earth. It really is the single hope for humanity, unless you want to try and escape to the Moon or Mars like some other threads suggest (or nuke it as the case may be...).

To learn empathy and compassion, whenever you see something that you fear, put yourself in its place and you learn to replace your fear with empathy and compassion. You will perceive the world a lot clearer - and be more disappointed with your own kind rather than 'the others'.

Today would have been a marvellous day for you to start.

reply to post by Dock6


Before I finish reading the whole thread,
Thanks for your post, I took the time to read the whole thing.
I think aborigines have been given long enough to get their act together. There are two sides to every story, and your version is hardly heard.
I have noticed that in the 1990s, the trend was to be sympathetic and understanding. But recently, people just seem fed up.

On the issue of land, this is what people did back then. It was the natural progression of societies and migration.
If we didn't do it, someone else would have. And perhaps not as nicely as we did.
Think about that, someone was going to do it sooner or later. Could you imagine Australia, this massive piece of land, still void of modern civilization?

It is impossible for all countries in the world to make up for all of their own separate histories , many of them being one hundred times as bloody as ours.
In fact, we have less blood on our hands than most countries. We should say sorry to no one.

Originally posted by T0by
Could you imagine Australia, this massive piece of land, still void of modern civilization?

Stop it, you are scaring the children!

Originally posted by OzWeatherman
Fine, we said sorry, I am happy we finally done it....but now they are seeking compensation?

I mean, they get paid to go to school, they get paid to go to funerals, they get free houses and cars, and get ten times more money from centrelink than any other people because they are aboriginal. I am all for human rights and equality....but somewhere its gone topsy turvy.

And since when is it acceptable for a black person to call me a white c*unt, merely from walking past them, while if I did the same thing I would be considered a racist

...................................................................................

...' they get paid to go to school, they get paid to go to funerals, they get free houses and cars, and get ten times more money from centrelink than any other people because they are aboriginal ...

'... because they are Aboriginal ... '.

Even when they're only 100th 'aboriginal'.

Like the blow-hard lawyer from Tasmania who's been blowing hard for nigh on 20 years. Back then, he had red hair .. whiter than milk skin with freckles ... and blue-blue eyes. Oh, but he's 'aboriginal' you see he says so. Nowadays his hair is snowy white. And before The Apology was even dry, he was impatient to begin dividing up the $5,000,000 allocated for the first 'compen-saaaay-shun grab in Tassie.

Always amuses me the way 'people of colour' choose to go with the 'brown bit'. Wonder why? Wonder why they don't choose to go with their Latvian or Irish or Scottish or English or Dutch or Polish or NON-brown ancestry ? Could it be because the NON-brown ancestry doesn't PAY ?

During WW2, thousands of British children were removed from their families, supposedly for 'their own good' and to avoid Hitler's bombs.

Some were sent to Canada and lots were sent to Australia. It was supposed to be a temporary, war-time arrangement.

Those children from the UK were placed in 'church homes'. In fact, they were required to physically build those homes, from scratch, using their childish hands and backs. They were put to work mixing cement, making bricks, chopping wood, etc.

Whilst they were thus engaged, their pale English skins roasting unprotected in the harsh Australian sun, they were also raped, sexually abused and viciously and repeatedly beaten by the sadistic, sexually frustrated priests and nuns.

The children were very young in many instances .. as young as five years of age. They missed their parents, their siblings, their friends, their homeland.

And they were TOLD by those worthy church representatives and priests and nuns who were beating and sexually violating them ... that their parents were dead. Or that their parents didn't want them back. And that their parents had been happy to 'get rid of them'.

Imagine the heart-break and depression and suicidal thoughts of those children. Many died. Others killed themselves. Others spirits were broken for life. The rest lived in unmitigated misery, lonliness and despair.

Can you imagine how they felt when 50 and more years later .. they discovered they'd been LIED to ? Their parents had NOT died. Their parents HAD wanted them back.

The Australian and British governments .. plus their cohorts the foul religious institutions .. had LIED and lied and lied some more. They had stolen those children. Stolen their lives. Stolen their trust and sense of self-worth. Stolen their families from them. Stolen their futures. Stolen their innocence and virginity.

I watched the documentaries as those children .. now white haired-grandparents ... met for the first time in over 50 years the siblings and cousins from whom they'd been forcibly separated all those years ago.

Many of those stolen white children had never known their siblings, who'd been born after they were illegally brought to Australia. Most of their siblings, and certainly their parents, had died many years before. They learned from their remaining family-members in the UK that their parents had ALSO been lied to by the authorities. The parents had been told their children had died in Australia.

This is no myth. The stolen white children were genuinely stolen.

Where's the 'apology' ?

Where are the stolen white children's childish demands for 'an apology ?

None. There are none.

And the ...-lawyers aren't hopping on that bandwagon, the way they ride the Aborigine bandwagon.

Because white people are required to shut up and just move on.

Sympathy is reserved, no matter how undeservedly, for 'people of colour'.
As is 'compen-saaaaaay-shun'.

The nonsense began when certain multinational mining corporations wanted to plunder swathes of Australia. How to achieve that ? It was accomplished by 'granting' those swathes of Australia to Aborigines (not that the majority are interested in actually living there .. they'd rather hang around Whitey's towns and to hell with Aboriginal kul-cha).

Once Aborigines had been granted huge chunks of the land .. were we suprised when the multinationals leased that land from its Aboriginal owners ? Nah .. we weren't surprised. And when the Aborigines began thudding through in new 4x4 on their way to the pub for more slabs of beer, well ... that's progress, hey ? Multinationals were happy .. check their profits. Aborigines were happy .. more money for grog. Whitey wasn't asked if he was happy. Who cares if Whitey's happy?

So entire platoons of ...-lawyers have enjoyed very early and luxurious retirement, courtesy of all the argy-bargy about 'Aboriginal Rights' and 'Saying Sorry'. Now further platoons of them will line their pockets pursuing the 'Sorry Equals Compen-saaaay-shun' trail.

Can you believe that children who arrived in Australia from China last month have been forced to participate in the 'say sorry' exercise and to write essays about it at school ?

Wonder if Aborigines will reciprocate and 'say sorry' to the Chinese kids for eating their Chinese ancestors a hundred or so years ago, on the Australian gold-fields ?

Or will the Aborigines now 'say sorry' to white Australians for eating their colonial ancestors ?

Oh, that's right ... Whitey isn't supposed to remember the cannibalism or the rape and murder of white-settlers wives and children by entire tribes of spear-brandishing Aborigines.

Only cuts one way. Only Whitey is required to 'say sorry'. Aborigines' transgressions are frantically being air-brushed aside as we speak. They're encouraged to 'feel like victims' by the ...-lawyers (the usual suspects, who cream the profits from both sides as always .. simultaneous with engineering their usual Divide and Conquer methods).

My ancestors were Brits. Wonder if there's some group I can join to force the Romans to 'say sorry' and give me 'compen-saaaaay-shun' for invading my homeland and stealing my ancestors children .. not to provide them with a better life and education .. but instead to force them into slavery and deny them their heritage.

What a joke. At least 75% of the Aborigines demanding an 'apology' are at least half-Brit, 7/8-Irish, 3/4-Polish etc or a combination-of. But they cling to their 1% to 5% 'aboriginality'. Even though they have freckles and red hair and green and blue eyes and skin whiter than most of the people in this forum. Because 'aboriginality' is an excuse, a living, a reason not to work, an opportunity to be seized, and provides all those privileges and perks. And it offers the opportunity to whinge .. life-long.

' You said 'sorry', Whitey .. and that's gonna cost ya '. Yes. Great day for mankind. Lawyers are rubbing their hands in anticipation. As always, most of the compen-saay-shun money will vanish in 'administration' fees. Whitey will pay. 'Aborigines' of all shades will continue to whine

Originally posted by T0by
Before I finish reading the whole thread,
Thanks for your post, I took the time to read the whole thing.
I think aborigines have been given long enough to get their act together. There are two sides to every story, and your version is hardly heard.
I have noticed that in the 1990s, the trend was to be sympathetic and understanding. But recently, people just seem fed up.

On the issue of land, this is what people did back then. It was the natural progression of societies and migration.
If we didn't do it, someone else would have. And perhaps not as nicely as we did.
Think about that, someone was going to do it sooner or later. Could you imagine Australia, this massive piece of land, still void of modern civilization?

It is impossible for all countries in the world to make up for all of their own separate histories , many of them being one hundred times as bloody as ours.
In fact, we have less blood on our hands than most countries. We should say sorry to no one.

Indeed, if Europeans had not colonised Australia (or for that matter America) does anyone seriously think that it would be a mecca for migrants now!?!?

People need to stop whining about so called injustices that never happened to them, leave the victim card at home and take responsibility for their actions.

Muslims enslaved white christian europeans for hundreds of years and took them to north africa, where is my piece of the apology pie


Sickening

My brother was robbed at knife point by Aboriginals at Currambine Station in Perth about 3 years ago; My Mum’s house in Perth was robbed TWICE in the past year by Aboriginals! My Partners parents house in Perth was robbed TWICE by Aboriginals.

Can I walk down to Redfern tomorrow and demand a “Sorry” from the Aboriginals hanging around at “the block”? or since this apology have they now gone out and gotten themselves jobs?

Where’s MY apology for what THEY did to MY family?

Mikey

I think it was so cool that many there on the day had "THANK YOU" on their shirts. Life is tough for most people and some kindness is free.
Forgiveness is harder, we have revenge played out on screens and the streets daily, like it was the only answer. I wonder at the depths you need to be to steal from another, and all races do it, its common.
Forgiveness is rare but strenthens all involved.
Australia did good today
be proud.
I am.

Originally posted by aussiespeeder
I think it was so cool that many there on the day had "THANK YOU" on their shirts. Life is tough for most people and some kindness is free.
Forgiveness is harder, we have revenge played out on screens and the streets daily, like it was the only answer. I wonder at the depths you need to be to steal from another, and all races do it, its common.
Forgiveness is rare but strenthens all involved.
Australia did good today
be proud.
I am.

cool, I trust those aborigines who have racially abused, robbed and assaulted white folk will be walking around apologising, life would indeed be good- that is proper apologies ie FOR DEEDS THEY DID AND FOR WHICH THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR, what the government did is false apologising for actions they had no control over and had no involvement in

reply to post by Shar_Chi


hahaha point taken, but not really what I was going for

I’m just curious how long is it before we have a “Sorry Benefit” added to the list of numerous other Benefits provided to Aboriginals from the Tax Payer, Government and Centrelink.

Mikey

man oh man. some of you guys are heartless....

i pray for this planet.

Originally posted by last time here
man oh man. some of you guys are heartless....

i pray for this planet.

yet, people demanding apologies from other people for wrongs not committed against them, are not heartless, go figure

reply to post by last time here


It's a complex problem and both sides of the coin should be looked at.
Discussing the negative aspects of aborigines today is not heartless.
They have an interesting history, and lived in Australia for a long time without disturbing the ecosystem.

I believe many Australians have tried to focus on the positive aspects of their culture, art and way of life.

However the negative aspects of many of their communities today totally overshadow the positive.

Originally posted by last time here
man oh man. some of you guys are heartless....

i pray for this planet.

Heartless because we believe that Aboriginals should be treated the EXACT same as white people?

Mikey

Interestingly, there are many photos still in existence in which people could see Aborigines as most younger people have not experienced them .. Aborigines with ramrod-straight backs and an air of pride, dignity and confidence. Photos of graduating Aboriginal nurses, for example. Or the Aboriginal cricket team which toured the UK in the early 1900s (or possibly late 1800s .. I have no reference to hand).

Aborigines equipped themselves with honour in the Army. They were highly regarded as stockmen and station-hands, police-trackers, etc.

So what happened?

Alcohol, primarily.

Prior to the 1960s, it was illegal to serve alcohol to Aborigines. It had long been known that Aborigines are particularly susceptible to alcohol, which when abused by persons of any race has a destructive effect, but especially in regard to Aborigines.

Publicans did serve alcohol to Aborigines of course .. it was highly lucrative. When I was young, an Aboriginal station-hand used to ride into town each fortnight as soon as he received his pay-cheque. He'd hitch his horse outside the hotel .. hand his pay-cheque to the publican and say: 'Tell me when I've drunk this, boss.' The publican would have the man countersign the cheque and then push a beer across the bar. After only half a dozen beers or so, the Aboriginal man would be virtually non compos .. would be led outside and down the backyard. He'd then be given a large bottle or beer or two and told he was not to return inside the hotel. After consuming the beer, he would collapse unconscious onto the ground. Next morning, he'd be given a meal and another beer. Then he'd ride away, not to return for another fortnight.

He'd consumed only a tiny percent of his pay-cheque. He'd been exploited, robbed. The publican was prepared to risk prosecution for serving alcohol to an Aborigine, because to his mind, the profits justified that risk.

Across from the hotel lived the Aboriginal man's common-law 'wife', also Aboriginal. When he came to town, she repeatedly begged him to give her alcohol. Usually he ignored her. Often they fought .. fists. None of his earnings went towards the support of the several children the two had produced .. he didn't even bother to say hello to them. The man's wife and children lived in a literal hovel: an abandoned shack. The floors were of dirt. There was no electricity or running water, no furniture apart from a few old packing cases. The woman just moved in there with her children one night. She was unknown in the district, prior.

The children were clearly not all his. His common-law wife frequently exchanged sexual favours for alcohol. Some of her children were much lighter-skinned than others. They suffered malnutrition and scabies. Their diet consisted largely of flour and water mixed into dough, which the children made and cooked over an open-fire in the overgrown yard. The woman claimed she'd had several other children, elsewhere. I liked her, felt sorry for her. When sober, she was like a child of about 8 or 9. She couldn't tell fantasy from reality. Her children were more mature than she, poor thing.

All attempts by local people to lift the family's living standards came to nought: donated furniture was used by the family for firewood; donated clothes were worn and soiled then discarded in the yard. The woman cared about nothing other than her next drink. Most of her time, when not begging outside the hotel, was spent lying in various stages of intoxication on the dirt floor. Some of her children were burnt by the open-fire. She seemed not to notice them and had little if any maternal instincts.

In the end, the authorities were informed for the sake of the children. It's these children and those from similar circumstances who were 'taken into care' .. and which are now dramatically described as 'stolen children'. But honestly, could their plight as wards of the State have been any worse than the existence they were forced to suffer by their alcohol-obsessed parents ?

Nearby, in contrast, was an Aboriginal Mission. Alcohol was strictly forbidden. The Aboriginal community was provided housing, a school and church, common-rooms for crafts and cookery and other domestic skills, playground, vegetable gardens, etc. Girls from the Mission were trained as nurses and the boys in carpentry and other practical skills in addition to basic schooling. Those Aboriginal children who wished to do so and who showed academic leanings were transported daily to the local high-school, once they'd progressed through the primary school at the Mission. Children from the Mission achieved sporting prominence, quite often and many of the girls obtained secure employment as nurses and domestics in distant towns and cities.

The Mission produced socially-responsible, well-respected and accomplished men and women who were an asset to society.

In the mid-to-late 1960s, there arose an outcry (and personally I believe it was part of an agenda by the usual suspects who at the same time were funding and launching 'black activist' groups in the US). People began demanding 'equal rights' for Aborigines, chief of these being the right to vote (and why not?) and the right of Aborigines to have the same access to alcohol as non-Aborigines.

Older Aborigines would dearly love for Aborigines to return to the days prior to the 'right to consume alcohol', for alcohol has done more damage to Aborigines than anything in their 30,000 year history. Many of the Aborigines we see today bear little resemblance to their grandparents and would be a source of deep shame to them.

Prior to the 'right to drink', Aborigines were successfully integrating in a positive way in Australian society (which, like the US, is a nation of migrants from all over the globe). After the 'right to drink', Aborigines were encouraged to consider themselves a race apart and encouraged to blame 'white man' for all their considerable problems.

Alcoholics and petrol-sniffers are not good employment material .. do not make successful trainees or apprentices or parents or citizens generally. When this is compounded by encouragement to carry chips on their shoulder in addition to being handed life's necessities on a platter at the community's expense ... it doesn't bode well for Aboriginal-non Aboriginal relations.

Non-Aborigines were fully aware that Aborigines were capable of working and obeying the law in the same way as non-Aborigines. Seemingly overnight however, Aborigines decided they were exempt from same. 'We're Aborigines', they appeared to be saying, ' and our problems are YOUR responsibliity. Our shortcomings are caused by YOU.'

Alcohol became the chief preoccupation of many Aborigines. The welfare state spent untold millions on band-aid solutions, but it was money down the drain .. money from the pockets of over-taxed working members of society. An entire 'industry' grew around Aborigines and their largely alcohol-caused problems. Aboriginal 'problems' created employment for an army of public-servants, legislators and lawyers.

Aborigines appear to have 'won'. Clearly however, they are lost and HAVE lost. Lost themselves, their pride, their dignity, their direction.

There are more Aborigines now than at ANY time in history .. so clearly they've benefited from white-man's influence during the past 200 years. More money has been thrown at the 'Aborigine problem' than just about all other social problems combined.

There's no going back. Most Aborigines aren't interested in returning to their pre-white lifestyles anyway, despite much of their land being returned.

Hopefully lessons have been learned by Aborigines. Alcohol is a false friend. We'll all benefit if they put their shoulders to the wheel and look forward ... instead of hiding behind 'blame'. It's up to Aborigines now. Time to grow up & stop trying to copy US black culture.

To the people who are for this and think this will do wonders for the White/Black Australian relationships, as long as there is a parent/child relationship, it will never happen.

When i was a child/teenager i was always at loggerheads with my parents, they were the providers and i didn't like the way they provided things for me. So we fought and fought.

When i left home, suddenly the roles are gone, our relationships grow and are taken to a new level, where now i can consider them friends. An Aboriginal leader in Queensland once stated that the worst thing White Australia ever did for his people was give them money when they begged for it.

In order for a relationship to happen, there cannot be those roles. One has to grow up and leave the nest, which is hard when the child doesn't want to grow up.