sorry

All countries have parts of their history in which they can take no pride. Regardless of race or religion, none of us are perfect and nor were our ancestors. We all have a background that includes actions that, by today's standards, are reprehensible.

And there lies the most important point.

By today's standards.

More specifically, by today's western standards.

It used to be acceptable practice to punish criminals with whipping, brutalisation, mutilation and even death. We are all appalled when this is done today but, in our not too distant past, our forebears gathered at the town common to witness and cheer whilst this took place.

With right on their side, past generations invaded, annexed and colonised countries peopled by primitive (i.e. lest powerful in battle) races. If it happened these days were would march in the streets in protest but, at the time it happened it was perfectly acceptable, even praiseworthy.

There are still millions of slaves throughout our modern world but we are horrified when we hear stories of people smugglers and their victims. Yet it is not all that far in the past when some of the greatest nations on earth supported (and profited by) the capture and sale of human beings. In fact, name me one successful society in all of history that have not been based on slavery of some sort. Even if we don't come from a country that pillaged the Ivory Coast to the strong muscles to man our farms, we have (and in many cases still do) supported Asian sweatshops, serfdom, bonded servants, convict labour and heinous class and caste systems. In the slavery arena, no nation is pure.

History is full of appalling and heinous acts of one man, one race or one nation against another.

My country is no different.

Australia's first modern immigrants arrived in chains. Convicted of crimes that, these days, would incur no more than a slap on the wrist, these men and women were sent to see out their sentence (of 7years, 14 or life) as slave labour to open up a newly acquired British colony. They lived foul and miserable lives but were treated in accordance with the mores and ethics of the day.

So too with the indigenous population. They were hunted and slaughtered, their lands taken, cleared, ploughed and fenced and their humanity denied. They didn't share our colour, our heritage, our language, our morals and ethics or our religion. Their only option was to accept and change or disappear.

And disappear they did. Whether through the deliberate genocide in Tasmania or through the diseases we spread or through privation because of loss of land and livelihood, they died in their thousands.

Some integrated, not many, but some. Or as much as their appearance and heritage allowed. Some compromised and accepted our laws and our religion in exchange for other benefits. But most just disappeared.

It wasn't until the middle of last century that we admitted their humanity at all. They were not even citizens of their own country. It was still possible, right up until the 1930s, to purchase a feral pig and aborigine shooting license!

Their lives were appalling and a condemnation of our culture.

But, only in retrospect.

In an historical context, nothing was done in an immoral or illegal manner or against the social conscience. In fact, our early colonist had right on their side. By force of arms, it was their duty to expand the empire and convert the heathen. Even God was on their side.

The buzzword in our papers, at the moment, is a concept called "The Stolen Generation". In the late 1800/1900s, acts of law were introduced into our country governing the treatment and condition of "the aboriginal race". Parts of these acts covered the handling of children of mixed blood. The main aim of these regulations was to promote the non-aboriginal part of these children's heritage. The laws provided for (and insisted upon) the removal of these children from their indigenous environment and a process of preparing them to a white way of life.

The laws were enforced rigorously. Any child suspected of having white blood was removed from his parents, sometimes by quite brutal means, and placed in a white environment. This was usually a children's home, either state run or controlled by religious groups. Some of these homes were rules by loving and caring folk who tried their very best to foster the kids, some where horrific hell-holes. Most fell somewhere in between.

All were run in accordance to the accepted religious and scientific dogma of the era. It was well understood that black people were of lesser intelligence than their white superiors. It was beyond question that their only redemption was through a Christian god. The children were reared with these two tenets in mind. They had religion drummed into them, Christian morals instilled and were trained to accept their lesser place. Education was limited to the very basics (if at all) but the girls received training in domestic skills and the boys in farm labouring.

Once competent in their allotted vocation, they were sent out to assigned jobs. The only requirement for a prospective employer was to be white. Work was rewarded with room and board and compulsory church attendance. No effort was made to monitor the treatment these children received once they left the homes.

With all the right arrogant colonial reasoning, and with the best of intentions, these laws enabled whole generations of indigenous children to be taken from their families and forced into bonded labour. In some cases, this was a blessing. Sometimes they were taken from a home that was less than loving or caring and found a new start through good people. Some went from one kind of privation to another. Most were pulled away from good mums and handed to people who didn't care.

Looking back we are appalled. Rightly so.

But it must be viewed in the historical frame in which it occurred. This was the era when it was acceptable for a teacher to beat a child until he was black with bruises and parents approved. It was the time when mothers, declared unfit for an immoral lifestyle, had their children taken with no recourse. Women were still considered chattels in marriage and had few legal rights. Prisoners were hanged. Children went to work from an early age and where bonded into apprenticeships for half their lives. The orphanages were overflowing with abandoned, unwanted, bastard or orphaned white children in little better condition than their indigenous compatriots. We even shipped them out from Britain.

This was an era blighted by two world wars and a crippling depression. Social reform, even social conscience, perforce, takes a back seat under those conditions. Even if people had begun to see the wrong, they were too centred on feeding their own brood than worrying about children that were given food and shelter by the law.

Yes, what happened to "The stolen Generation" was a lousy lousy thing. But, in retrospect, it was just one more lousy thing happening in that time. Yes, we were slow to raise our voices against it. But, we were equally slow with many other social reforms. It was a nasty thing happen to anyone but, just because it was done for racial reasons, doesn't make it any worse than what happened to any other person who suffered under the laws, morals and beliefs of that time.

Today our Prime Minister made an apology to "The Stolen Generation". It was a very popular move. It was supported by the media and many sections of the community.

Yes, I am appalled at what happened to these kids. I am appalled at the disastrous effect it had on many of their adult lives.

I am equally appalled at many other things that happened during that time. I am appalled at the women who lost their children because they were unmarried or living in sin. I'm appalled that children had to work 10 hour days at 12. I'm appalled that we shipped children out to our orphanages without bothering to make sure that they were, in fact, orphans. I'm appalled that we abused and raped our country. There are many many things from both my country's history and of the history of mankind that appal me. And appal others.

I think we should acknowledge the mistakes of the past. They are many.

But sorry?

No.

For a start, it would open a floodgate. Will the Italians now have to apologise for invading Germany and Britain two millennia ago? The Egyptians for enslaving the Jews? The Spanish for giving measles to the Incas? Once you start with this kind of self-flagellation, there is no end.

Shit happened. It's past. Today is a new start.

I acknowledge that previous generations suffered, black, white or brindle. I acknowledge that my ancestors were the cause of some of that suffering. I acknowledge that, by today's standards, that suffering was unacceptable.

But sorry?

No.

Everything we are, both individually and as a group, is the result of what has happened in the past. Without any single event, what we are would be different. The butterfly effect. The country I live in and the person I am is a direct result of the things that went before. Had those laws never been introduced and enforced, had we, as a nation, not had to fight against those laws, what sort of people who we now be?

Those laws represent a part of our growing as a nation, albeit a dark part. Awareness of those laws has been part of my personal growth as a human being.

Living under the effects of those laws has also been a part of the growth of our indigenous people. Would they have been safer, happier, without those laws? Would they still even exist without those laws? Would they have banded together across tribal boundaries unless they had found the common cause presented by those laws and practices? We will never know.

I am not sorry that part of our history occurred. I am not sorry any part of our history occurred, good or bad. It is all part of who and what we are, both individually and nationally.

I acknowledge that it happened and that individuals feel they were hurt by it. There, and there alone, is where my sorry lies.

I am sorry that some individuals have carried ill effects into their lives from their past. And I am sorry that they are not strong enough to move past it.