Sorry Day: no healing without justice
Comment by Margaret Allum
May 26 was the first anniversary of Sorry Day, a day to mark the
plight of the “stolen generations”: For most of this century (until the
early 1970s in some states) the federal Aboriginal Ordinance, and later
the Welfare Ordinance, allowed the forced removal of Aboriginal children
of “mixed” descent from their families. The racist goal was to assimilate
them into “white” culture.
Sorry Day was the culmination of a campaign to get as many non-Aboriginal
Australians as possible to apologise for the treatment of the stolen generations.
The day was a recommendation of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission's Bringing Them Home: the National Inquiry into the Separation
of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families.
“Sorry books” were signed by tens of thousands of Australians and pressure
was put on PM John Howard and the federal government to formally apologise
for Australian governments' past practices and policies. Howard's arrogant
refusal continues to infuriate those who believe that his talk of reconciliation
rings hollow without the words of penitence.
The government fears it will be liable for large compensation payouts
if it utters an apology. Last month it attempted to have a case in the
Federal Court in Darwin, bought against the federal government by two members
of the stolen generations, dismissed. This case is seen as a test case
for those seeking compensation.
`Journey of Healing'
This year's Sorry Day had “Journey of Healing” as its theme. Activities
held across Australia included ecumenical services, street processions,
sausage sizzles, healing walks and ceremonies, and the Sea of Hands display,
which has toured Australia since last year's Sorry Day. Traditional Aboriginal
ceremonies, dancing and music were part of all the events.
The National Union of Students offered an apology to the stolen generations.
NUS president Jacob Varghese said the day “gives all Australians the opportunity
to recognise the genocidal policies of the past, and to take responsibility
for the atrocities committed upon the indigenous peoples of this land”.
NUS called on the federal government to “join the millions of Australians
participating in the Journey of Healing around the country”.
While the many participants in Sorry Day felt they were contributing
to reconciliation with Aboriginal Australia, it is not ordinary non-Aboriginal
Australians who should shoulder the responsibility for the gross racism
of successive federal and state governments. Individuals saying sorry may
bring a sense of solidarity and good will, but if it conceals the need
for people to demand that Australian governments act to end the injustices
that Australia's indigenous population still suffer, then it sidetracks
this mass anti-racist sentiment.
For example, the NUS statement of apology did not contain one clear
demand on the federal government to redress the effect of past policies.
There was no mention of the poor housing, heath and work access that a
large proportion of indigenous people face.
Despite clear recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal
Deaths in Custody in 1991 to reduce the number of Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders imprisoned, they are still grossly over-represented in
Australia's jails. Average life expectancy for indigenous people is 20
years below that of non-Aboriginal Australians.
The Coalition government's changes to native title legislation are so
discriminatory that it became the first Western government to be questioned
by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
After saying that he wanted the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation
to launch a reconciliation document in May 2000, Howard rejected the document
CAR produced earlier this year.
The launch of the CAR's new booklet Partnerships in Reconciliation:
It's Up to Us was billed as a highlight of National Reconciliation
Week, which began on May 27 and is organised by the council. The minister
assisting the PM on reconciliation, Philip Ruddock, who spoke at the booklet's
launch at Parliament House, said he was impressed by the partnerships made
by Australian companies and indigenous people's organisations.
Obviously, he was not referring to the less than warm relationship between
mining giant Energy Resources of Australia and the Mirrar Aboriginal people
on whose land the proposed Jabiluka uranium mine is being imposed.
Rivalling Howard in the hypocrisy stakes is the Liberal Party's last
prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, who accepted the honour of being one of
Sorry Day's high profile patrons. Perhaps those who proposed his name thought
that after almost 24 years most people would have forgotten Fraser's racist
policies.
In its first year, Fraser's government cuts funds for housing for low
income earners, restricted legal aid, increased pharmaceutical charges
and cut real wages. These measures affected the poorest of society most;
indigenous Australians are overwhelmingly poor.
The Department of Aboriginal Affairs was targeted by Fraser. Despite
promises that his government would not cut Aboriginal services, funding
for Aboriginal health, education, culture and recreation, legal aid and
housing was slashed.
Justice before reconciliation
Real, not token, measures are needed to achieve justice for the indigenous
population. No amount of saying sorry by ordinary Australians, or even
prime ministers, is going to by itself bring justice.
From the moment Pauline Hanson's made her racist first speech in parliament,
a groundswell of anti-racist sentiment began to build. When the report
on the stolen generations was released, the anti-racism movement was large
and had the potential to force the federal government to make reparations
for past and present injustices.
Instead, this sentiment was channelled into a campaign for words, not
action. It was one of the biggest missed opportunities of the last few
years. Far from being a stepping stone to justice for Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders, organisations like Australians for Reconciliation and
Native Title (ANTaR), which have emphasised achieving reconciliation before
justice, have derailed a potentially powerful movement for real change.
The Sorry Day Committee has now backed a proposal from the Public Interest
Advocacy Centre to call on the NSW government to establish an Indigenous
People's Reparations Tribunal to deal with compensation for the stolen
generations. However, the history of inaction by state and federal governments
makes it doubtful that such a proposal will be implemented, even though
it has been endorsed by the NSW government's Aboriginal Justice Advisory
Council.
Anti-racist activists, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, should not be
satisfied with the lip service paid to reconciliation. They must work to
rebuild a strong and effective movement which can ensure that if a reparations
tribunal is created, compensation is awarded swiftly and generously.
As Ray Jackson, spokesperson for the Indigenous Social Justice Association,
told Green Left Weekly: “While you still have the absolute bastardry
of the Howard government and the white establishment -- which tries to
stop the stolen generations case in the NT, tries to wind back native title
legislation, pretends that black history never happened and refuses to
apologise -- and while there is no justice for the 300 families whose loved
ones have died in custody, and the prison officers and police still walk
free, then reconciliation and the process of healing the pain of Aboriginal
communities cannot begin.''
