A response to Neil Fearis and his mates
Neil Fearis and his colleagues need to move on. They appear diminished by the national apology, but their arguments are based on falsities, both on the detail of the Apology, and it’s potential scope. Their ‘open letter’ (West Australian 29th February, P 43) implies that the Parliament was apologising for today’s Australians. Yet the Parliamentary apology was very clear in that it was not an apology for the actions of Australians, but ‘for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments’. Over the years, many people – including non-Aboriginal people - have strived to care well for Aboriginal children. In fact, Pat Dodson thanked these people in a speech to the National Press Club on the same day: “I thank you for the care and love that you showed to those in need”. But the fact that some people of good will tried to protect children does not diminish the horror – individually and collectively – of policies specifically designed to rid Western Australia of Aboriginal people. Nor do they diminish the systematic exclusion from society enacted upon Aboriginal people (restrictions on employment, on home ownership, on education, on residence in towns, on marriage) that directly led to the sorts of conditions that children were ‘rescued’ from. We might argue about numbers, but no-one can argue about these well documented Acts of parliaments and acts of governments for which the Prime Minister apologised. No guilt was assigned to us as individual Australians. Nor was any asked for by the Aboriginal people who spoke around the country on that historic day. More importantly, Mr Fearis and his mates are wrong to think that the apology will reinforce ‘guilt’ and ‘victimhood’. Tom Calma who responded, in Parliament House, on behalf of the Stolen Generations and their families declared: “This is not about black armbands and guilt. It never was. It is about belonging.” This apology does not reinforce victimhood. It begins to break it down, and to replace it with hope. In the non-Aboriginal world, the overwhelming sense is not guilt, but pride. For some, in fact, it is the end of guilt, and the beginning of active, shared responsibility for the future. Saying ‘Sorry’ is a small, essential symbolic act that allows us to move forward together. Refusing to say sorry is a massive symbolic act that ensures ongoing mistrust and antagonism. The apology is done. Many thousands of people have paused to quietly celebrate a moment of grief, pride, maturity and shared belonging. And now, those people are, at different rates and in countless different ways, moving forward. I have spoken to many, many, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people since the Apology. The overwhelming response from Aboriginal people is ‘I feel I can move on’ – a genuine closure on a terrible chapter. A common and related response from non-Aboriginal people is ‘at last I feel proud to be Australian’.
