Saying Sorry is the Hardest Word

Since Kevin Rudd's history-making apology (13/2/08) to the Aboriginal people of Australia for the laws and policies of successive governments and parliament in relation to the treatment of Australia's indigenous people, in particular the Stolen Generation, I have read and heard many of the following comments:

Aboriginal children are still dying, despite saying sorry.

Aboriginal children’s lives are still being destroyed through alcohol abuse during pregnancy, despite saying sorry.

(Many) Aboriginal children still do not go to school, despite saying sorry.

Aboriginal people still suffer from diseases only seen in these proportions in third-world countries, despite saying sorry.

Aboriginal people still have a low life expectancy rate, despite saying sorry.

Aboriginal people still have no hope, despite saying sorry.

From another perspective, I have heard and read these comments:

I am definitely not sorry.

I am not even sorry that I am not sorry.

I respect Australian Democracy and I understand that saying sorry to the (survivors?) of the alleged 'Stolen Generation' was a mandate given to the Rudd Government by the people of Australia.

Rudd is not saying sorry for me, thank you very much.

I cannot readily think of one thing the Aborigines have built in Australia since 1840.

I deeply resent the implication by Rudd that my parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents did anything to the Aboriginals for which I (or they) should be sorry.

'Stolen Generation' is just words - the government of the day just doesn't steal children.

So, what does saying 'sorry' exactly mean? Sure, the Aborigines still live in appalling conditions and their communities are stained with alcohol and child abuse, drugs, crime, domestic violence, and family upheaval - even after the Prime Minister's apology. But there is no doubt that saying sorry is the first step in healing and a chance to close the gap that lies between Australians and Australia's indigenous. It's an opportunity to cleanse the stain on the soul of our country.

Often a personal story is the best depiction

... taken from Kevin Rudd's Sorry Speech (13/2/08) ...

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'Nanna Nungala Fejo was born in the late 1920s. She remembers her earliest childhood days living with her family and her community in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek. She remembers the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night. She loved the dancing. But then, sometime around 1932, when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men. Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide. What they had not expected was that the white welfare men did not come alone. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman on horseback cracking his stockwhip. The kids were found; they ran for their mothers, screaming, but they could not get away. They were herded and piled onto the back of the truck. Tears flowing, her mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away to the Bungalow in Alice - apparently, all in the name of protection.'

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... and her mother soon died a broken woman.

And the cold hard facts?

• Between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30 per cent of indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers.
• As a result, up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families.
• This was the product of the deliberate, calculated policies of the State.
• This policy was taken to such extremes that there was forced extractions of children of so-called mixed lineage in order to out-breed the black with the swift submergence of white.

Saying sorry to the Aborigines, 'without qualification', is a seminal moment in Australia's history. It was necessary for all Australians, and Australia as a country, to move forward. Saying sorry, whilst often the hardest word to say, should be one of the first words we say to those we have hurt on a physical, mental and/or emotional level. The world could certainly do with a whole many more sorrys.