Recently the new Australian government made the historic step of issuing an official apology to the Aboriginal people for the pain and suffering they experienced during the process of English colonialisation and especially for the treatment of Aboriginal children during the earlier part of last century, when they were forcibly removed from their families for “education” in mission schools. This raises several questions for us to consider, for example, “Is this a new chapter in history?” or “Will this make a real difference to the lives of Aborigines?” Recently, please note gentle reader, we have also had the apology by Angela Merkel to the Israelis for the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. Do these apologies have any real effect or are they important for symbolic reasons? Should Portugal apologise for its acts of colonial oppression also? (There must be millions of descendents of negro slaves for example…).
In the case of the Aboriginal people of Australia, we may conclude that an apology has been well overdue for some decades. They were the indigenous inhabitants when the first white navigators arrived on those far-away shores, a nomadic people, living still at a Stone Age level of development. They had been there for up to 70,000 years, in perfect isolation from the rest of the world and even from each other on that vast continent, as we can see from the fact that they developed literally hundreds of different languages. In 1788, the English set up their first colony: a “penal colony”, where prisoners from England (and Ireland) were shipped to the other side of the world. The prisons in England were full. This was the equivalent in those days of moving them to the moon would be today. “Out of sight, out of mind”, as the proverb says.
It is estimated that there were about 750,000 Aboriginals at that time. By the late 19th century, their numbers were decimated. Even today there are only about half of that number. It is along story, typical of the process of colonialisation, which began with smallpox (varíola) outbreaks in 1789 which caused many deaths among the resistance-free locals and grew worse when, in 1791, land began to be given to the settlers for them to farm. The ownership by local tribes of the land was usually not considered. The resulting clashes between Aboriginals and white settlers resulted in many deaths on both sides. The total “elimination” (i.e. killing) of the Aboriginal tribes in Tasmania was perhaps the height of this invasion and conquest. But the dispossession of the other Aboriginal people had begun. By the 1910s, the people were seen as having no future. Governments, welfare agencies and, in particular, the church saw the solution as “assimilation” – the children were forcibly removed from their parents and taken to mission schools and orphanages to educate them into the culture of the white man. The movie “Rabbit Proof Fence” is a moving testimony to this process. This forced removal of children from their families continued right up to 1970.
“They would not let us kiss our father goodbye; I will never forget the sad look on his face. He was unwell and he worked very hard all his life… That was the last time I saw my father, he died within two years after”. – Jennifer.
Often the schools where they were kept did not have the means to care for them properly and treated them not unlike prisoners. A very high proportion of the children, these “Stolen Generations”, ended up as criminals or alcoholics. The net effect was the almost complete destruction of the Aboriginal way of life. Today the Aboriginals still struggle with huge problems of alcoholism and sheer hopelessness. They often live in degraded conditions; violence and despair haunt their world. Their life expectancy is a full 17 years less than other Australians. Illiteracy and rates of incarceration are much higher. There has been an incalculable price to pay for being Aboriginal in Australia. White Australia does indeed have a black history.
Given this horrendous history, the apology of the government for “… the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind…” is at least a symbolic admission of guilt. Decades of turning their back and hoping that the problem will go away, joined to the flat denial of the former government of John Howard to apologise have not worked. Now a first step has been made. And it is one which most Australians seem to agree with. Howard’s fear was that massive legal claims for compensation would follow an apology. But this is the same cowardly refusal to face up to the wrong acts of our ancestors that left other indigenous peoples such as the Red Indians of the USA or Canada out in the cold for many years. It would seem that Australia under its new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is finally courageous enough to face up to its debt towards the native peoples of their land. If compensation claims follow, that should be a part of the process of reconciliation. We should have the courage of our convictions and be prepared to pay up. Then, perhaps, a real difference in the lives of Aboriginals could one day be seen to occur. Ethnic minority under-privilege is a common problem in many societies, including Portugal. It is a difficult problem in all cases, but turning our backs on it won’t make it go away. In the end, we can say, “Good on yer, Ozzies!"
Kevin Charles Rowe
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