Bruce Allan Trevorrow was recently awarded a decent sum in damages as a member of the Stolen Generations (you know....that generation that doesn't exist) and while The Australian had no issue with the case in particular, it took the opportunity to vent on some aspects of what "the Left" argue on this issue:
'This paper sees no merit in using blanket terms like "Stolen Generations" when, in fact, only a small percentage of Aboriginal children were unlawfully removed from their parents. '
There is no reason why there shouldn't be a "blanket" term to refer to a group of people (at best estimates around 20,000) who fell victim to a string of heartless government policies. The term the 'Stolen Generation' is far from perfect in it's description of each case but not that far, and nor is 20,000 a 'small percentage' as the editorial claims.
The key word here is "unlawfully". It was lawful to remove these children at the time in most cases, but that doesn't mean it was just, or fair. Such sneaky distinctions are constantly used by the Right in their denials of this historical fact. Furthermore, I don't know why it would be relevant, were it true, if it were a "small percentage", or why this would remove the need for a collective description such as the 'Stolen Generation'.
'Many on the Left of politics, including the Labor Party, have made much of the need to say sorry to Aboriginal people but Mr Trevorrow's case highlights just how cheap and hollow an apology can be. On May 28, 1997, with much fanfare, the South Australian Government expressed its "deep and sincere regret at the forced separation of some Aboriginal children from their families and homes". Yet the same South Australian Government fought for nine years to avoid paying compensation to Mr Trevorrow. '
This is evidence of a government being hypocritical but nothing else. I can accept that the S.A government has a duty to verify a Stolen Generation members story and not hand cash out willy nilly, but nine years is a long time and somewhere within that period they would've realised the story was legit though chose to proceed anyway. This example hardly encapsulates the general behaviour of "the Left" anyhow, merely the Rann government. And I don't know how they deduce from this that an apology would be cheap and hollow.'This sort of hypocrisy is possible because the "Sorry" brigade has never made it clear, even to itself, what we are all meant to be saying sorry for and what it is meant to achieve. Is it to acknowledge the wrong that had been done by unlawfully removing some Aboriginal children from their families or is it an acknowledgement of all mistreatment of Aboriginal people since 1788? '
I'm buggered to really find the difference. Nor am I able to understand how this concocted muddle has made the hypocrisy they speak of possible. An apology surely should be all encompassing, an expression of regret at past policies such as those that lead to the Stolen Generation and for the dispossession and frontier violence but in lieu of none, either would suffice. Though, how one can believe that we should pick and choose between these things is beyond me, but the editorial appears to think this a perfectly acceptable position.
'Endless wrangling about apologies has done nothing to improve the conditions of Aboriginal people in Australia, whether they were indeed stolen like Mr Trevorrow or whether they have remained with their families but live in Third World conditions in remote, rural or urban Australia. The way forward for the latter is to develop practical workable solutions as is Noel Pearson.'
And here's that old furphy again. The one where the "Left" merely want words and zero action but the "Right" are all about 'practical' solutions to today's problems. This rubbish just affirms, each time they repeat it, how uncomfortable they are with facing up to our past.
The strong belief, often repeated since the early debate on the Stolen Generation, is that repeated by Howard, that one shouldn't apologise for something they haven't personally done. It appears reasonable to most people at first (even myself) because in day to day life no one is expected to say sorry for things which they've played no part in. But when we're talking about larger events influenced by many many people in the history of a nation of which we're a part, things are very different. No one objects to Germany's apologies for WWII and the Holocaust, nor would anybody jump to shut Japan up if they began to apologise for their past crimes because these things were done in the name of the Nation and for the Nation.
It is also quite an inconsistent position. When our leaders refer to great aspects of the Nation's past they never bother to distinguish between those who were actually there and those who weren't, hence we fought at Gallipoli and we won 20 gold medals, because these are things everyone can, and do, take some pride in. Our leaders would never deny us this, yet when it's something bad or shameful all of a sudden the Nation disintegrates into those who were actually there and those who weren't. If you weren't there and you didn't do any of these terrible things then suddenly you've no sense of collective responsibility. Then along comes the next Olympic Games and viola, it's back. Such a stance cannot surely be sustained, but thus far Howard and gang have managed to trick us all into thinking that we can have our cake and eat it too.
An apology is right, and it's long overdue.
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