Apology For Genocide!

Extract from a speech delivered by Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia On 13 Feb. 2008 the first day of session for the Australian Parliament-Thanks Kate's Quilt

"There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.

Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time.

That is why the parliament is today here assembled: to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nations soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia.

Last year I made a commitment to the Australian people that if we formed the next government of the Commonwealth we would in parliament say sorry to the stolen generations.

Today I honour that commitment.

I said we would do so early in the life of the new parliament.

Again, today I honour that commitment by doing so at the commencement of this the 42nd parliament of the Commonwealth.

Because the time has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great commonwealth, for all Australians - those who are indigenous and those who are not - to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation."

Kevin Rudd...I salute you.

There seems to be a spate of these apologies in the offing here of late. The tone and intent of them being reconciliatory with promises to do better. On their face, a true man can do no less than accept the spirit in which such apologies are offered. After all the people of our current generation inherited the crimes of their ancestors the way we-aboriginal peoples, no matter where we are, inherited the damage done by those crimes. Still, the fact that these crimes occurred, the fact that the our destinies forever changed because of them and the fact that even now these acts of ancestral terrorism have crippling effects on these generations affected drive home the importance of creating effective deterrents to the recurrence of such nightmares in the future. Unfortunately, China will soon have to make such an apology about Darfur, along with several corporations vested in the deaths, displacement and misery of millions of indigenous African people over a region supposedly rich in oil.