Posted by Sigismund on February 13, 2008, at 17:28:05
In reply to Re: A more decent and generous Australia » Sigismund, posted by ClearSkies on February 13, 2008, at 12:03:54
I shouldn't have said it was 'not much'.
As far as words alone can ever be it was a great deal.It was an apology to the Stolen Generation and to the Aboriginal people more generally, and an example of the type of politics we wish to practise in the future.
At least that's what I felt it was.From the papers......
In his accompanying speech Mr Rudd said
"There is something terribly primal about these first-hand accounts. The pain is searing, it screams from the pages - the hurt, the humiliation, the degradation and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on our senses and on our most elemental sense of humanity."These stories cry out to be heard, they cry out for an apology.
"Instead from the nation's Parliament there has been a stony and stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade.
"A view that somehow we the Parliament should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong.
"A view that instead we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side.
"To leave it languishing with the historians, the academics and the cultural warriors as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon.
"But the stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities, they are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments.
Time for denial is at an end
"But as of today the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end."
At 9.28pm Mr Rudd finished his address, and was greeted by loud and lasting applause by both sides of the house.
He reached across the house's table and shook the hand of Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson before returning to the front bench, where he himself applauded.
poster:Sigismund
thread:812299
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20070708/msgs/812522.html