At 9:30 a.m. on 13 February 2008, Kevin Rudd, as Prime Minister at the time, delivered a speech on behalf of the Australian Government entitled "Apologies – To the Stolen Generation". The speech lasted only four and a half minutes, but it became the most glorious time in Prime Minister Rudd's political career.
Many indigenous people traveled thousands of miles to the Canberra Parliament Hall in order to hear the speech for themselves. Thousands of Australians gather in the squares and streets to witness this historic moment for themselves.
At the end of the speech, the audience stood up and applauded excitedly. Thunderous applause was accompanied by a low crying sound, which could not be stopped for a long time.
This is a speech about a nation, a dark history
This black history of Australia took place between 1905 and 1970.
In the name of protecting Aboriginal descendants, the Australian government at that time adopted a series of laws on its own, forcibly taking Aboriginal children from Aboriginal homes for a full sixty years.
These children were taken alive from their birth mothers and sent to nursing homes established by government departments and churches to live a lowly life.
Some of them became slaves to the whites and were humiliated; Some were adopted by white families and received "re-education"; The vast majority of people never see their mother again.
According to incomplete statistics, at least 25,000 indigenous children have been forcibly taken out of their families of origin and suffered from life and death. An official two-year, $1.5 million investigation showed "at least 100,000" of children who had been robbed.
These Aboriginal children are Australia's "Stolen Generation".
Racial discrimination and racial policy are actually very close to us
The official investigative report is called "Take Them Home." It was launched in 1995 by then Attorney General Michael Lavarch. The survey, led by the then Commission on Human Rights and Equal Opportunities, collected a total of 535 testimonies from indigenous populations.
"Every morning, the grown-ups mixed coal ash and animal fat and applied it to us. So when the police came, they could only see us as black from a distance. The grown-ups told us to always be vigilant and to run into the bushes or hide behind them if white people came. Whites generally enter our camps unexpectedly. At this time, the adults will quickly put us in the flour bag and pretend that we are not there. We can't sneeze. We know that if we sneeze, we will be found and taken away. ”
--- Confidential Archive 681: Statement of an Aboriginal woman arrested at the age of five in Western Australia
"I went from one foster home to another and never been in any one family for more than two months. I kept moving from one family to the next, and that was it. This is the main reason why I failed to graduate from elementary school. ”
--- Confidential Archive 316: Tasmania
"When white people are present, they don't allow us to speak our own language. Indigenous practices are also not permitted. We can't go to our own traditional festivals. I never had the opportunity to learn about and learn about my own cultural traditions and way of life. ”
--- Confidential Archive 110: Queensland
"I remember we used to communicate only in indigenous languages. They told us not to speak those languages, to say that they were the language of the devil. They would wash our mouths with soap. We must speak the language of the Bible. So then the language as we know it disappeared. ”
--- Confidential Archive 170: South Australia
"She (the adoptive mother) would say all day long that I was stupid and that my parents were lazy and dirty people who couldn't raise me"
--- Confidential File 5: A five-year-old adopted man in South Australia
"No food, nothing. We were like puppies, all locked in one room, on the floor. Sometimes at night we would be hungry and crying, without food... We have to go to the town's garbage dumps to find food, eat expired bread, smash ketchup bottles and lick them..."
--- Confidential File 549: A 3-year-old man in the Northern Territory who was taken away
"My childhood was filled with confusion, sadness and emptiness. My adoptive father teased me. He would masturbate in front of me, touch my private parts, and let me touch his. I remember taking a bath in my clothes for fear of taking them off. I was afraid of the dark because my adoptive father usually came when it was dark. I didn't dare go to the outside bathroom because he would stop me on my way back. Because I didn't dare get out of bed, I wet the bed a lot. I once tried to tell the pastor of the church about it, but he said I was lying. So I thought that's what a 'normal' white family looks like. ”
--- Confidential File 788: A 3-year-old lady in New South Wales who was taken away
The entire report is full of depressing and suffocating statements. It is also the first time in decades that this humiliating experience of indigenous groups has been faced squarely by mainstream society.
As Kevin Rudd said in his speech, their stories "need to be heard and an apology needs to be received."
The fight against and bullying of minorities is not in the long river of history. Some are for political gain, and some are under the banner of salvation. Just like the white Australian government, it was also under the slogan of saving the "imminent extinction" of the indigenous people.
Once there are high-sounding excuses, once most people are doing it, sin seems to become commonplace, and human nature quickly recedes.
What makes it hard for us to imagine today is that this kind of government continued until 1970.
Because of this, The Aboriginal population of Australia has fallen from one million in 1788 to half a million today. The disappearance of half a million people is the result of this policy of "genocide" in disguise.
Facing history head-on and admitting mistakes is progress
I can't imagine children who are forced to live and die, or feel that there is any compensation that can heal a thousandth of their trauma. But acknowledging fault is the first step to the light.
Previous governments before Rudd were reluctant to formally apologize for history for various reasons. "Our nation's parliament has been in a stubborn, hard-hearted, deafening silence for more than a decade." "But, just today, all the denials and delays are over."
"Dignity, human dignity, and the dignity of all human beings require our country to go one step further and correct the mistakes of this history."
Even after the 2008 speech, the opposition parties made some stubborn points, causing the audience to turn their backs on the big screen to show their dissatisfaction. Fortunately, in the end, the Australian government adopted Kevin Rudd's initiative and adopted the suggestions made in the apology letter.
Every year, 26 May is Australia's National Apology Day. The existence of this day reminds each and every one of us of the heinous crimes that the Australian government once committed against an ethnic minority.
"Our country's parliament has adopted and implemented a law based on racial discrimination. This law legalizes the theft of children solely because of their ethnicity. ”
No race in the world is better than another, and no race is more humble than another. Born to be human, each of our lives deserves to be respected and treated fairly.
I am ashamed that Australia has such a black history, but I am also pleased that the Australian Government has been able to face up to its crimes and bravely admit its mistakes.
The road to reconciliation may still be long, and the scars of generations will not be easily erased. But at least, Australia, you've taken the first step!
Today, at least, when we see Australian Aborigines wandering the streets or wandering the doors of drug rehabilitation centres, we know to let go of stereotypes and give more understanding and compassion. After all, their tragic situation today is the seed planted by the Australian government itself.
At least, when a government is willing to bow its head and admit its mistakes in front of the people, the people of this country are lucky.
As a nation, we need to acknowledge the most basic facts. That is, the shame of a country, like his honor, can and should exist.
—Governor-General William Dean of Australia, 1996
Link to the video link to Kevin Rudd's speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKWfiFp24rA&feature=youtu.be