"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx
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Pearson on the Apology
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February 10, 2008
Noel Pearson has an article in The Australian on the forthcoming apology by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to members of the Stolen Generations and their descendants and families on behalf of the Parliament of Australia. He says that:
there are different angles, some of which are at odds with each other. On the eve of its delivery, I remain convulsed by these contradictions. But the majority of Australians -- black and white, progressive and conservative, Labor and Coalition, young and old -- believe the apology is the right thing to do. Before I yield to this overwhelming view, I will discuss the various fraught angles from which the apology might be assessed.
He then explores the different angles or perspectives--the cultural wars, the philosophical, political, strategic, the psychological, the historical, the emotional or empathetic and the spiritual. Under the historical Pearson writes:
The 1997 report by Ronald Wilson and Mick Dodson [Bringing Them Home] is not a rigorous history of the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of families. It is a report advocating justice. But it does not represent a defensible history. And, given its shortcomings as a work of history, the report was open to the conservative critique that followed. Indigenous activists' decision to adopt historian Peter Read's nomenclature, the Stolen Generations, inspired Quadrant magazine's riposte: the rescued generations.
The Quadrant crowd come close to making cruelty as compassion when they ignore the eugenic policies embodied in the removal of indigenous children.
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Pearson then indicates why it is not good colonial or postcolonial history. He says:
The truth is the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of Aboriginal families is a history of complexity and great variety. People were stolen, people were rescued; people were brought in chains, people were brought by their parents; mixed-blood children were in danger from their tribal stepfathers, while others were loved and treated as their own; people were in danger from whites, and people were protected by whites. The motivations and actions of those whites involved in this history -- governments and missions -- ranged from cruel to caring, malign to loving, well-intentioned to evil.
Granted. Still there were children were stolen in a literal sense as well as the prospects of Aboriginal people being able to pursue any form of sustainable and decent life being stolen. The kidnapping of children from Aboriginal families and communities played a big role in the social wreckage we see today., since many of the children were mixed race and the policy was about eugenics: the breeding of aboriginality out of our population. That history should never be forgotten or whitewashed.
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| | Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:59 PM | Permalink |
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