Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Kevin Rudd Did The Right Thing

I am sure I will not have the backing of many my fellow right of centre bloggers when I say that I found the apology of the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to the aboriginal people rather moving. I see nothing wrong in a government apologising for its treatment of a people over a prolonged period of time. Where I draw the line is apologising for the sins of people hundreds of years ago - but this wasn't hundreds of years ago - it's Australia's recent history. Indeed, some argue the mistreatment and discrimination is still going on.

An apology, though, is all very well. By making it, Rudd has made a rod for his own back, as the whole world will now watch to see what action his government takes. Throwing money at the Aboriginees as a short term fix is not what is required. Taking a long hard look at their problems and coming up with long term solutions is.

40 comments:

Paul Evans said...

Yes, I agree. I was suprised to find myself quite moved by it too.

Donal Blaney said...

Oh come on Iain, did you hit your head with the golf club or something? Do you now want us to apologise to the Aborigines too? And for slavery? While we're at it, maybe the Romans can apologise to the us for invading England? And the Normans ought to apologise too. And the Egyptians ought to apologise to the Jews.

Anonymous said...

On a similar line... when researching my family tree I discovered that my relatives had slaves. Should I go out and find a black family say sorry for something my great great great great grand parents did and invite them to have half of my house. Will that make it up to them?
Oh wait the slaves my relatives had were white. Oh thats different isn't?

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid, Iain, I couldn't disagree more. It is precisely because the case of a government tens of years ago and one hundreds of years ago are legally indistinguishable that this idea is so troublesome.

The idea of intergenerational responsibility is a massively controversial topic, even in academic philosophical circles. So it's not "obvious" by any stretch that this sort of speech is even morally appropriate, but that's not really the trouble.

Thing is, attaching yourself directly to that idea that this generation is responsible for the actions of previous ones has *massive* legal implications - and you've alluded to some of them. Compensation claims will flow, and what leg does the government have to stand on now when arguing that intergenerational responsibility is not legally appropriate?

No - this is the very worst type of cheap, empty, worthless stunt. It does less than nothing to change the plight of a single member of Australia's indigenous population, but it might well cause all manner of havoc for the government. These are precisely the reasons why Tony Blair would never give a full apology for slavery - and when something is seen as too empty and cheap a stunt for Tony Blair, you should know you're onto a loser!

We don't disagree on much, I don't think, Iain. But this one isn't a political issue, it's a legal one. And Rudd's tawdry grand-standing is grossly irresponsible.

Anonymous said...

How can you apologise for something you haven't done to someone it hasn't been done to?

Anonymous said...

Rudd did do the right thing. It is true that the apology will do nothing for native Australians but what it does do is set the tone for future progress. Just like the Mandela with the truth and reconciliation hearings in South Africa that helped set the tone of relations between whites and blacks. Rudd now has to deliver.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

I am sorry (sob). It's all my fault. (sob). I am just a White Straight English Male Bastard. Can you all forgive me for even walking about?

I own two cars and sent my kids to private schools. I was a pushy parent. (sob,sob) I thought the Falklands war was right and that the Iraq war was wrong.

And now I should apologise about th e Aborigines because the Aussies think we too, us Brits are responsible.

I know some of you must see me as a wretched wanker - me and Admiral Nelson and Montgomery and Boudicca, that Iceni Bitch. God, the way we just plundered the globe. Look how we just exploited whole continents like Africa, and how that, now, most Africa countries are so traumatised by the experience that they are killing each other with machetes and spreading Aids. I feel so evil.

Sorry also for my ancestors, who settled in America - George Bush is my fault too. I am so, so bitterly sorry.

I am going to become a stylite.

Anonymous said...

Indeed, Kevin Rudd and the opposition Liberal leader are to jointly chair a policy commission that will decide future policy on indigenous Australians.

For a country whose politicians are famed for trading insults and not much else, this is a remarkably grown up step.

Anonymous said...

Here, here. Well said Iain. Let's hope he has some long-term solutions agreeable to all concerned.

Kid Eternity said...

Should Gordon Brown apologise for Britain's role in Transatlantic Slavery (actually say sorry not express 'regret')?

Man in a Shed said...

Maybe one day well hear from our Labour party apologising for selling our country out to the EU and breaking their oaths to the electorate and maybe also the crown.

But I guess liars don't see the need to apologise.

Machiavelli's Understudy said...

Doesn't say much for a parliament's successor not being bound if it then apologises for its predecessors' actions...

Anonymous said...

Saying "sorry" is a cheap way of placating those affected but it still is rather pointless (as Dizzy has explained). It just seems arse about face and what is needed is the will to ensure that reparations are made (without awaiting legal proceedings) for those still prejudiced by those past callous and insensitive actions.
Instead of an apology, I should have preferred to hear an expression of deep regret for what had happened. All 'Strines would surely concur with that.

Johnny Norfolk said...

Come off it Iain it is just posturing of the worst kind.

When is Labour going to say sorry for all the problems it caused in the 60s.

It totaly pathetic.

Anonymous said...

A symbol of hope, of redemption, of naivety, of love, of respect, of reconciliation.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, off/topic, but I've just heard that five young muslims have just been released from prison on appeal.
They were convicted of downloading terrorist material on the internet, but the appeal cleared them, because there was no evidence that they were going to use the material for some kind of terrorist action.

Now where does this leave men who download child pornography,if there is no evidence that they will go out and abuse a child?
I must say that though I find paedophilia revolting, I couldn't see the logic in prosecuting people who simply look at its images.
Yes, they keep the providers in business, but so do drug addicts and people who use prostitutes.

Anonymous said...

Politicians hate to apologise for anything, so what other sins of commission or omission is PM Rudd trying to conceal from us today?

James Higham said...

Kevin Rudd did not do gthe right thing, as I explained today.

1. thee is no prima facie that there was a Stolen Generation in the first place. Those half-castes were taken in the same way that Social Sevices takes abused children.

2. The aboriginals are not a homogenous society but a series of over 250 separate warring tribes.

3. this thing is all about money and now they've begun seeking monetary compensation for something which didn't occur and from people who who were in no way involved.

Anonymous said...

The posters opposing your view are missing the point and showing their ignorance. This issue is nothing like slavery which was a long time ago, and in coutries were there was slavery it seems quite appropriate for them to face up to their history .
In the case of Australia is not 'slavery', and its quite recent. Aborigionies were badly treated indeed and they were in some cases experimented on, socially and physically. It is a quite discraceful episode and deserving of an appology. And I speak, i can assure you, as a death penalty voting right winger.

I agree though that this apology was very twee and sanctimonious sounding. And you are right to question the future. In my view Australia is quite a racist nation, and probably most so in the blue collar voters who put labour in power. Will labour do anything real to change things ?? Hmm.

Anonymous said...

Rule Two! No member of the faculty is to maltreat the Abos in any way at all...if there's anybody watching. Rule Three!

Iain you don't want to know rule 3

AdamB said...

Sometimes I'm not sure you understand your readership Iain.

Anonymous said...

What utter tosh!

Anonymous said...

I agree Iain. As an Aussie, this is not like apologising for slavery, and indeed the most recent cases were not even carried out by some distant previous generation. Those who are 60 now were 20 when this was still happening.

And as for a cheap empty gesture, as others have said, this is the start of a long process. The fact is that an aborigine born today can expect to die 19 years before a white child, and is 13 times more likely to be sent to prison. The major enquiry on this stated that an apology was needed to start the healing process and regain trust. A bipartisan 'war cabinet' will now try and sort this out.

Go and see how aborigines in Australia live. It can still be quite shocking, and I hope that this apology, so desperatly wanted by them, is a fresh start.

Little Black Sambo said...

trevor h said, "The posters opposing your view are missing the point and showing their ignorance."

So now we know.

Little Black Sambo said...

trevor h said, "The posters opposing your view are missing the point and showing their ignorance."

So now we know. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Now you are really being silly again.

If they really want to help a specific section of deprived people. I have a simple easy cost effective solution that I know for an absolute fact the Australian government will not even think about under any circumstances. Simply because they are a government.

Just give them the cash, and let them work out for themselves whats good for them.

Some will piss it up the wall, some will save it, some may put it into their own education or business and make a fortune.

Some of these people will employ there fellow man and life gos on.

Maybe in 10 years time they might even end up employing white or even Asian Australians. Maybe thats one reason why they will not do it but not the main one.

All the other ideas will simply swell the government, cost millions per person and have very little positive liberating effect on anyone.

IN FACT QUITE THE OPPOSITE.

It will make them dependent on government hand outs and they will very soon get very used to it. All the real wealth will end up in a government department that will still be running in the year 3000.

Anonymous said...

This apology isn't tosh in itself, but if Australian Labor is anything like its UK equivalent, this will be a nice twee way of pretending that everything's OK, and a handy substitute for the hard work - and yes the cash - of actually sorting out the problems the native population face.

With a media-stunt gesture like this, all the smug hand-wringing Hampstead intelligentsia - or rather their Sydney and Melbourne counterparts - can feel that, golly gosh, something really has been done now, sweep the grim reality under the carpet, forget all about it, sleep soundly, and thank goodness that nasty Mr Howard isn't in power any more.

pommygranate said...

iain

i agree with you. it was a terrible mistake to forcibly take children, many of whom were not victims of abuse, from their parents. Rudd is also not apologising on behalf of the people but the govt - a crucial difference.

however, the real apology should be for the policies of apartheid and socialism imposed on indigenous communities that have led to remote aboriginal societies descending into hell on earth, where little children are repeatedly gang-raped by older relatives, where mothers have abandoned their children to the grog, where meth-sniffing has replaced sport, and where welfare has killed the dignity of honest work.

it is the govts of both the Liberals and Labour who implemented the ideas of H.C.Coombs in the 1970s that should be apologising.

Chucklenuts said...

Did I hear somewhere that Kevin Rudd is Australia's answer to Tony Blair?

I should like to extend my heartfelt commiserations to the Aussie people.

THAT'S THEM BUGGERED FOR THE NEXT DECADE.

Schadenfreude is best eaten cold.

Peter Mc said...

Wrinkled weasel:

'I am going to become a stylite.'

Class, sir.

Anonymous said...

Iain I am surprised you are taken in by this nauseating illogical self indulgent breastbeating crap

presumably you are now going to insist the Irish apologise to the British for kidnapping St Patrick on a slave raid ( one of many by them over many centuries ) back in 405 AD or thereabouts .

Wrinkled Weasel said...

pommygranate has crawled right out of the tosh-hopper:

"however, the real apology should be for the policies of apartheid and socialism imposed on indigenous communities that have led to remote aboriginal societies descending into hell on earth, where little children are repeatedly gang-raped by older relatives"

Hello? Come again? Is Mister Brain talking to the big hand?

If these societies are so remote, where and how is this influence manifesting itself? Has there been a governmental baby-raping edict?

Pommygranate cites vague socio-political conditions in Australia as a reason for rape, drunkenness and other mahyhem. Nobody is forced to do evil to another due to external pressures. They may suffer terribly, but the choice to take it out on their own kind is entirely theirs.

You are rehearsing the "I came from a poor broken home - therefore I steal and murder" argument. Deprivation and lack of opportunities is neither a cause or excuse for evil.

As for Aborigines and their putative lawlessness and debauchery; a society, even in microcosm gets the culture it desires and condones. If the members of this society stood against some of the terrible practices you describe, they would decrease.

I am utterly fed-up with people who want to blame others for the crap in their lives. You are born, you take what you get, and you move on. If one more toss pot tries to blame me for Zimbabwe, Slavery, The Potato Famine, the Enclosures, or Stock, Aitken and Waterman, I will personally go round and piss them out of the window.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 6:03pm said...

A symbol of hope, of redemption, of naivety, of love, of respect, of reconciliation.

And all that from a politician. Wow!

Would that our sty of porkers were similarly motivated.

Anonymous said...

"Taking a long hard look at their problems and coming up with long term solutions is."

Trying to evolve a long term solution to the problem was what gave them the Stolen Generations in the first place. It's quite possible that there IS no solution to the problem of natives in white societies. In Canada, Australia and New Zealand just about every imaginable solution has been tried (assimilation, separation, reservations, etc.) and they have all failed. It is possible that there is simply nothing that can be done to make Aboriginal societies work.

Anonymous said...

Rather than apologizing for the sins of the father I would be more concerned that discrimination continues to this day. But then again look at the plight of the Native American. And that's in God's Own Country. Allegedly!

Anonymous said...

Yawn....

Paddy Briggs said...

Fully agree with you Iain. Moving and honourable action by Rudd.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How can you apologise for something you haven't done to someone it hasn't been done to?


for sheer pith this summarises the problem perfectly.

You can't. It's ipso facto meaningless.

Anonymous said...

This from a Government which has just banned peanut butter sandwiches from Government buildings because the smell might cause an allergic reaction just about sums up where they come from

Anonymous said...

wrinkled weasel
mate you have never lived in Oz so put a sock in it.

Anyway who has listened to the stories of the Stolen Gnerations cant help but be moved by their stories. Commentators like Nole Pearson, who tell the story of his family who looked across the bay to see where there children were living.

Stop being so cynical. These are some of the saddest stories you will ever hear.

Even the people on the conservative side of politics in Australia accept that. Nobody in Oz makes fun of their stories "Wrinkled Weasel". They are sad beyond belief. Listen up. They really are. The only argument is about the motivation for thir removal. Grow up you twat. Even the conservatives accept totally the tradgedy of what happened. Get a life you worm.