Australia Says Sorry: "This is history, unna?" (by Jarrod McKenna)
Black and white, we waited like I had waited in the mosh pit for Rage Against the Machine two weeks earlier. Yet the main feature on this day, a day that so many had been waiting for, working for, praying for, was just one word: "Sorry."
Matty is one of the many awesome kids in our neighbourhood who don't mind that we are white and often hang out at our houses. As one kid put it, "it's not shame 'cause youse are different." (It must be the dreads.) Matty likes hip hop and reckons Jesus would love Aussie Rules footy (football). Matty just started his first year at high school and though it was a school day, this 13-year-old excitedly wanted me to pick him up before six in the morning so we could get to the Perth foreshore in time because, as Matty told me, "Mum reckons it's important for us."
I added, "I think it's really important for us wadjelas [white people] as well!"
Crammed at the sides of the thousands of people stacked into the "Music Box" before seven in the morning, the crowd was amazingly civil considering the wait: 200 plus years. The first hour of sun light shone through the gum leaves hitting us as we waited to watch Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd live from Australia's capital. Matty turned to me and said:
"This is history, unna?" ["This has made history, yeah?"]
I heard a number of people, both white and Black, who had been waiting for such a long time, say, "I don't know what to feel." I heard one aboriginal friend put it, "This is a day of celebration!" Yet another friend just down the street said: "I saw it on television and just cried. He's not like most them that are all talk no action. I couldn't stop crying. I just kept thinking of mum and my dad, my cousins. All ripped away from home and family."
She shared later, "things are different now." Somehow wrapped up in this one little word, "sorry," was a new future. This strong aboriginal woman, who I'm proud to call my friend, was saying that in this word a new day is possible for her people and our nation. In this word, grief can now find its energy in change rather than despair. The cries of mothers who have had their babies torn from their arms and stolen from their breast have finally reached the halls of government. And miraculously, government has started to repent from the legacy of racism and colonialism.
Yet Matty's question still hangs in the air: "This is history, unna?"
If we think a couple of speeches is going to solve a history of genocide and colonization or the reality that Indigenous Australians die 17 years earlier on average than the rest the country; or the poverty of remote indigenous communities in one of the richest countries on earth; or the fact that when I go into prisons in Australia I see white systemic sin expressed in black incarceration, my answer to Matty is, "no." A number of years back, the famous indigenous activist "Uncle Kev" Buzzacott told me while we were on a Peace Pilgrimage that, "It's recon-silly-ation if reconciliation talk doesn't come with justice for us."
Yet, if instead, "sorry" is a call to enact real reconciliation which is not seeking to appease one's guilt but seeking to put right the wrong we have done, my answer is, "yes." If "sorry" looks like the healing justice we see in Christ and experience in relationship with God, and have seen in the ministry of peacemakers like Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Bishop Desmond Tutu, and many others, my answer to Matty is, "yes."
By God's grace, maybe the call to action and healing which has started to flow out of Sorry Day can be an icon for the church to hear how the cross and the empowerment of grace is a call to active witness to the ministry of reconciliation that is ours in Christ. I think on Sorry Day I heard afresh from the empty tomb the whisper of the Holy Spirit in the words of a 13-year-old Indigenous boy asking if my life witnessed too:
"This is history unna?"
Jarrod McKenna is seeking to live God's love. He's a co-founder of the Peace Tree Christian Commune serving the marginalized in one of the poorest of areas in his city, and is the founder and creative director of Empowering Peacemakers (EPYC), for which he has received an Australian peace award in his work for peace and (eco)justice.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Comments
I wonder if we Americans will ever be able to have a "Sorry Day" for the way we treated First Nations and for participating in the enslavement of Africans.
Best wishes to our Australian friends. I hope and pray that in the end this day turns out to be more than symbolic.
Peace,
Posted by: Don | February 15, 2008 1:36 PM
Don,
One can dream.
p
Posted by: Payshun | February 15, 2008 2:50 PM
Thanks for that wonderful insight, Jarrod.
Sorry will never heal all the hurt that has been done but it is a wonderful way to start.
I sat in front of my television silently weeping as the Australian Parliament took this historic step.
Posted by: Rodney Olsen | February 16, 2008 1:40 AM
When the Prime Minister, Mr. Kevin Rudd, said "Sorry" to the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Federal Government and on behalf of the non-Indigenous community, he acknowledged the pain that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have long been suffering. This one word has acknowledged the sin of white racism. This one word has offered hope to blacks and whites that reconciliation is possible. We welcome this apology because it is a first step towards reconciliation. We welcome the Prime Minister's Plan for Action.
We have a responsibility to see that the words said on Wednesday, 13 January 2008, were not empty. We have a responsibility to hold the government accountable for meeting the Millennium Development Goals in Indigenous communities in consultation with Indigenous peoples. We have a responsibility to stand for justice for Indigenous Australians.
Dale
Posted by: dale hess | February 16, 2008 1:52 AM
It is a step forward but I'm still distressed how many white Australians are not prepared to endorse saying it - the One Nation, Keith Windshuttle line, still hangs around as the legacy of the White Australia policy.
Now we just have to hope for the action that is promised though the compensation issue is already proving divisive. However it does mark progress after the dark years of the Howard government and we must live in hope.
Peter
Posted by: peter jones | February 16, 2008 4:09 AM
We have crossed a great divide and are now in a very different part of the journey. People are saying how they feel lighter, the huge wide weight of grief lifted. It promises to heal white as well as black, puts us all on the journey of healing. The prophet calls:'Let justice roll like a river.' and we got wet last Wednesday.
Posted by: Ian Robinson | February 16, 2008 4:40 AM
There had been a public request to use public transport on wed morning to get to Parliament House, but I had dropped my husband at hospital for test and so parked my car on the opposite side of the lake and walked, joining a stream of walkers, pram pushing families and bike riders, across the bridge, round the National Library, up the wet grass slope to the Tent Embassy. The sacred fire was surrounded by crowds. There was smoke billowing thickly and smelling gloriously of the bush, people taking turns to add silently, prayerfully, a leafy twig , a dog playing with a stick, children in arms and on shoulders, and a voice calling us to follow quietly behind some Aboriginal leaders all painted up and carrying ashes from the fire. The crowd was very mixed, solemn, reverent, hearts heavy with the question "is this going to be what we need? will it be good enough?"
We merged into a dense crowd of people on the lawns facing Parliament House. We stood watching the screens that were silent too, showing the settling down that was going on in the House of Reps. It was too dense to find a friend who was supposed to be right near the eighth flagpole. People were switching their mobiles off.
The suddenly the voice boomed out,the Prime Minister was on, and he used the word SORRY. A great cheer of relief and gratitude went up and then the tears began to flow. He hadn't heard the crowd, he couldn't see their responses but he went on and on and on, saying sorry this way and that, making sure that it was absolutely clear that this huge event was actually about something very simple: making a proper place for this land's first peoples, healing generation's of pain, loss, and trauma, and redefining the nation's very identity.
Oh yes! This is what we need; this is good enough. Thank God! Thank all those who have worked for this so hard and for so long! Thank everyone around!
Then the face and the voice switched to the Leader of the Opposition. The crowd was breathless, quiet, listening attentively. And within a few sentences there were boos. Now I was flowing different tears - about the work that still has to be done, the attitudes that are not yet giving way, the power held by people who don't trust the vision and don't trust Aboriginal people and culture. The value of this speech was in its evident struggle with all the forms of prejudice and scepticism that are also alive in our land.
So yes, there is now much to be done - again. This wonderfully transforming moment will need to be resought and refound time and time again, with people who want to listen but not with their hearts, who care but not without fear, and whose willingness to do things differently is conditional on not personally having to make room.
Yet I am so thankful it is at last done, that we have a new reference point - one which is very significantly different from previous ones. But the change, the giving room, is not nearly finished.
Posted by: Helen Bayes | February 16, 2008 7:11 AM
Dear Friends - what joy at the new beginning for all australians to share *** and what relief that the sorry was really heartfelt. Kevin did well, despite the reservations about compensation. It's one step at a time. It's a fragile space we're in, but at least it feels more solid and optimistic for the future.
Pink light of dawn was still in the Perth sky as we gathered. It was wonderful - people listened so carefully! they didn't like the second part of Nelson's speech - he went right off the rails, which was a pity, but I was sorry about the booing. I think he's actually trying, quite hard, to be open, to put the mean-ness of the Howard years behind him.
I was so glad to be present at hisory, as Matt saw it, and was happy that my placard Sorry, very Sorry was requested by one of my old Aboriginal friends to take home as a keepsake. I had the Quaker sorry printed on the other side (back in 1998 we made it, and it was good ..... not just about Stolen Generations, but theft of land, of culture, the whole bit).
What I forgot to tell my friend Mingli is that the placard I'd used was an old yellow one (so it suited the colours, I only had to add black and red) from my stack for such useful re-cycling purposes. It was a One Nation Pauline Hanson voting placard from a long-ago election ---- very handy, but a bit of an irony, eh? Buried her message beautifully!
We had great dancing and signing after the speeches in Perth, where Brendan Nelson had the plug pulled on him! There was much delight afterwards talking to lots of people whether you knew them or not..... it was a joining together experience which I'll treasure.
My over-riding feeling was one of gratiitude that Aboriginal people are so generous to the colonisers. There is an amazing fount of goodwill there, which is very humbling, in the face of the deep pain, which wadjellas, including me, have caused. I'm sorry, very sorry.
Posted by: Jo Vallentine | February 16, 2008 8:09 AM
Contrast "Sorry Day" with the shame of the Bush Administration perpetuating the age-old Federal mantra concerning Native American rights to their own trust funds (the ones Gail Norton couldn't seem to find, remember?) America has a decades-long policy of institutionalized sin in it's attitude towards the First Americans. When do we step forward and acknowledge the genocide which continues today among Native Americans in the form of crushing poverty, judicial bias, and political exploitation? Is this not a moral issue in the same vein as ewndorsing torture, engaging in preemptive war over oil, ignoring environmental destruction for the sake of political and commerical gain?
Americans continue to argue about how to address illegal immigration, while turning a blind eye to the fact that, with the exception of our native brothers and sisters, ALL OF US ARE IMMIGRANTS!
Pray that we find our footing as Christians and demand ACTION, not rhetoric, to end racism in our nation!
Pray for Peace!
Posted by: Doug & Jan in CO | February 16, 2008 10:30 AM
What a moving story. Let's hope that the government makes good on their promise. Japanese Americans were awarded reparations for internment during WWII but were largely cheated out of them. Our family possessions, stolen by neighbors, were never reclaimed. There was no gov't order to have them returned. Somewhere, in some white person's curio cabinets, are heirlooms passed down in my family for 500 years.
Indigenous Americans and especially American descendents of slaves deserve our apologies and attempts to make reparations.
Posted by: nightchi | February 16, 2008 4:01 PM
At last, at long bloody last!! After the past decade of measly, mealky-mouthed, weasle words it finally came out. I have been ashamed of so much the churches have done in this country; yet it was all the churches combined that brought pressure to bear (along with millions of ordinary australians) to come to this day.
All of us have so much to repent. Our former prime minister could not raise the courage to attend the sorry day speech (although three ex-prime ministers before him did attend). I hope he never holds his head up in church ever again.
Compensation will never restore the broken relationships, the lives which were torn apart, the lies which sustained the forcible separation of children from parents based on suppoed racial inferiority. Instead, funding to find opportunities and hope for the future for indigenous Australians, including reparations and restoration of lands stolen from them under the blind watch of the British Colonial Office is a start.
Never ever again can we fall for the lies; the scientific racism of perverted Darwinistic evolution, (NOT the purely scientific theory, but the political dogmatism of the fanatics) that dogmatised indigenous inferiority (and support Hitlerism and Stalinism), the triumphalism of churchianity that taught God's will is embodied on some nationalistic or imperial politics, the rejection of humanity in which all of us stand in God's image.
God speed the day when those evils are not seen on this good Earth.
Saying sorry is a good start; may God give us the courage to stay the course until those goals are reached.
Posted by: Feargal | February 16, 2008 4:55 PM
It's not often I use the word "government" and "hope" in the same sentence...but on Wednesday I felt like there was some hope and was proud to be part of it.
Posted by: Amy | February 17, 2008 2:57 AM
Doug & Jan,
If you want an apology to Indians on behalf of the United States government, perhaps you would do well to extricate this goal from all of the other political paraphenalia with which you have associated it.
I can appreciate passion on behalf of a cause, but when equal passion is exhibited toward a large set of causes, this passion is interpreted as zeal. Suffice to say, I don't share your zeal for your broader ideology.
Posted by: kevin s. | February 17, 2008 5:02 PM
thanks for the insight Jarrod.
My hope is that 'sorry' is not used to now silence the voices of those whose have been wronged, as if to say "well, we said sorry...do you have to go on about it!"
I too believe "sorry" only has weight if it is in fact a practical sorrow; a sorrow where wrongs are made right and no longer repeated.
Shalom
Travis
Posted by: trav fitch | February 17, 2008 7:57 PM
a most beautiful morning i experienced in Perth watching the sun rise and be greeted by the most beautiful smiling faces of indigenous men & women as we entered the music box to listen to our prime minister.
the first time i have sat and thought 'i can be proud now to be australian' as i am sorry.
chitty chitties (willy wagtails) flew gracefully in and swayed their fantails and chittered over the crowd.
high above cockatoos glided in circles.
we were all welcomed and i am very grateful
walk softly upon the earth,
ali
Posted by: Ali Drake | February 18, 2008 2:25 AM
Thank you Jarrod,
Sitting on the other side of the earth reading your account of "Sorry Day" in Australia and the subsequent postings filled by eyes with tears. Tears for the spirit of reconciliation expressed by this outwardly very "simple" word: sorry. Hopeful that this spirit of reconciliation will permeate beyond the words to the many actions that need to follow. Prayerful, that this example and witness from Australia will serve to inspire other countries to embark on our own journeys with reconciliation. There is so much to be healing on our Earth, both physically, and spiritually! Reading of this experience in Australia fills me with hope. Thank you!
Posted by: Cathy Walling | February 18, 2008 12:30 PM
Pray for America, that someday we too may find the grace to say Sorry--and act upon it!
Posted by: Jean | February 18, 2008 10:07 PM
Fabruary the 13th the NEW AUSTRALIA DAY
THE DAY AUSTRALIAN POLITICS GREW UP
MAY THE SPIRIT OF "SORRY DAY" GO ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND THE STRENGTH THAT IT GAVE MANY OF THE INDIGINOUS AND NON-INDIGINOUS PEOPLE BE USED TO JOIN TOGETHER IN COMMUNITY AND WALK THE TALK OF RECONCILIATION... LIVE IT WITH ALL OUR MIGHT IN EVERY THING WE DO!
AS A NON-INDIGINOUS AUSTRALIAN I CAN NOW ALMOST SAY I AM PROUD TO BE AN AUSTRALIAN
AND I FEEL THE CLOAK OF SHAME FALL AWAY A LITTLE I HAVE BEGUN TO SEE HOPE.
lOVE TO ALL BEINGS.
Posted by: Shane Bailey | February 19, 2008 3:21 AM
yes the jubilation and relief even felt in Thailand and China where Aussies met in the pub or the street and smiled.
Word from locals and abroad, watching the international news, even articles in Time magazine heralding the start of healing.
I remember Uncle Kev also said that lip service to the process of "reconciliation" would only "wreck a silly nation".
Let's hope that all Australians continue to work together on this and don't just leave it to the politicians and beaurocrats.
Jarrod as always I love your words.
Posted by: kt | February 19, 2008 3:58 AM
Thanks Jarrod and all who posted to the site.
Yes acknowledging sorry is a great way of linking the compassion with the insight of what has happened, but we need knowledge too.
I encourage you all to read the site on the Aboriginal History of Western Australia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_history_of_Western_Australia
It shows us something of the work we can now get doing now that the sorry word has been said.
Gaya (Noongar, for "Yes")
John
Posted by: John Croft | February 26, 2008 4:14 AM
At www.thefaithdebate.com you can discuss this issue, share with us your opinions and get to know what other people have to say. be a part of the debate!
Posted by: The Faith Voice | April 19, 2008 4:47 PM
Post a Comment
Are you aware of our Rules of Conduct?