A
government policy made in 1910 was aimed at removing aboriginal children from
their families, in an attempt to civilize them and stop the breed of black
people in the country. The “stolen” children were left under foster parents’
care or in orphanages, where they were often mistreated, and even sometimes
sexually abused. Besides, these children suffered from social dislocation
that often led to alcoholism, violence and early death. They were released when
they got to be the age of eighteen.
In
February 13th, 2008,The prime minister, Kevin Rudd,
delivered a speech expressing, in the name of the government, their sincere
apologies to all the people who suffered during those times.
Do you think that the apologize is enough to resolve the whole issue?
Felipe Gómez Lizama.
An injury of this size can not be remedied only with words. First, children who were taken to orphanages, were faced to lose their mother tongue as they were required to speak only in English. Their culture was not respected.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the generations were separated from their families to be "civilized" were far from their nature, the place where they grew up.
There was a big emotional damage. In my opinion, this will never be forgiven by the culture. Many children were took away from their families and this problem affected at least 3 generations.
I think the government's apology will not repair all the harm they did to the aborigines of Australia. I think the only reason why they do an apology, was to keep their consciences clean and clean up their image with the rest of the world.
We can see an example of this damage in this video. It is an scene from the movie Rabbit Proof Fence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaZtOIsgBqQ
In my opinion the words do not cure damage and suffering that these people felt. There was no respect for different cultures.
ReplyDelete