Sorry Nation

The 'Sorry' Day

There we have it. The 'Apology' which has been on the horizon since Kevin Rudd won the election. Before I go on, I want to make one thing abundantly clear: I support it.

Now that it's been said, it can't be unsaid. Will the apology be accepted? One wonders. This discussion quickly turned to compensation.

Respected Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson was among several to issue fresh calls for the government to financially compensate victims.

But in his speech to parliament after delivering the official apology, Mr Rudd said the time had come for the nation to turn a new page.

The time for denying Australia's history was also at an end.

"Our nation Australia has reached such a time and that is why the parliament is today here assembled," he said.

"To deal with this unfinished business of the nation.

"To remove a great stain from the nation's soul and in the true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land Australia."

Acknowledging the apology would not fix indigenous people's pain, Mr Rudd announced he and Dr Nelson would take the unprecedented step of co-chairing a new bipartisan "war cabinet" tasked with tackling Aboriginal disadvantage.

While the formal apology said "sorry" three times, Mr Rudd's speech also offered personal apologies to the stolen generations.

"As prime minister of Australia, I am sorry," he said.

Yeah, yeah. So much for wanting only the symbolism of an apology. I had hoped we would come to a point f settlement without money, but that's clearly not what has happened.

On a tangential note, I once lambasted Kevin Rudd as a guy who had very little credibility when it comes to race issues on this blog. I was very wrong.
So I'm going to take this opportunity to apologise to Kevin Rudd. You're a lot bigger man than I thought. I'm sorry Kevin.

Now that that's out of the way, I hope he doesn't come looking for compensation.

Owning Up Is Easy, Paying Up Is Hard
Believe it or not, I think saying sorry is the easy part. You can even say you feel deep remorse and regret the actions of your forbears, but it always comes back to the issue of "well, just how sorry are you anyway? Show me the money."

This mechanism reminds me a bit of the way Yakuza would try and extort money out of innocent people. They bump into them on the streets, fall over in an exaggerated manner, then demand compensation. "what do you mean you're sorry but you don't have money. You hurt me and you want to walk away having just spoken some words?"
And then the threats of social humiliation begin.

So you look at that mechanism and you have to say the victim status really allows you to cash in. And we as a society are weak towards our victims. Hence piles of cash that go out on compensation cases all the time.

Then there was Dr. Nelson's speech that whilst supported the apology, kind of intimated that not enough children were taken away and the practice should be continued - at least that's how some have interpreted it. It's all kind of painful to watch. I guess when an Empire is in retreat, sundry issues like this crop up. This process of history took place in Canada as well, and if it weren't for the American War of Independence, maybe the USA would have to be undertaking this kind of thing as well. Or perhaps in half a century, a US President is going to have to apologise to the depleted -core-uranium-affected generation of Iraq. Who knows?

As Keith Richards called his first solo album, 'Talk is Cheap'.