The Stolen Generation and Reparation
Christine McFarlane
As a First Nations woman of Canada, I can identify and also relate with the struggles of the Indigenous people of Australia, although some of their struggles with governmental policies and assimilation strategies are coined in different terms from the policies and practices that have been initiated and have been in practice in Canada. However the focus of my paper will be to look at what Australian society understands as the ‘Stolen Generation’, the culmination of what it was and what happened, to examine briefly the government report of “Bringing them Home” and to look at reparation, and what it specifically means for Indigenous Australians today.
The ‘Stolen Generation’ was a period in Australia’s history that saw Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children forcibly separated from their families and communities. This government sanctioned abduction of Indigenous children according to the ReconciliaAction website states that “the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was official government policy from 1909 to 1969,”(1) and the implementation of this policy took place “before and after this period, with government, churches and welfare bodies” all taking part.
The Aborigines Protection Board (APB), a government board that was established in 1909, managed this removal policy and was “given the power to remove children without parental consent and without a court order.” (1) According to the time, “under White Australia and assimilation policies Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were ‘not of full blood’ were encouraged to become assimilated into the broader society so that eventually there would be no more Indigenous people left, ”(2) and this viewpoint that assimilation was better for Indigenous people was according to lecturer Dr. Karen O’Brien, a “part of the colonial discourse” (O’Brien) that early Australians saw shape their society.
It would not be far reaching to state that the ‘Stolen Generation’ was perhaps one of the most critical assaults on Aboriginal culture because it undermined and brought chaos to Aboriginal social structures that are central to cultural practices and cultural transmission. I strongly believe that cultural practice and transmission are integral to the very identity of who you are, not only as an individual but also as a collective. Therefore the attempt of the Australian government’s assimilation policy was nothing but a policy of systematic genocide and an attempt to wipe out a race of people. This is a crime that speaks for itself.
It was with this ‘removal policy’ in mind that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission started a national inquiry into the Australian governments practice of removing children and this report “Bringing Them Home” was tabled in Parliament on 26 May 1997.” (2) This report details the devastating impacts that the child removal policies had on children and their families, and it found amongst other atrocities that “many of the institutions and homes in which children were placed were very cruel, and sexual and physical abuse of the children was common.” (2) It also found that “many of the people who managed the removals, including both the government and churches, abused their power and breached their supposed obligations as protectors and ‘carers’. (2)
Furthermore, in the ‘Bringing Them Home’ Report it is highlighted how “the practice of forced removal was highly traumatic not only for the children but also for their families.” This statement is backed up by one of many personal accounts I read in the book ‘ the stolen children: their stories’ edited by Carmel Bird. One woman by the name of Carol writes:
“FIVE GENERATIONS OF MY family have been affected by removal of children. Four generations of my family have been removed from their mothers and institutionalized. Three generations of my family have been put into Beagle Bay Mission dormitories. Four generations of my family went without parently love, without mother or father. I myself found it very hard to show any love to my children because I wasn’t given that, so was my mother and grandmother.”(65-66)
It was heart wrenching to read the many accounts of the devastation that this removal policy had on the Indigenous people of Australia and not get caught up in my own memories of what happened to my family. The child removal policy, according to the ‘Bringing Them Home’ report “broke important cultural, spiritual and family ties which crippled not only individuals, but whole families and even whole communities.” (2) To this day, many parents whose children were taken away never saw them again and siblings were separated, and many Aboriginal people still do not know who their relatives are or have been unable to track them down. This is identical to my own situation as I was a part of what Canada called the “Residential Scoop.” I still do not know members of my biological family or know the whereabouts of the two brothers that my mother also gave birth to.
There are still many impacts as a direct result of what happened during the ‘Stolen Generation’. Impacts that according to an article on Cultural Maintenance and Trauma in Indigenous Australia reflect “ disturbingly higher reported proportions of Indigenous imprisonment, infant mortality, suicide, drug dependence and substance abuse, and general medical conditions as well as lower life expectancies.” (4) Within the same article it also argues “Indigenous people show very high levels and rates of self-reported hopelessness, helplessness, and disorientation as well as anxiety, irritability and insomnia and are four to five times more likely to die from the consequences of a mental disorder than the non-Indigenous Australian population.”(4)
It is important to note that the Bringing Them Home Report made some key recommendations. The key one that I am mentioning is one in which an “official apology from the government, as well as financial compensation for the suffering caused by the government,”(3) is made. The recommendation of an apology was not well received by the then Prime Minister John Howard in 1997, but the new Labor Government that was elected promised to finally make an apology to the Stolen Generations in 2007. It was at the first session of the new Federal Parliament, on 13, February 2008 that the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an official apology to the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Government.
Though an apology was issued, and there was the establishment of a reparations tribunal there is still a lot of unfinished business to take care of in regards to Indigenous peoples of Australia. According to the article Election 2007: Indigenous Policy-unfinished business written by Megan Davis of the University of New South Wales, “Australia resists negotiating a final settlement with its first peoples and continues to challenge the internationally accepted idea of the inherent and fundamental rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The situation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia remains the great ‘unfinished business’ of the Australian state.’ (Davis)
It is with the above comment in mind that I question whether reconciliation and reparation will ever be fully achieved. In the article Reconciliation: Moving From Rhetoric to Reality Through the Education Revolution,” the author, John Davis states that though the formal apology was “an important moment in our shared history,” and was “widely perceived and portrayed as a transformative experience for our nation,” there is “much more to be achieved if we are to realize the true extent of this post-apology potential. Reconciliation is not yet a reality.” (12)
In conclusion, reparation for Indigenous Australians who were removed from their families will take a lot more than just an apology. The ongoing failure of the Australian government to address the magnitude of the moral wrongs perpetuated by their assimilation policies leaves Australian society and those who have undertaken studying their Indigenous people to wonder if reconciliation will ever become a part of their society so others do not continue to suffer in the years to come.
Works Cited:
Carmel Bird: the stolen children: their stories. Random House Australia Pty Ltd. Milsons Point, NSW 2061.1998
Bringing Them Home: Chapter 1. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report. Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, April 1997. Retrieved July 30, 2010. http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_Justice/bth_report/report/ch1_part1.html
John Davis: Reconciliation: Moving From Rhetoric to Reality Through The Education Revolution. Indigenous Law Bulletin June/July 2008 ILB Volume 7, Issue 6.
Megan Davis: Election 2007: Indigenous Policy-unfinished business. Australian Review. November 2007. Retrieved July 22, 2010. http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2007/election/davis.html
Michael Halloran, Lecturer, La Trobe University School of Psychological Science. Volume 11, Number 4 (December 2004) Retrieved July 22, 2010. http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v11n4/halloran114_text.html
Karen O’Brien. Class Lecture. July 2, 2010 Koori Centre University of Sydney
Stolen Generations Fact Sheet, July 28, 2007. Retrieved July 20, 2010. http://www.reconciliaction.org.au/nsw/education-kit/stolen-generations/
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