Date: Thu, 22 May 97 09:52:46 CDT
Subject: OZ: Whitewashing "BLACKNESS"/Human Rights Down Under The USA
A Stolen Generation Cries Out
By Michael Perry, Reuter
20 May 1997
SYDNEY, May 20 - Haunting voices of elderly Aborigines tell of babies being
snatched from their mother's breast by police on horseback in Australia's
Black and white film shows rows of Aboriginal children with empty faces,
dressed in striped uniforms reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps, and
others bent over sweeping the dirt with their bare hands.
The Australian Archives exhibition travelling the country titled "Between
Two Worlds" reveals a dark chapter in Australia's past when it attempted to
breed out Aborigines.
Tens of thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their
parents under a government policy of assimilation from the 1880s to the
1960s. Those children are called the "Stolen Generation" or "People of
"It clearly was attempted genocide," Sir Ronald Wilson, president of
Australia's Human Rights Commission, told Reuters. "It was believed that
the Aboriginal people would die out."
STOLEN CHILDREN STILL SUFFERING
Today, thousands of Aborigines face a life of family breakdowns, drug and
alcohol abuse, violence and mental anguish they say is directly linked to
being taken from their parents.
Social Justice Commissioner Mick Dodson has just completed a year-long
national inquiry into the Stolen Generation and he, too, said it was an
attempt at genocide.
Dodson's report is now before the government and is expected to formally
charge Australia with attempted genocide and call for an apology and
compensation, possibly millions of dollars.
"Certainly an apology is a very good beginning in healing what is a real
sore, a real wound in the Australian pysche," said Aboriginal leader
Dodson. "There's this huge scar that we have to perhaps re-open in order to
Joy Williams is a Stolen Generation child. Her mother Dora was taken away
when she was 10 hours old, Joy was taken at seven hours and Joy's daughter
Julie Anne at 10 months. The only reason ever given was the colour of their
"How do you assist a nation of people who are grieving because this policy
affected every Aboriginal community in Australia?" demands Williams, one of
hundreds of Aborigines suing Australia's national and state governments.
"You have a nation in mourning and nothing is being done," Williams said
ABORIGINAL CHILD SLAVES
Many Aboriginal children were raised on government and church missions in
remote, outback locations where life was tough and sexual abuse widespread.
Wilson said Aboriginal children were used as virtual slaves and one in 10
were sexually assaulted. "The children would be stripped naked and tied to
a post in the yard to be flogged for some minor
misdemeanour," he said.
"We have had mothers say to us, 'I'm a rotten mother. I don't know how to
cuddle my baby', and then add, 'The only time I have ever been cuddled was
when I was being raped'."
Australia's churches have apologised for their part in what they say was a
Nazi-style policy of assimilation. They admit their role was was to break
the Aboriginal spirit.
"People believed that if we were going to make good Catholics or Christians
out of the Aboriginal people we had to take them away from what we would
have seen as pagan influences...," said Catholic Bishop Pat Power.
Dodson said Aboriginal Australia is today dysfunctional as a result, with
family breakdowns endemic and drug and aclohol abuse widespread. Aboriginal
juveniles are 30 times more likely to be jailed and also suffer the
country's highest suicide rate.
"Every story is its own little tragedy, that amount to a national
tragedy," Dodson said. "They were told 'your parents are dead, your
mother's a drunk, your mother's a whore, your mother's no good, she doesn't
SEARCHING FOR IDENTITY
Archie Roach, a leading Aboriginal musician, is a Stolen Generation child
who has searched all his life for his identity.
"I don't remember much because I was only three, but I do remember running
with my cousin down to the river and hiding in the bracken and under
sticks," Roach said.
As a child Roach was sent to several white foster homes -- one family forced
him to eat raw potatoes and sleep in the grain shed. He only discovered he
was Aboriginal at 11, and at 14 his lost sister wrote him a letter saying
his mother had died.
"I don't know what my mother looks like," Roach said.
For years Roach lived on the streets searching for his (family). [REUTER]
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