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Résumé du document

Facts and changes from the rapport « Bringing Them Home » in 1997 to the discourse of Kevin Rudd

The Stolen Generation is the name used for the aboriginal children who was removed from their families by the Australian and State government agencies and church missions, under various acts of their respective parliaments until around 1969. These children were placed in orphanage or similar institution.
Estimation said that at least 100 000 children were removed to their families.

This situation persists until in the years 1970. On this date, the Aboriginals are still perceived like citizens of second class. In 1992, the Australian High court of justice declares the concept of “terra nullius” (“ground empties”) invalid: the Aboriginals are consequently declared the first inhabitants of the country-continent.

Extraits

[...] Finally submissions were received, which included 535 Indigenous individual and group submissions from church and 7 by government. The report made 54 recommendations. The most important was : funding be made available to Indigenous agencies to allow Indigenous people affected by the forcible removal policies to record their history; reparations be made to people forcibly removed from their families, and that the van Boven principles guide the reparation measures; Australian Parliaments offer official apologies and officially acknowledge the responsibility of their predecessors for the laws, policies and practices of forcible removal. [...]

[...] In 1998, the National Sorry Day is organised. More than one million of people take parts of public events in the aim of formulate the sadness and the regret of the Australian population, and to promote a process of national reconciliation. John howard: a policy of regrets John Howard was the prime minister from 1996 and November 2007. He formed liberal a government, and always refused to present excuse from the government to the aborigines community. On Thursday 26 August 1999 the Ex-Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, moved a Motion of Reconciliation, which included an expression of "deep and sincere regret that indigenous Australians suffered injustices under the practices of past generations, and for the hurt and trauma that many indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices”. [...]

[...] During the past few years, the demands of official excuse were a point of discordance between the conservative government of John Howard and the indigenous community. It was the 13th of February 2008 that the countries made a huge progress in his history. The new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, presented official apologies from the federal state to the people of the Stolen Generation. I will try to retrace the history of the Stolen Generation, from the Aboriginal Protection Act to the both major changes: the report Bringing them Home, and the recent discourse of Kevin Rudd. [...]

[...] Indeed, it was right on the report that there were probably some removals which were voluntary. There were many reasons to that, like the sickness, poverty, living arrangement It appears also evident in the report, that some aboriginal parents voluntary released their children in the hope that they could have a better life, not in the poverty, with a better education. But, in most of case, this removal was not wanted by the parents. Children were brutally and forcibly removed, possibly even from the hospital, shortly after their birth. [...]

[...] An other reaction is came after these apologies. Indeed, words are not enough, and now, the aborigines as the rest of the population, wait for action from the government. Nobody knows the next plan of the government about the reconciliation; term used in Australia for evocated the appeasement of relation between aborigines and the white population. This argument is taking by all the press, for example we can read in the Canberra Times: “Down the track the Rudd Government may get some credit for finally saying sorry but it will be judged by what it has done, rather than what it has said.”[5] or again in The Herald Sun: “SYMBOLIC gestures hold an important place in all cultures. [...]