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National Sorry Day. Acknowledgement, Unity, Commitment
'The Sorry Day Committee invites the whole Australian community to join in a Journey of Healing,
which will be launched on 26th May 1999. For more information, click here.'
A 'Sorry Day' will be held on 26th May 1998, exactly a year after the tabling in
Federal Parliament of the report of the National Inquiry into the removal of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.
The report, Bringing Them Home, revealed the extent of forced removal, which went on for
150 years into the early 1970s; its consequences in terms of broken families, shattered
physical and mental health, loss of language, culture and connection to traditional land,
loss of parenting skills; and the enormous distress of many of its victims today.
This largely unknown history has stirred intense concern. Bringing Them Home has
sold more copies than any comparable report. The Government, in its response, has
acknowledged the harm caused by the policy and has made proposals to address some of the
recommendations.
The report recommended that a Sorry Day be held - a day when all Australians can express
their sorrow for the whole tragic episode, and celebrate the beginning of a new
understanding. Many of the 'stolen generations' told the Inquiry that they would value
this. Unlike the widespread Aboriginal use of the term 'sorry business' to denote death,
they see a Sorry Day as a means of restoring hope to people in despair.
The National Stolen Generation Working Group has therefore invited non-Indigenous people
to join them in a national Sorry Day planning committee. They welcome the wider Australian
community to remember and commemorate those affected by removal, so that the nation can
continue the process of healing together. Indigenous people will participate in a Day
dedicated to the memory of loved ones who never came home, or who are still finding their
way home.
Many non-Indigenous Australians, having learnt the history of forced removal, wish to
apologise for the practice; and State Parliaments, churches and organisations have done so
in recent months. This has been greatly appreciated; because apology means understanding,
a willingness to enter into the suffering, a commitment to help overcome its debilitating
effects.
Sorry Day will be an important step on the road which all Australians are 'walking
together'. It can help restore the dignity stripped from those affected by removal; and it
offers those who carried out the policy - and their successors - a chance to move beyond
denial and guilt. It could shape a far more creative partnership between Indigenous and
non-Indigenous
Australians, with immense benefit to both.
