Rudd's apology: are mere words enough?
It was all in the applause. It rang around Parliament House in Canberra and around big TV screens across the country in response to a 330-word apology to Australia's maligned indigenous population from the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, for past policies which encouraged one of the most dedicated and concerted acts of state-sponsored bigotry conducted in the last century. What happens next will be the true test of Australia's national maturity.
For now an important battle has been won. In the distance between the words and the five-minute standing ovations a possible template for a country scarred by racism and in need of healing and forgiveness is assembled. Yet, as that applause faded, the silence offered many questions about the next phase of the reconciliation process.
At the core of the process is forgiveness. This refers to the capacity of the Aboriginal people to forgive the culture of non-indigenous Australia. While few Aborigines would seek to shame and make claims on this generation of non-indigenous Australians for the acts of the past, many agree that Australia would not be the country it is today without them.
The use of Aboriginal workers as virtual bonded labour was a foundation stone of Australia's vast pastoral economy. Assimilation policies, including the theft of some tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families - the so-called Stolen Generations - to enforce upon them the rudiments of western culture, has underpinned Australia's racial hierarchy.
Emerging from this question is the issue of compensation. For years, the previous government of John Howard cadged at offering an apology, in some part because of the vexed legal question of the right to compensation that may be deemed to exist in its wake.
The issue is complicated by various matters, including a recent court ruling in South Australia, which saw a member of the Stolen Generation receive some A$775,000 (HK$5.5 million) as compensation for being forcibly taken from his family by authorities in the 1950s.
Aboriginal commentator Noel Pearson has called for financial compensation, arguing there can be no sincere apology if it comes with the intention to block any consideration of compensation.
Such compensation need not be about repaying a debt of guilt but simply about righting a wrong and taking responsibility for past actions.
This formalisation of our shared responsibility leads to a second level of forgiveness among Australians. Australia's often fraught relations with its indigenous peoples have planted the seeds of bigotry, misunderstanding and hatred to the detriment of all Australians.
For the Rudd apology to reach beyond the applause, the waves of forgiveness must begin. For many Aborigines, that might be aided by financial compensation or at the very least a willingness to consider compensation. For others, it may allow us to see our country in a different way: to see we can make a better society here and can cast off the toxic burden of past policies.
James Rose is a former adviser to the Australian Democrats political party
