Congratulations Julie on being prepared to tackle a subject so far from home. Best wishes.

You will have to forgive us our runner, he is possibly a little distressed as some of his brethren are languishing in a Haiti jail for trying to add to the 'stolen' generations.

Right-winger do-gooders can be quite problematic and mix a little Christianity of the fundamentalist kind and suddenly those black and white blinkers lead to all kinds of evils being done in the name of the Lord. Having said that left-wing do-gooders can be just as bad.

As to reconciliation. For starters I think you would find most Australians felt that it has been something well overdue and despite the very welcome apology by the federal government to our 'stolen generations' it is still very much unfinished business.

The waters have been muddied a little here with notions of practical vs symbolic reconciliation. To me practical reconciliation is a fancy name for justice but others may disagree. That justice needs to be delivered for any symbolic reconciliation to be complete is obvious.

I think there is a sense that some of the blockages have been removed and progress is being made but we are far from achieving true and lasting reconciliation.

Jule,

After that excellent mentoring by George all I can add is be sure to follow his advice.

Welcome, it will be a very big thread.
Every time we talk about it it has been.
If you go to all past threads you will find a whole history of this subject.
You will see racism, denial, attempts to judge todays Australia and its people by yesterdays Australia and its people.
Find Kevin Rudd's sorry speech he gave, look at the lost one our then leader of the federal opposition gave, understand the difference.
Look too at your country's history, in say our near neighbor, what ever its latest foreign invader calls western new Guinea.
Then watch your thread develop, you will find it interesting.
Some will tell you I am racist, yet my concern is while I openly cry do , even now at the Rudd speech, or include Keitings Redfern speech in your search that one.
I know deeply both sides MUST DO MORE.
I think stolen generation has become a dirt word, YES we took kids, from whites too, YES it was wrong.
But increasing numbers of people who were not there are claiming wrongly we did it out of pure spite.
SOME DID, but some would never have continued to live without that intervention.
People who CLAIM to want to help know not one single person of the Aboriginal race.
EVERY DAY of my life every single day, I am confronted with a poorly educated person in trouble, who unknowingly, innocently, knowing no better is acting as racist as any KKK member, blaming others for self inflicted wounds.
Reconciliation is a seed, it has been planted many times in this country, and failed to get the roots growing.
This time? if our only action is to continue to throw money at it it will fail.
IF both sides say enough, it will flower.
But your thread will be intense it will out grow most others insults will fly, if todays Australia is guilty of anything it has to be said it is ALL Australians who sit at the table for that humble pie not just whites, I doubt we need bake that pie.

There's good information, references and diverse views already so far in this thread so I think you did a good thing by coming to Online Opinions.

In addition to the information already put forth, my own comment as a third / fourth generation Australian of Irish / Scots / English ancestry (married to a lovely lady born in Germany by the way) and hiving LIVED for periods in excess of 12 months IN Far North and Western Australian Aboriginial communities - is that much progress has been made but true reconcilliation has not and never will get properly off the ground until it is divorced from the notion of RACE and examined and dealt with in terms of PREJUDICE - which yes in certain instances involved race, but also allows a broader context to be taken - ie. as others have touched on: the similar treatment applied to other ethnic groups - INCLUDING WHITES by the very same establishment that "stole" Aboriginal children.

There's a scab trying to form but the sore festers too much underneath for healing yet...

Sorry Day I totally ignored.... - if it had been the National Day Of SORROW - I would have been on the streets with I suspect pretty much the whole population of this Nation. My point being that Sorry Day was / is an instrument of RACISM whereas Sorrow allows all of us to acknowledge the wrongs of PREJUDICE - past, present and into the future.

Hi Jule,
While many of the stories about young children being forcefully taken from their Aboriginal families all those years ago were truly awful, I believe that some good did come out of the somewhat misguided policy of the Government of the day.

No doubt, there were many young 'half-caste' children who were not wanted in their Mother's community because they were 'different' to the other children. Often they had lighter coloured skin and hair to their relatives. Sometimes they were mistreated because of this.

Many of their white fathers wanted nothing to do with them either, so they were stuck between two cultures.

Mostly, these were the children the Government wanted removed from their Aboriginal communities. Unfortunately, the authorities also removed many much loved and wanted children too. This has left generations of people who did not know their own people or culture, leaving a deep sadness for all concerned.

However, many of the children removed from their families were placed in private homes or children's homes where they received a very good education. These children then grew up to move into positions in society where they could help their Aboriginal families and the Aboriginal people as a whole.

Many of today's Aboriginal leaders, including lawyers or judges or medical staff, were either part of the original stolen generation or were the descendants of them. Some good has come out of the sadness.

Hey!
First of all thanks for all of your answers. I did not expect so many answers.
Now some more information: I cannont change my topic or the title, as it is fixed now.
@george: im not pretty sure wether I understood it rightly what you have said about the two versions: I planned to write about how the politic tries to say sorry and what they do and on the other hand how social organisations try to say teh same; for example kimberley station, so I wanted to find a balance view and evaluate the whole situation critically and then I would compare it maybe to how it is done in other countries. I hope it is balanced and not too muc on one side? But i did not understand in which way my title is more PC??Could you please explain it to me once more? Thanks
@individual: Could you tell me what the Council Amalgamation is just doing in the moment to create a chaos?
@ Spinner: I did not quite understand why you critisized the Sorry Day? Is it the title, or the way it is "celebrated"?

Then: Does anyone of you, how this topic is taught at (Australian) school and how aware the public is about it? So for example museums, projects, ec. I did not learn anything about it at school,neither in history nor in English,(I did not learn anything about the Historikenstreit either) we just did very little on australia, but more in gerneral, that is why I would like to write about it.My friend, who was at another school, had learnt something about it and so I wuld like to know the contrats of how many of it is taught in germany in comparison to how it is done in Australia. Do you kno anything about it, special projets, etc?