Just Say Sorry

[joffa corfe]

Did not want this to get lost in other topics.
Jill Singer wrote an excellent article in Mondays paper, I will quote parts of her story.
Sorry. It costs nothing to say, but can have remarkable healing benefits for those who hear it and those who say it.
Australia is about to end a shameful period of her history with the official apology to Aborigines planned for February 13.

Critics of the apology are doing our country no service with their objections.
John Howard didn't want to say sorry. Fair enough he's gone but what is he replaced with ?
Brendan Nelson is such a dill he cant decide what he will do, saying he has to seek precise wording before he can make up his mind.
Why ? Is he going to spit his grubby dummy if he spots the S-word ?
If the liberals didn't know it when they elected him as leader, they should know now that Brendan Nelson is a weak stand for nothing liability.

BUT OF COURSE THE ANTI SORRY MOB DOES STAND FOR SOMETHING: A MEAN SPIRIT.

Although i personally believe a compensation scheme is well overdue, the palnned apology is not about compensation, it's about a powerful symbolic gesture recognising that harm was done, and is regretted.

But even this sticks in the collective craw of those who cant bear the thought of the Aborigines being given anything, not even a kind word.

Talk about stingy, they come up with all sorts of objections, the most common being ' im not personally sorry. Many point to hardships by non indigenous Australians and ask, where's their apology ?
WHINE WHINE WHINE I BET THEIR FAVOURITE SONG IS THE WHINGERS ANTHEM..' WHAT ABOUT ME IT ISN'T FAIR.

Never far from the surface is the belief that Aborigines are inherrently inferior and undeserving of compassion.

These whining white supremacists seem to think white Australia did Aborigines a favour by putting their children into institutions in readiness for unpaid work as white peoples maids and farmhands.

One white middle aged man wrote to the Daily Telegraphs website explaining that he's not sorry about Aborigines because his parents were also poor but unlike most Aboriginal parents, they weren't drunkards and didn't abuse him or his siblings.
The obvious sub text is that you dont apologise to someone you feel contempt for.

A reader wanted to know why Aborigines seem such chronic losers. Surely, it's their own fault ?

For a nation that prides itself on being lucky and the best place in the world to live, we sure have some miserable bullies in our midst
What's their excuse ?

[EBB]

I
am SORRY
that a white supremacy government
invaded Australia and savagely beat / murdered and manipulated
the AB-original caretakers of this so called
multi-cultural lucky country.

[bazdaddy]

Disapointed that it happened to them, I personally am not sorry as I did nothing to contribute.

[member34258]

I wonder if the racist party that masquerades as the coalition can give bi-partison support for this.
bazdaddy, you should have watched "Who do you think you are" on SBS last Sunday. The story of Catherine Freeman would blow you away.
Imagine having to ask permission from a white man to visit relatives at Christmas. And being refused! In the 60's mind you.

[Joel]

I'm not sorry for anything.

In today's context, things were done back then that were bad. One thing I think people forget is that this didn't just happen to aboriginals. English kids were taken in their thousands and brought out to Australia. It is unfair that it occured, but I have no personal reason to say sorry.

The government can say sorry, because I'm sick of this continuing on. Let's just get on with it, and heal the rifts.

[joffa corfe]

I will be in Canberra the day our Government apologises, for no other reason than to be there as this historic moment occurs.
I will be in the vicinity of Parliament house i dont expect to be allowed to be inside, When the apology has been handed down i come back to Melbourne.
Will be something i get to tell my two boys as maybe one of them moments in time that shaped this country!

[HAL]

I think so.

[Proud Pies]

[Alec. J. Hidell]

[Piethagoras' Theorem]

I'm not afraid to say sorry, even if I had nothing to with it. How hard could it possibly be? It's not going to hurt you and if it goes some way towards healing the rift between the Aboriginals and White Australians, wtf is holding you back? Pride? Admission of guilt? Get over it.

Sorry.

Is it so &%^%&%^& hard?

[Alec. J. Hidell]

[sherrife]

[John Wren]

sorry. what am i apologising for? did i read correctly that there are up to 50 conditions attached to the sorry. i thought apologies are unconditional or is this a carey type apology?

[David]

[John Wren]