It was the speech that launched a hundred thousand blogs.
It was also interesting to observe it at work, in a custom-built new government facility. A big shiny new building, it was fascinating to stand outside the staff room (two on each of the nine floors, one on each wing with a glass chute separating; no doubt designed to symbolise government aspirations such as egalite and transparency) and look up and down the chute at the crammed staff rooms, people watching the occasion.
And whether it was merely a case of ‘birds to a feather’ watching at my work, or something indicative of a wider sentiment, there was real feeling in the PM's address. A strong moment, if not quite an epochal one. It was a speech that a nation’s been crying out for.
Yesterday's parliamentary apology by Kevin Rudd feels like the latest step in a reconciliation movement that began flowing in 1988 (bicentenary of European settlement), to gestures like the solidarity “sorry” marches in 2002, the 2000 Olympics (with a stealthy “sorry” from Midnight Oil) and inquiries such as the Bringing Them Home (‘Stolen Generation’) report. It’s been swelling steadily since.
For the past 11 years, we’ve had to live in a time that was not our own; a time manufactured under rose-tinted glasses by a retrograde government. Some of us grew to own that time (and I speak here of my generation; older generations have a greater entitlement to live out the values of their time). I salute them, as I would a rustic landscape oil painting - a picture frozen in quaint nostalgia. But neither their time, nor their mind, is mine. I could digress and express some aspects of this mindset a little more polemically, but I’ll distil my views for another blog. Stay posted.
Without swamping you readers in philosophical arguments regarding time, a selective view of history can only lead to partial progress - the past denied cannot be confronted in the present and resolved in the future. The previous government’s refusal to admit its forebears may have been wrong in endorsing old policies ( and thereby legitimising those very policies through their silence) was symptomatic of its stifling nostalgia for a simpler time. The ultimate example - the final act of wresting State and Territorial control of indigenous people into federal government hands in 2007 - smacks of a ‘stolen generation’ repeat.
This bipartisan apologia should bring hope to people who really do care about a positive future for Australia. It has for me (something of a first). Hopefully, this speech can open up a million future dialogues - not least the one that is so important for us all - that of the past with the present, mapping the future. The first step in a new road ahead.
HSL
....ok, next time I’ll blog about t*ts and @ss. I swear.
