Eight months on, still sorry

14 October 2008

Day of atonement

a blip in empty space, a wilderness that held us in awe, a paradise to steal from the 'noble savage' so we poisoned their waterholes, used their women, took the 'half-caste' away, worked them for rations, their outreached hand yearned for understanding with their tales writ on the land, painted on canvas with symbols alien to our eyes, so we sent the anthropologists and musicologists to the bush to find the translation, then we harvested their art designs for a profit, ignoring their meaning ... we gathered the smoke of the gum leaves onto our faces, usurping their ritual blessing with hardened hearts, and still we turned our heads away, biding our time, their stories of pain falling on deaf ears, but behind the façade was a cry from the depths that rang in our ears, disturbed our restful slumber, left us no peace until we turned around, and listened ... some of us struggled to retrace our steps and remember where we stumbled whilst in the throes of founding a nation, where in the groove of history we could pick ourselves up, and begin to set things right, and so it was, in Canberra, alongside screens from across the globe, where many eyes focused on this fateful day to witness a new national leader seize the first opportunity to begin his regime with one word offered to those who were hardly a blip in empty space, and bound to be bred out and consigned to oblivion! on this day, our peace offering began with one word that reverberated from beyond the grave to the living. what past, what present, what future could be conceived with a simple acknowledgement that realises, that to trample on our first people's rights would sow the seeds of our own destruction, for they are at the core of our collective soul — theirs was the gift of oneness with the land; oneness with the Spirit. with one word that creates a ray of hope, that respects their sacred presence in our midst, we say,

—'SORRY!'—

oh what a mighty word this has become to begin Australia's healing; their song lines now await our spiritual re-birth.

Deborah Ruiz Wall is the author of Reconciliation, Love and Other Poems (Women's Reconciliation Network, Sydney, 2006) and a former board member of the NSW Reconciliation Council.

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ARTS AND CULTURE

Eight months on, still sorry

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