Hard to say sorry?
When we watched the short clip of the Massacre of Amritsar today and read about David Cameron’s reaction to it in 2013, it reminded me of the Stolen Generation in Australia.
In the time of the 19th and 20th century in Australia, children were taken away from their Aboriginal families and communities. There were child removal policies which allowed the children to be “stolen” from their families. By doing this, the government strived for a “white” Australia. The children were given new names and had to go to religious boarding schools to learn English and to learn to live a “white” life. If you want to know under which circumstances they had to live, I highly recommend the film Rabbit-Proof Fence from 2002 (which is based on the Novel Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence).
When Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister in 2007, he promised a national apology to the so-called “Stolen Generation”. He indeed gave an apology speech to them in which he apologised for several things the Australian government did (see the link to his speech below).
Even if this part of the Australian history is different to how the British behaved in relation to the Massacre of Amritsar, the Australian government said sorry. I know that saying sorry can’t neither bring back the people who died nor can it make up for what happened. However, the gesture of apologising still counts in my opinion.
The question, whether Cameron should have apologised or not, is difficult. I can understand the reasons he gives for his behaviour (I’m referring to the article on today’s handout). And I also understand that the UK has done much worse things in the past. Yet, I expected Cameron to apologise, especially when he visited India and the memorial of the massacre, while being the first British Prime Minister who went there.
http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/sorry-day-stolen-generations
