Mini Op-Ed: "13 February 2008"

Not many people, especially those who lived outside of Australia, are truly aware of the Stolen Generation, much less the gravity of this genocide.

In 2000, when I was reading my undergraduate degree in Melbourne, the capital city of the Australian state of Victoria, I was one of the many international students who could not understand what had happened to the a group of Australians called the "Stolen Generation". Understandably, Australia's private education system had not prepared this important piece of education for us. We were bringing in the money - we were not to be pissed off.

I did not think much about the Stolen Generation until the beginning of 2008, when the Australians were about to get a new Prime Minister. The incumbent, Mr Kevin Rudd, of the Australian Labour Party, promised to make a national apology to the Indigenous Australians as his priority. When he took office, he kept his promise - almost immediately.

On 13 February 2008, at 9:00am ACT time, Mr Rudd took his seat in the House of Representatives in the Parliament building. After the prayers, he stood up and said what most Australians, especially the Indigenous Australians, had waited to hear for decades from the previous Governments.

This was what Mr Rudd said.

I have been following this news closely because I felt that having been living in Australia for two years previously, there is still something that I do not quite understand about the Stolen Generation. In the end, I realised that I did not know all the journalistic questions - who, what, when, where, why, how? Writing the second assignment on this topic, which I have long abandoned in my mind since leaving Australia in 2002, has forced me to exlore those unanswered questions and research on the subject matter.

When Mr Kevin Rudd first expressed his interest to contest for the position of Prime Minister, he said the first thing he was going to do was to apologise to the Stolen Generation. All of a sudden, this topic came back to me and I was wondering if it would ever happen. Australians have waited so long for it that the longer they waited, the further and the more out of reach it seems. But true enough, as soon as Mr Rudd took office, he fulfilled his promise and kept his wordn to his people.

I have read his apology speech many times, and watched the video a few times, and I think the speech was very well-written. What I felt was good about the speech was that it was written in such a humble tone in simple English, that the young Australians including the children, would be able to understand this very important speech on that very important 13 February. The speech morphed a little into a story-telling style when Mr Rudd told the story of the Nanna. For the first time, I read with so much emotions that my eyes were damp when I finished. I think Australians finally have a closure.

The most important lesson in this historic day is like what an adult would tell a kid: "When you make a mistake, say sorry like you mean it - and the whole idea of saying sorry is to promise not to repeat the mistake". We can be quite certain that in today's modernity, such act would be deplored and never happen again, but the next struggle remains - can Australians truly accept Indigenous countrymen like white Australians? Is the apology a guarantee of a change of every mindset that exists in Australia?

I think not.