Sorry for this post. Yes, truly. Well, I'm not sorry that it's taking me away from the boring housework I could be doing 'round Mean Manor at the moment, but I am sorry that I started with such a lame opening, not because you have to read it, y'see, but because it makes me seem lame. Not that I'm not lame, but not that I am. And for that I'm truly sorry.
When it comes to saying sorry to the Aborigines, I went and did a search on exactly what people thought we should be saying sorry for. The official consensus was because of the Stolen Generation scandal, though the Sorry Song that's being taught around schools, one editorial seemed to discuss "all the wrongs perpetrated by white society" on the Aborigines. And some people seemed to think it was just because Aborigines had a rougher time than everyone else, and they didn't before colonisation.
Maybe that's because before colonisation there wasn't an "everyone else". There also wasn't petrol to sniff, but that's another matter.
I'm not so sure about this sorry stuff. I'm not sure what it will achieve anyway, although I'm not one of those people who can't say sorry. Just recently Mr Mean made reference to not being satisfied with the state of his floor and I started yelling out, "OK so I'm SORRY! SORRY I sometimes spill a couple of grains of salt SOOOOOOOOORY! For the three-hundred and forty-eighth time this week Mr Picky Pants! Get a Life. Sorry-Sorry-Sorry! Does that make you feel good, sorry-Sorry, Sorry I didn't hear you answer that, sorry! Whoops, three more grains dropped to the floor! Sorry! I'm not perfect!"
I can say sorry a lot with no problem. But from experience I don't think it does much good. I can tell you from the Mean Manor Report.
And if we're saying sorry for the Stolen Generation, or wrongs done by whites, or the effects of colonisastions, are we going to get groups lobbying like this:
"Sorry to the Aborigines, but only the stolen ones, and maybe their families, from the Government, and the people who voted for them. So if your Aboriginal child was stolen and you voted for the Government, you're apologising ... to yourself."
"Sorry, from the whites. Them immigrants don't have to say sorry. Oh, that's not because we don't think they haven't learnt English yet. (snigger) So much more integrating to do. One small step starts here ..."
"Only a sorry from them's old enough to remember when the Stolen Generation was around. Young ones off the hook ... as always."
"Sorry from the ones who colonised Australia to the Aborigines who were here when those guys came here in 1788. Hey, where are you guys? We take all the trouble to set up a special reconciliation ceremony and none of the parties show! That's what people are like these days. I guess we'll have to arrange for a card to be sent, and a bottle of red wine."
Friday, 3 August 2007
Who, Why, says Sorry?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
There's a lovely bit in Michelle Magorian's "Back Home" where Rusty says "Sorry" and then says "Sorry" for saying "Sorry". She says she only said Sorry the first time because her mother said she was grounded unless she said "Sorry".
So she apologised, but she didn't mean it, she only did it to get out of being grounded.
Then she said "Sorry" for saying "Sorry" because she lied - she didn't really feel sorry!
That could be an amusing blotch in Aussie history, because is the Australian Government really Sorry? Just say the official statement is:
Day 1:
"We apologise to the Aborigines."
Day 2:
"We apologise for yesterday apologising to the Aborigines. We were insincere. We actually don't feel sorry about anything we did, we just gave in to pressure. We lied. We're terribly sorry for falsely giving you the impression that we actually feel sorry for the acts perpetrated against you. We're not."
Post a Comment