viewpoint

While Indians were pillorying the Australians for their obnoxious behaviour on and off the cricket field, the Australian Prime Minister had the guts to say sorry to the “Lost Generation”. This was a great moment in Australian history, particularly more so when his immediate predecessor had openly refused to apologise.

Generations of original Australian aborigines had been subjected to the white man’s burden, as Rudyard Kipling would have us believe, of civilising the differently coloured. This exercise of culturing people has imposed unimaginable harm on at least three to four generations of parents and children.

In this context, “Closing the Circle” by Lotte Mjoberg, Reader’s Digest, July 2007 is a moving story of the Swedish author who discovers that her forefathers were robbers of Australian aborigines’ graves. She narrates the tale of apologising to the affected families in a highly emotional account.

Another article I would like readers to refer to is “The Aboriginal Butterfly” by Liza Bejoy, published in the Hindu dated 16 March 2008. The author compares the attempt by the whites who had reached Australia only in 1778, to tamper with the million years old aboriginal way of living to the harm that a person may do to a butterfly by helping it come out of its cocoon. This the author says results in an ugly and handicapped butterfly. Readers can access this article by clicking the following hyperlink:

http://www.hindu.com/op/2008/03/16/stories/2008031650021400.htm