The "Stolen Generation", the Catholic Church, and C. S. Lewis

[Atreyu]

If you’re not familiar with the term “Stolen Generation”, then you can read up on it here, but please keep in mind all the usual disclaimers that must be used when linking to Wikipedia pages.

Anyway, for the sake of this thread, what’s important to know is that:

1. 
   *]There were a large number of Aboriginal and so-called “half-caste” children removed from their parents over the past century.
   *]The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to great (immense, really) popular approval, apologised for these removals in Parliament earlier this year.
   *]A big supporter of this apology was the Catholic Church - although not as a whole - including in particular my own parish, and the priest I am closest to.
   
   This whole apology seemed so wrong to me, but I wasn’t completely sure why. I know that I don’t think that people are guilty of the sins of their ancestors (although they may suffer the consequences of that sin). But I couldn’t get past the argument of “At least, the apology can’t hurt!” And then I came across the following
   

   (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_sorry_danger/) on Andrew Bolt’s website (Bolt is an important figure in the debates surrounding the Stolen Generation, as you can see from following the Wikipedia link):

   Dangers of National Repentance

   … men fail so often to repent their real sins that the occasional repentance of an imaginary sin might appear almost desirable. But what actually happens (I have watched it happening) to the youthful national penitent is a little more complicated than that. England is not a natural agent, but a civil society. When we speak of England’s actions we mean the actions of the British government. The young man who is called upon to repent of England’s foreign policy is really being called upon to repent the acts of his neighbor; for a foreign secretary or a cabinet minister is certainly a neighbor. And repentance presupposes condemnation. The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing - but, first, of denouncing - the conduct of others. If it were clear to the young that this is what he is doing, no doubt he would remember the law of charity.

   Unfortunately the very terms in which national repentance is recommended to him conceal its true nature. By a dangerous figure of speech, he calls the government not “they” but “we.” And since, as penitents, we are not encouraged to be charitable to our own sins, nor to give ourselves the benefit of any doubt, a government which is called “we” is ipso facto placed beyond the sphere of charity or even of justice. You can say anything you please about it. You can indulge in the popular vice of detraction without restraint, and yet feel all the time that you are practicing contrition. A group of such young penitents will say, “Let us repent our national sins”; what they mean is, “Let us attribute to our neighbor (even our Christian neighbor) in the cabinet, whenever we disagree with him, every abominable motive that Satan can suggest to our fancy.”

 

[Atreyu]

I really feel that the Catholic Church in Australia must listen to Lewis in this instance. He knows from experience the dangers of this “national repentance” - and we are seeing disastrous effects already from this. The Aboriginal Australians live in terrible conditions, and the simple fact is that many of the children need to be removed from their parents. However, they are not taken from fear of being accused of “stealing”.

Is it strange that my favourite Catholic apologist of the 20th Century is not even Catholic?

 

[Oz_Girl]

I do not agree that they need to be removed from their families I think want needs to happen is that the government and Australia need to spend time and money to improve the situation so that real changes can be made and everyone lives can be improved. But really that is just MHO

 

[Linda_Marie]

The government has spent years and years and billions and billions of dollars to try to improve the lot of Aboriginals. Throwing money at the problem has been tried.

Not taking these children from their families has resulted in an entire generation of both boys and girls being sexually abused from very young ages. One of these children, a girl of 11 in the NT, was given a birth control implant to prevent her getting pregnant. They knew she was being repeatedly gang-raped and all they did was implant a birth control device. The social services department admitted that it was because of the Stolen Generation that they left her there. Now, they can’t find her.

This is widespread, across all of Australia in the Aboriginal communities. The incidence of sexually-transmitted diseases is very high in Aboriginal communities and even 3 and 4 year old girls are being diagnosed with STD’s. They still do nothing to protect them because of the Stolen Generation.

Leaving them in these situations is abuse. Turning a blind eye to it because they are Aboriginal is abuse. They are as entitled to protection from abuse as any other Australian children, no matter their skin colour.

I work at an Aboriginal school. (Tuition and boarding fees of $24K per student per year are paid by ABSTUDY) Many of our boarding kids are among those who have been abused by the Elders of their communities. They wouldn’t talk about it, but they never wanted to go home during the school holidays. Now we know why. They would dearly love to stay at the school the whole year and never go back to their families or communities. But, we can’t keep them, we have to send them home.

ATSIC was implemented in 1989 and it was meant to improve the living conditions for Aboriginals across Australia. After billions and billions of dollars being provided to them and letting them decide how the money was to be spent, they still live in a squalor and poverty that should be unheard of in a First World country. It isn’t through lack of time and money.

The current situation is appalling and unacceptable. It is made worse by the politically correct brigade who refuse to help these children for fear of being labelled politically incorrect. There should not be separate rules for Aboriginal children, leaving them to be abused, beaten, neglected, or starved because of a misguided ideology.

All the campaigning and politicising of this issue by the Stolen Generation has made life very bad for the children in the communities today. They need to shoulder responsibility for the political climate that is perpetuating abuse of Aboriginal children and for the idea that Aboriginal children are best left in Aboriginal communities, no matter what abuse they receive even if they are being repeatedly pack-raped.

 

[strngrnrth]

Why is there so much abuse, and why don’t the kids have somewhere to go, like a community-based shelter? Do the abusers have too much power in their communities?

 

[deb1]

Why is there so much abuse, and why don’t the kids have somewhere to go, like a community-based shelter? Do the abusers have too much power in their communities?

I had never heard of this before. What kind of culture do the aborigines have that allow child abuse? What did they do with the money that the government gave them?

 

[Contarini]

If you’re not familiar with the term “Stolen Generation”, then you can read up on it here, but please keep in mind all the usual disclaimers that must be used when linking to Wikipedia pages.

Anyway, for the sake of this thread, what’s important to know is that:

1. 
   *]There were a large number of Aboriginal and so-called “half-caste” children removed from their parents over the past century.
   *]The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to great (immense, really) popular approval, apologised for these removals in Parliament earlier this year.
   *]A big supporter of this apology was the Catholic Church - although not as a whole - including in particular my own parish, and the priest I am closest to.
   This whole apology seemed so wrong to me, but I wasn’t completely sure why. I know that I don’t think that people are guilty of the sins of their ancestors (although they may suffer the consequences of that sin). But I couldn’t get past the argument of “At least, the apology can’t hurt!” And then I came across the following
   

   (“http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_sorry_danger/”) on Andrew Bolt’s website (Bolt is an important figure in the debates surrounding the Stolen Generation, as you can see from following the Wikipedia link):

   I don’t think the parallel applies. Lewis was criticizing the self-righteous habit of repenting on behalf of one’s nation for actions that one disapproves of–using “repentance” as a form of denunciation. (That being said, one can still find the prophets doing this–Jeremiah most notably. But I think Lewis is right that it’s a dangerous thing to do if you are not actually a prophet.) For a government to apologize for things that the nation has done in the past is quite different, because in a collective, communal sense it is the same “entity” apologizing that did the wrong in the first place.
   
   It seems to me that the root of the problem is that the Aborigines (like the native populations in North America) have been forced to live in a manner not consistent with their culture. There is probably no way they can live under current conditions that is not radically dysfunctional.
   
   Obviously, not being an Australian, I have limited rights to speak on this subject. (My father is an Australian citizen, but his opinions differ radically from mine!) I did spend six months in Australia as a child, and visited an Aboriginal reservation (and also stayed in the home of an Aboriginal Methodist pastor). But I was only 5-6 at the time, so I don’t claim to base profound social analysis on this. All I remember about the reservation is that it was dusty and fairly squalid and people lived in trailers. And there was a girl some years older than myself named Edwina, which stuck in my memory for reasons that are obvious below!
   
   Edwin

 

[Atreyu]

I don’t think the parallel applies. Lewis was criticizing the self-righteous habit of repenting on behalf of one’s nation for actions that one disapproves of–using “repentance” as a form of denunciation.

I disagree, I think Lewis’s point is very subtly - but importantly - different to how you have stated it. In your statement, the object of the “national repentance” is the denunciation of others. I think that Lewis is saying that the object is simply repentance on a national scale. He then claims that the natural consequences of this is the denunciation of others. Does that make sense?

…

For a government to apologize for things that the nation has done in the past is quite different, because in a collective, communal sense it is the same “entity” apologizing that did the wrong in the first place.

Assuming of course that the government is at fault for what happened in the past.

It seems to me that the root of the problem is that the Aborigines (like the native populations in North America) have been forced to live in a manner not consistent with their culture. There is probably no way they can live under current conditions that is not radically dysfunctional.

I think it is useless to try to figure out what the root cause of the problem is. Instead, we need to try and figure out what to do about the situation. The fact is that alcohol and drug abuse, child abuse, and other very big problems are rife among the aboriginal populations. Throwing money, land and free housing at them has not solved the problem: they spend the money on booze, they live in tiny villages where there isn’t even a prospect of a job, and they vandalise their public housing until they are unliveable.

As for the “national repentance”, the danger in it is that the missionaries and social workers of the early 20th century are being completely demonised. These are the people who are being “denounced”, along with the Government of the times who supported their actions. But the thing is that these measures used actually worked! They did not solve the problem, but the previous few generations of aboriginals were in a better situation than the current.

For me I can’t figure out just why this “national repentance” has been so popular. I think Lewis has handed me the answer: that the national repentance is filling the hole that is left by not repenting of one’s own sins.

 

[strngrnrth]

My idea od national repentance is that we live (USA) in a wonderful experiment in liberty and openness – built on the skeletons of uncountable native people. To glorify our country implies acceptance of how we got it. But that was horrific and unacceptable. Can we wash our hands of that horror and evil without giving up the ideal of freedom we are trying to exemplify, or is the history of our land a silent unmoving witness that the American Dream was never more than hypocrisy? So we acknowledge what happened, acknowledge that to identify with the settlers is to identify with those who died in terrible moral debt, and express sorrow that it happened. It’s all we can do. It’s not really much.

 

[deb1]

My idea od national repentance is that we live (USA) in a wonderful experiment in liberty and openness – built on the skeletons of uncountable native people. To glorify our country implies acceptance of how we got it. But that was horrific and unacceptable. Can we wash our hands of that horror and evil without giving up the ideal of freedom we are trying to exemplify, or is the history of our land a silent unmoving witness that the American Dream was never more than hypocrisy? So we acknowledge what happened, acknowledge that to identify with the settlers is to identify with those who died in terrible moral debt, and express sorrow that it happened. It’s all we can do. It’s not really much.

The more history that I read the more I discover that there are very few races, or nationalities that have not committed horrible acts against their fellow humans.

 

[Linda_Marie]

For me I can’t figure out just why this “national repentance” has been so popular. I think Lewis has handed me the answer: that the national repentance is filling the hole that is left by not repenting of one’s own sins.

I think, that less than filling that hole, it is just covering it over. They are trying to fill it, but unless they repent of their own sins, that won’t happen. It is easier for people to point the finger at someone else and say sorry for someone else’s perceived sins than to acknowledge their own. Having pointed out the sin, and said sorry, they now feel good about themselves again. Unfortunately, since it wasn’t their sin, the sorry has no weight and deep down inside, they know that. The void is still there, it is just covered over. ‘They’ will find another cause to be sorry about when this wears off rather than face their own sinfulness.