Good Intentions

I had intended to write a long post about joining the crowds on the lawns of Parliament House for last week's National Apology to the Stolen Generations. But my evenings have been the victims of Mr M's disrupted sleep patterns. Some nights, bedtime is pushed back because he has succumbed to an afternoon sleep. Other nights, like tonight, bedtime is pushed back because he has developed a range of strategies to avoid closing his eyes. They include choosing at least six bedtime stories; asking for stories to be told after the light is turned out (Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a current favourite); organising four Wiggles dolls and Buzz and Woody so they can sleep on the bed too; changing beds (it's easier to look out the window from my bed); deciding he simply has to get out of bed, go outside and look at the moon and the stars; getting up to check on whatever it is Daddy is doing; asking for Daddy to lie down with us on the bed; asking for the ukelele to play him to sleep.

Now, a week after the event, my thoughts and comments seem a bit superfluous. So much has already been written and said and I still haven't managed to get my photos (which aren't great but give you a general idea) off the camera. Maybe tomorrow. I've decided that I really can't surpass Stephanie Trigg's summary of the day on Humanities Researcher. She might have experienced the Apology from Melbourne but it sounds as if her experience of the day was very close to mine in Canberra. And Ampersand Duck has some great photos of her experience of the day. There were so many ways to experience the day. Vicki's class was one of many that stopped lessons to watch the live broadcast. She wrote:

It was amazing to watch it with children who were so in tune to what it
was all about. The discussions after were so heart felt. One boy
broke down later on he was so relieved.

This image that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald has become one of my favourites from the day. It was taken by Andrew Taylor. It demonstrates that the day heralded the beginning of reconciliation on a number of levels. What do you think they all talked about as they sat in a row waiting for the Parliamentary Sitting to commence? What a pity Mr Howard wasn't able or didn't feel able to join them.

The day has given me a lot to think about. The importance of saying 'sorry' to enable other changes to take place. The terrible, often dishonest ways in which children were taken from their families. The way governments and churches and individuals let those children down, promising a better life but leaving a significant number of them to suffer mistreatment, neglect and abuse. But two issues have dominated my mind. The first is leadership. It seems to me at this moment (I'm reserving the right to change my mind) that Mr Howard's approach to leadership was very parental. He knew what was best for the country and heaven help anyone who tried to disagree. Perhaps it was the kind of leadership we needed for a while, only time will tell. Mr Rudd, in contrast, seems to understand the importance of the symbolic gesture, of the possibility that leadership offers to encourage people to do better and be better than they thought possible. It is uplifting - and that was the mood of the day.

The other issue that I've been wrestling with came, I think, out of Dr Nelson's speech. I'll have to check Hansard but he said something along the lines of good intentions having unintended consequences. If ever there is a lesson we should learn from the experience of the Stolen Generation, this is it. Whatever the intentions behind the policy of removal, the consequences for many were ghastly. Perhaps we should give all government policy an 'unintended consequences' test. What will be the unintended consequences of the current Intervention in the Northern Territory? What will be the unintended consequences of the war in Iraq?

We ended this momentous week with another short trip to the coast. Mr M finally made it back into the sea - although it took three days of playing near the rockpools, playing in the rockpools and filling castle moats with sea water to get him there. The weather was exquisite, the sea was a beautiful turquoise and we saw three dolphins chasing waves across the bay.