Howard's apology to Indigenous Australia contained a lot of words, but excluded the one word everybody was asking for - "sorry".
You know what it's like. You've done something really rotten, and you really want to say sorry, but everybody is looking at you. So you build up to it, but then everybody is telling you to say it, and your face goes red, and even if you say it now it's not going to look genuine... So then you tell everybody to get stuffed instead.
I'm not a fan of Howard's at all. His policies on Indigenous peoples in Australia have had a terrible impact that I think will never be truly understood until it is examined by future historians. I think this will be remembered as a shameful period of Australia's history.
But still, I really felt for Howard when he stood up there in front of a jeering crowd of people booing him and ordering him to say sorry. Anyone who has been through that would understand. Still, he managed to get out the following words, the poor bugger:
"It has been a long journey and I know it has been difficult and I know there have been areas of disagreement and it is naïve of any of us to pretend that some do not remain. But let all of us try this weekend, and for my part I pledge that I will in what I say, is to focus on those things that unite us and bind us together as Australians in the cause of healing the wounds and the divisions of the past and of moving forward in a united and harmonious fashion."
It's a nice sentiment, but it's a shame the way his "focus on those things that unite and bind us together as Australians" always tends to translate into assimilationist policy. Those "things" always seem to be Anglo things, never part of the true common ground between us.
