Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

Comparable experience suggests that satisfaction should go beyond a singleinstance of acknowledgment and apology. Victims should be appropriatelycommemorated (Correa 1992 page 1478). The Inquiry received a number ofsubmissions as to forms of commemoration.Public tribute must be paid to the survivors, and those who have not survived the policies andpractices of separation. Public recognition of the ongoing courage and determination ofAboriginal people to resist the genocidal policies of separation is essential. Commemorationcan and should take place at different levels. Nationally, there should be a ‘Sorry Day’commemorating Aboriginal survival of the holocaust which is accorded the same recognitionas ANZAC day. On a local level, communities may wish to establish commemorative places,or have a ‘Welcome Home Day’ (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186).Other proposals concerning forms of commemoration include establishing educationcentres, naming of streets, endowing scholarships, memorial services andmonuments (see also van Boven 1992 page 15). Commentators have observed thatcommemoration is important not only for victims but also for the society as a whole.Commemorations can fill the vacuum with creative responses and may help heal the rupturenot only internally but also the rupture the victimization created between the survivors andtheir society. It is a shared context, shared mourning, shared memory. The memory ispreserved; the nation has transformed it into part of its consciousness. The nation shares thehorrible pain (Danieli 1992 page 210).CommemorationRecommendation 7a: That the Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderCommission, in consultation with the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation,arrange for a national ‘Sorry Day’ to be celebrated each year to commemorate thehistory of forcible removals and its effects.Recommendation 7b: That the Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderCommission, in consultation with the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, seekproposals for further commemorating the individuals, families and communitiesaffected by forcible removal at the local and regional levels. That proposals beimplemented when a widespread consensus within the Indigenous community hasbeen reached.Guarantees against repetitionUN Special Rapporteur van Boven identified a need for guarantees to prevent anyrepetition of the gross violations of human rights. Appropriate measures must beimplemented to ensure that Indigenous families and communities in Australia neveragain suffer the forcible removal of their children simply because of their race.Governments and responsible agencies are encouraged to consider sympatheticallyand respond to proposals submitted by Indigenous organisations, communities andindividuals with a view to the prevention of repetition.Teaching the history of the removal policies to all school students was widelysupported in submissions to the Inquiry. The importance of a wider public educationcampaign was emphasised, as was the need for professionals working withIndigenous children and families to develop a complete understanding of the history