http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91489003

A resolution making its way through Congress offers an apology to all Native peoples on behalf of the United States. It passed the Senate as an amendment to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The legislation comes after Australian and Canadian governments have both apologized to their native populations in recent years. Melissa Block talks to the measure’s sponsor, Sen. Sam Brownback.

Loading mentions Retweet

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=580574

Prime Minister, Chief Justice, members of the House, elders, survivors, Canadians, for our parents, our grandparents, great grandparents, indeed for all of the generations which have preceded us, this day testifies to nothing less than the achievement of the impossible.

This morning our elders held a condolence ceremony for those who never heard an apology, never received compensation, yet courageously fought assimilation so that we could witness this day.

Together we remember and honour them for it was they who suffered the most as they witnessed generation after generation of their children taken from their families’ love and guidance.

For the generations that will follow us, we bear witness today in this House that our survival as First Nations peoples in this land is affirmed forever.

Therefore, the significance of this day is not just about what has been but, equally important, what is to come.

Never again will this House consider us the Indian problem just for being who we are.

We heard the Government of Canada take full responsibility for this dreadful chapter in our shared history.

We heard the prime minister declare that this will never happen again. Finally, we heard Canada say it is sorry.

Brave survivors, through the telling of their painful stories, have stripped white supremacy of its authority and legitimacy.

The irresistibility of speaking truth to power is real. Today is not the result of a political game. Instead, it is something that shows the righteousness and importance of our struggle. We know we have many difficult issues to handle.

There are many fights still to be fought. What happened today signifies a new dawn in the relationship between us and the rest of Canada. We are and always have been an indispensable part of the Canadian identity.

Our peoples, our history and our present being are the essence of Canada. The attempts to erase our identities hurt us deeply but it also hurt all Canadians and impoverished the character of this nation.

We must not falter in our duty now. Emboldened by this spectacle of history, it is possible to end our racial nightmare together. The memories of residential schools sometimes cut like merciless knives at our souls.

This day will help us to put that pain behind us.

But it signifies something even more important: a respectful and, therefore, liberating relationship between us and the rest of Canada. Together we can achieve the greatness our country deserves. The apology today is founded upon, more than anything else, the recognition that we all own our own lives and destinies, the only true foundation for a society where peoples can flourish.

We must now capture a new spirit and vision to meet the challenges of the future. As a great statesman once said, we are all part of one “garment of destiny”. The differences between us are not blood or colour and “the ties that bind us are deeper than those that separate us”.

The “common road of hope” will bring us to reconciliation more than any words, laws or legal claims ever could. We still have to struggle, but now we are in this together.

I reach out to all Canadians today in this spirit of reconciliation.

Meegwetch.

Loading mentions Retweet

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/441626

Some cried quietly, others bowed their heads, closed their eyes or rose to applaud as Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to Canada’s aboriginals today for the suffering caused by residential schools. Whatever the reaction, there was no doubt the thousands of natives who gathered in meeting halls, former school sites and on Parliament Hill listened intently as Harper asked for forgiveness after admitting on live television that the government-funded, church-run schools “caused great harm.”

Loading mentions Retweet

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=580606

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper made his historic apology to the former students of the residential school system, ears were trained to hear the subtext behind the carefully written speech. Matthew Coutts of the National Post asked experts to offer their opinions on what Mr. Harper said and didn’t say. The panel included: Allan Bonner, of Allan Bonner Communications Management Inc., an image and crisis management consultant who has counselled several premiers and cabinet ministers; Michael Dorland, a professor of journalism and communications at Carleton University; and, Jeff Ansell, of Jeff Ansell and Associates Inc. Communications Consultants, a former journalist and an Associate of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program “Dealing with an Angry Public.”

Loading mentions Retweet

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/world/americas/12canada.html?ref=world

OTTAWA — The government of Canada formally apologized on Wednesday to Native Canadians for forcing about 150,000 native children into government-financed residential schools where many suffered physical and sexual abuse.

Loading mentions Retweet

Canada apologizes

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made a historic apology on behalf of the Canadian government for native residential schools and its decades-long policy of forced assimilation.

“Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country,” Mr. Harper said.

“The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language.”

Loading mentions Retweet

Sorry day - honour the stolen generation (Australian Indigenous)

(via pierre pouliquin)

Random visit Or my pics on darckr

Sorry day 2008, some links below for more information about sorry day and the reconciliation week.

www.nsdc.org.au/
www.reconciliation.org.au/i-cms.isp
www.acn.net.au/articles/sorry/

For those interested, but lacking context, local knowledge (mine being still poor), I reproduce here an (obviously imperfect) answer I gave to the question “what is sorry day”:

sorry day is…kind of the population saying sorry to the indigenous people for the pain they inflict(ed) to them (the relationship between both populations is complex, but can by many aspects be considered as a genocide), and all Australian, indigenous and non indigenous coming together to heal and try to built a better future together, respecting each other (in my words).
Some aspects of this: life expectancy of indigenous people is 19 years lower than the rest of the population (similar to some of the poorest countries in the world, while Australia is the richest, per capita, mostly thanks to exploitation of primary (indigenous) resources, mines…), indigenous people are highly over represented in jails…and even more highly represented in death in custody; up to the 70’ (when the official policy of “white Australia” has been revoked), many many indigenous people (many so called “half cast”) have been separated from their parents (very young children being taken away, by force, to be placed in “institutions” or foster (white) families). Those are called the stolen generation (the “bringing them home report” mentioned below is about those people).

From the site above:
www.nsdc.org.au/index.php?option=com_easyfaq& task=cat…
“What is Sorry Day?
The Bringing Them Home report received immense media coverage. It has sold far more copies than any comparable report, and has stirred many to think about their own experience of Aboriginal people. Why were the Aboriginals in the back row of the classroom so silent, and kept to themselves? Why is a quarter of our jail population Aboriginal, when they make up 2% of the population? Many began to understand aspects of our past which had passed them by, and wanted to express their pain. Over half a million people signed Sorry Books, and the messages are deeply moving.

A Sorry Day was launched. On 26 May 1988, Australians of all ethnicities came together in thousands of events in cities, towns and rural centres across the country, to express their sorrow, and offer their apologies, for the harm done to Aboriginal people. Schools, churches, local councils, organised events at which Sorry Books were handed to Indigenous leaders. In Melbourne thousands attended a service at the Anglican Cathedral, then walked to the City Hall, where the Lord Mayor handed the keys of the city to representatives of the stolen generations. In Queensland, every prison held a minute’s silence.” 

Loading mentions Retweet