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Articles on Reconciliation

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South Africa is slowly transforming the retributive Western criminal justice system it inherited from colonial times to incorporate African principles of reconciliation and reparation. shutterstock

Why South Africa’s tentative moves toward restorative justice need support

The emergence of the restorative justice philosophy responds to the need to change South Africa’s retributive criminal justice system to accommodate African legal practices.
While Adam Goodes is the public face of the debate, almost any Indigenous Australian can speak of the day-by-day experience of a lack of respect for who they are. AAP/Paul Miller

White Australia needs to take responsibility for reconciliation too

For at least some Australians, it seems that Indigenous culture is acceptable only as an object of consumption for tourists visiting the remote north.
Australia’s Bumala-y Yuurrama-y seems to be accepted only when confined to matches between Indigenous players, yet all New Zealanders feel able to embrace the Haka. AAP/David Crosling

We all know and admire the Haka … so why not one of our own?

While AFL player Adam Goodes polarised Australians by performing an Indigenous war dance, New Zealanders unite in celebration of the Haka. The difference in approach to Indigenous culture is telling.
While plans to close ‘unsustainable remote communities’ have triggered recent protests, at the heart of the issue is the nature of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. AAP/Richard Iskov

Who decides? A question at the heart of meaningful reconciliation

Decisions being made from on high about the fate of remote Indigenous communities are symptomatic of a continuing imbalance in the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Andrew Bovell’s adaptation of Kate Grenville’s The Secret River is a key example of post-Apology theatre. AAP Image/Heidrun Löhr

Beyond Sorry: colonial oppression on Australian stages

It’s been seven years since Kevin Rudd delivered his apology to Indigenous Australians. On Australia’s stages dramatists continue to explore the ramifications of that apology and colonial history.
The breastplate given to ‘U. Robert King of the Big River and Big Leather Tribes’ by an unknown settler at Goonal station. Photo Dragi Markovic, National Museum of Australia

A breastplate reveals the story of an Australian frontier massacre

The flood of coverage of the centenary of Gallipoli and the first world war profoundly shapes the way we think of Australia’s history; but we suppress other violent events in our own country that also…
Non-Indigenous Australians should say sorry because they feel sympathy for the plight of the Stolen Generations, not because it was their fault. butupa

‘Sorry’ isn’t the hardest word, so say it for the Stolen Generations

As we are about to mark the 14th National Sorry Day and the fourth since the National Apology was delivered by former prime minister Kevin Rudd, I can’t help but wonder if much has changed since the days…

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