Fed: Apology to Aborigines is not enough: Germaine Greer

AAP General News (Australia)
08-14-2008
Fed: Apology to Aborigines is not enough: Germaine Greer

CANBERRA, Aug 14 AAP - The recent federal government apology to the stolen generation
does not go nearly far enough, provocative intellectual Germaine Greer says.

Years of ill treatment had been eating away at Aboriginal communities and threatened
their future, she told ABC Television last night.

"We're only on the edge of what we've done to these people, we have ripped away everything,
language, culture, land, self esteem," she said.

"You name any of the things that make you a human being and they have all been stripped away."

Professor Greer said she feared that it was already too late for many Aboriginal communities,
criticising the federal government's intervention in the Northern Territory.

She called for a treaty with Aboriginal Australia, and also suggested holding a conference
to explore how the rage within Aboriginal communities could be addressed.

White Australia had put Aborigines in "concentration camps", she said.

"In my worst moments I think that we might be way too late.

"They have been jerked from pillar to post ... they've ended up in one concentration
camp after another."

Professor Greer has penned an essay called On Rage which claims anger at systematic
ill treatment is eating away at Aboriginal communities and must be addressed.

"The rage is poisoning everyone," she said.

"It probably means annihilation of black communities, but there are some people who
will say to you that they are pretty well annihilated already."

AAP ca/cmc/ldj

KEYWORD: INDIGENOUS GREER

2008 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.