オーストラリアのケヴィン・ラッド首相の対アボリジニ謝罪スピーチは感動的でした

先日の記事、「国家としての謝罪」で、先のオーストラリアの総選挙の結果成立した労働党政権のラッド首相による、先住民族アボリジニに向けた、2008年2月13日の謝罪演説について触れました。

その後、世界からの賞賛の声がたくさん聞こえてきます。逆に、「オーストラリアはアボリジニに対して良いこともした。アボリジニへの命令には狭義の強制性はなかった。ラッドはオーストラリアの恥をさらした。世界中に事実を知らせるためにワシントンポスト紙に広告を出そう」などと言う人はいないわけです。笑

私も、このラッド首相の対アボリジニ謝罪スピーチを心から讃えます。国家の過ちを公式に謝罪することの大きく前向きな意義を目の当たりにすることができて、アボリジニではない私もラッド首相に深く感謝します。声に出して読みたい英語ということでスピーチ原文を、声に出して読みたい日本語ということで日本語訳を（途中までですが）掲載します。その後、最後におまけも用意しました。

（演説の日本語訳については、「おこじょの日記」の記事、「ついにアボリジニに公式謝罪。」での演説冒頭部のおこじょさん訳をもとに、村野瀬による補足修正と演説調への書き直しを行い、それ以降の部分の訳を加えて作成中です。言葉遣いなどを変えたところには、私の好みもはいっています。おこじょさん、ありがとうございます。最後まで訳を完成させたくて作業中ですが、今回はここまで。）

2008年2月13日、オーストラリア、ラッド首相の対アボリジニ謝罪演説全文と日本語訳

＜The following is the historic formal apology given to the Aboriginal people of Australia by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on behalf of its parliament and government.＞

[ 演説原文 ]
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bfull-textb-pms-sorry-address/2008/02/12/1202760291188.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

I move:

That today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.

Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time.

That is why the Parliament is today here assembled: to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nations soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia.

Last year I made a commitment to the Australian people that if we formed the next government of the Commonwealth we would in Parliament say sorry to the stolen generations.

Today I honour that commitment.

I said we would do so early in the life of the new Parliament.
Again, today I honour that commitment by doing so at the commencement of this the 42nd parliament of the Commonwealth.

Because the time has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great commonwealth, for all Australians - those who are indigenous and those who are not - to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation.

Some have asked, Why apologise?

Let me begin to answer by telling the Parliament just a little of one person's story - an elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her 80s, full of life, full of funny stories, despite what has happened in her life's journey, a woman who has travelled a long way to be with us today, a member of the stolen generation who shared some of her story with me when
I called around to see her just a few days ago.

Nanna Nungala Fejo, as she prefers to be called, was born in the late 1920s.

She remembers her earliest childhood days living with her family and her community in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek.

She remembers the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night.

She loved the dancing. She remembers once getting into strife when, as a four-year-old girl, she insisted on dancing with the male tribal elders rather than just sitting and watching the men, as the girls were supposed to do.

But then, sometime around 1932, when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men.

Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide.

What they had not expected was that the white welfare men did not come alone. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman on horseback cracking his stockwhip.

The kids were found; they ran for their mothers, screaming, but they could not get away. They were herded and piled onto the back of the truck.

Tears flowing, her mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away to the Bungalow in Alice, all in the name of protection.

A few years later, government policy changed. Now the children would be handed over to the missions to be cared for by the churches. But which church would care for them?

The kids were simply told to line up in three lines. Nanna Fejo and her sister stood in the middle line, her older brother and cousin on her left. Those on the left were told that they had become Catholics, those in the middle Methodists and those on the right Church of England.

That is how the complex questions of post-reformation theology were resolved in the Australian outback in the 1930s. It was as crude as that.

She and her sister were sent to a Methodist mission on Goulburn Island and then Croker Island. Her Catholic brother was sent to work at a cattle station and her cousin to a Catholic mission.

Nanna Fejo's family had been broken up for a second time. She stayed at the mission until after the war, when she was allowed to leave for a prearranged job as a domestic in Darwin. She was 16. Nanna Fejo never saw her mum again.

After she left the mission, her brother let her know that her mum had died years before, a broken woman fretting for the children that had literally been ripped away from her.

I asked Nanna Fejo what she would have me say today about her story. She thought for a few moments then said that what I should say today was that ''all mothers are important''.

And she added: ''Families - keeping them together is very important. It's a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed down the generations. That's what gives you happiness.''

As I left, later on, Nanna Fejo took one of my staff aside, wanting to make sure that I was not too hard on the Aboriginal stockman who had hunted those kids down all those years ago.

The stockman had found her again decades later, this time himself to say, sorry. And remarkably, extraordinarily, she had forgiven him.


Nanna Fejo's is just one story. There are thousands, tens of thousands of them: stories of forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their mums and dads over the better part of a century.

Some of these stories are graphically told in Bringing Them Home, the report commissioned in 1995 by Prime Minister Keating and received in 1997 by Prime Minister Howard.

There is something terribly primal about these firsthand accounts. The pain is searing; it screams from the pages. The hurt, the humiliation, the degradation and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on our senses and on our most elemental humanity.

These stories cry out to be heard; they cry out for an apology.


Instead, from the nation's Parliament there has been a stony, stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade; a view that somehow we, the Parliament, should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong; a view that, instead, we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side, to leave it languishing with the
historians, the academics and the cultural warriors, as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon.

But the stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities. They are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments. But, as of today, the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end.

The nation is demanding of its political leadership to take us forward.
Decency, human decency, universal human decency, demands that the nation now step forward to right an historical wrong. That is what we are doing in this place today.

But should there still be doubts as to why we must now act, let the Parliament reflect for a moment on the following facts: that, between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30% of indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers; that, as a result, up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families; that this was the product
of the deliberate, calculated policies of the state as reflected in the explicit powers given to them under statute; that this policy was taken to such extremes by some in administrative authority that the forced extractions of children of so-called mixed lineage were seen as part of a broader policy of dealing with the problem of the Aboriginal population.

One of the most notorious examples of this approach was from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who stated: ''Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes'' - to quote the protector - ''will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white''.

The Western Australian Protector of Natives expressed not dissimilar views, expounding them at length in Canberra in 1937 at the first national conference on indigenous affairs that brought together the Commonwealth and state protectors of natives.

These are uncomfortable things to be brought out into the light. They are not pleasant. They are profoundly disturbing.

But we must acknowledge these facts if we are to deal once and for all with the argument that the policy of generic forced separation was somehow well motivated, justified by its historical context and, as a result, unworthy of any apology today.

Then we come to the argument of intergenerational responsibility, also used by some to argue against giving an apology today.

But let us remember the fact that the forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970s.

The 1970s is not exactly a point in remote antiquity. There are still serving members of this Parliament who were first elected to this place in the early 1970s.

It is well within the adult memory span of many of us.

The uncomfortable truth for us all is that the parliaments of the nation, individually and collectively, enacted statutes and delegated authority under those statutes that made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully lawful.

There is a further reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation - and that value is a fair go for all.

There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all.

There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs.

It is for these reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology - because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible.


We, the parliaments of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves.

As has been said of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well.

Therefore, for our nation, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia's history.

In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate.

In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul.

This is not, as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth - facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it.

Until we fully confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people.

It is time to reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together.

To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry.

On behalf of the Government of Australia, I am sorry.

On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry.

I offer you this apology without qualification.

We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted.

We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied.

We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments.

In making this apology, I would also like to speak personally to the members of the stolen generations and their families: to those here today, so many of you; to those listening across the nation - from Yuendumu, in the central west of the Northern Territory, to Yabara, in North Queensland, and to Pitjantjatjara in South Australia.

I know that, in offering this apology on behalf of the Government and the Parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally.

Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that.

Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing.
I ask those non-indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you.

I say to honourable members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive.

My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation, in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia.

And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.
Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot.


For us, symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history.
Today's apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs.
It is also aimed at building a bridge between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt.

Our challenge for the future is to cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives.

But the core of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.

This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous children and, within a generation,
to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between indigenous and non-indigenous in overall life expectancy.

The truth is: a business as usual approach towards indigenous Australians is not working.

Most old approaches are not working.

We need a new beginning, a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership, on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote and regional indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible,
tailored, local approaches to achieve commonly-agreed national objectives that lie at the core of our proposed new partnership; a new beginning that draws intelligently on the experiences of new policy settings across the nation.

However, unless we as a Parliament set a destination for the nation, we have no clear point to guide our policy, our programs or our purpose; we have no centralised organising principle.

Let us resolve today to begin with the little children, a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations.

Let us resolve over the next five years to have every indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper pre-literacy and pre-numeracy programs.

Let us resolve to build new educational opportunities for these little ones, year by year, step by step, following the completion of their crucial pre-school year.

Let us resolve to use this systematic approach to build future educational opportunities for indigenous children to provide proper primary and preventive health care for the same children, to begin the task of rolling back the obscenity that we find today in infant mortality rates in remote indigenous communities up to four times higher than in other
communities.

None of this will be easy. Most of it will be hard, very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear goals, clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding principles of this new partnership on closing the gap.

The mood of the nation is for reconciliation now, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on indigenous policy and politics is now very simple.

The nation is calling on us, the politicians, to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point-scoring and our mindlessly partisan politics and to elevate this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide.

Surely this is the unfulfilled spirit of the 1967 referendum. Surely, at least from this day forward, we should give it a go.

Let me take this one step further and take what some may see as a piece of political posturing and make a practical proposal to the opposition on this day, the first full sitting day of the new Parliament.

I said before the election that the nation needed a kind of war cabinet on parts of indigenous policy, because the challenges are too great and the consequences are too great to allow it all to become a political football, as it has been so often in the past.

I therefore propose a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and implement, to begin with, an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years.

It will be consistent with the Government's policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap. If this commission operates well, I then propose that it work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians, consistent with the longstanding platform commitments of my party and the pre-election position of the opposition.

This would probably be desirable in any event because, unless such a proposition were absolutely bipartisan, it would fail at a referendum. As I have said before, the time has come for new approaches to enduring problems.

Working constructively together on such defined projects would, I believe, meet with the support of the nation. It is time for fresh ideas to fashion the nation's future.

Mr Speaker, today the Parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched.

So let us seize the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection.

Let us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest
level of our beliefs, the real possibility of reconciliation writ large: reconciliation across all indigenous Australia; reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the Dreamtime a thousand generations ago and those who, like me, came across the seas only yesterday; reconciliation which opens up whole new possibilities for the future.

It is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us cultures that provide a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet.

Growing from this new respect, we see our indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that indigenous Australia faces in the future.

Let us turn this page together: indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state, and write this new chapter in our nation's story together.

First Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let's grasp this opportunity to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House.


[ 日本語訳（途中まで） ]

今日ここに、人類史上最古の継続中の文化である、この地の諸先住民族をたたえます。

我々は、過去の加害を反省いたします。

我々は特に、奪われた世代の人々に対する加害、つまり、わが国の歴史の傷ついた一章について反省いたします。

過去の過ちを正し、自信を持って未来へと進むことによって、オーストラリアの歴史の新たな一ページをめくるときが来たのです。

我々は、我々の同朋に対して深い悲しみ、苦しみ、損失を与えてきた歴代の議会や政府による数々の法や政策について謝罪いたします。

アボリジニやトレス諸島民の子どもたちを彼らの家族、共同体、故郷から引き離したことについて特に謝罪いたします。

これら奪われた世代とその子孫、残された家族の苦しみと痛みについて、我々は「申し訳ありませんでした」と申しあげます。

母たち、父たち、兄弟姉妹たちに対して、家族や共同体を壊したことについて、我々は「申し訳ありませんでした」と申しあげます。

誇り高い民族と誇り高い文化に対して加えられた侮辱と誹謗について、我々は「申し訳ありませんでした」と申しあげます。

オーストラリア議会は、この謝罪は国をいやす一環として捧げられるのであるという精神で、この謝罪が受け入れられることを謹んでこいねがいます。

未来に対して我々は勇気を出すのです。この偉大な大陸の歴史に、いまや新たな一ページを書くことができるようになったと我々は議決するのです。

今日我々は、過去を認めて、すべてのオーストラリア人を迎え入れる未来を求める権利を主張することによって、第一歩を踏み出すのです。

過去あった不正をこの議会が二度と決して起こらないようにする未来。

全オーストラリア人が、先住民であるなしにかかわらず、両者の間の平均寿命、教育達成度、経済的な機会などの差を縮めるという決意を実現する未来。

継続する問題に対して、古いやり方が失敗しても新しい解決の可能性を期待する未来。

相互に尊重しあうこと、相互に決意すること、相互の責任をとることにもとづいた未来。

どんな由来を持つオーストラリア人でも、この偉大な国オーストラリアの次の章をつくりあげてゆくにあたって、等しい機会と等しい分け前を得られる真に対等なパートナーとなれる未来。

今、それら諸国の諸民族が、もし自分たちの未来を受け入れる自信とともに前進しなければならないなら、諸国家の歴史の中で完全に自分たちの過去と和解しなければならないときが訪れているのです。

我々の国オーストラリアはそのような時に到達したのです。

それが今日ここに国会が召集された理由です。国家の未解決のこの件を解決するためです。諸国家の魂から大きな染みを除去し、真の和解の精神の中、この偉大な国オーストラリアの歴史に新たな一ページを開くためです。

昨年、私はオーストラリア国民に一つの約束をいたしました。すなわち、我々が次の連邦政府を組織したら、失われた世代に対して国会において謝罪の言葉を述べるという約束であります。

今日、私はこの約束を守ります。

確かに、本当に、時が訪れたのです。 我々の偉大な国のすべての民族、我々の偉大な連邦国家のすべての市民、先住民であってもそうでなくてもすべてのオーストラリア人が和解をすすめて我々の国家のための新しい未来を共同で築くために。

こう質問した人もいます。なぜ、謝罪するのかと。

その問いに答えるのに、ある人の物語を少し議会に語ることから始めさせてください。エレガントで弁の立つ素晴らしい80代の女性です。生命に満ち溢れ、彼女の人生にはいろいろなことがあったにもかかわらず、楽しい話をたくさん持っている人です。今日この席に出るまでに長い旅をしてきた女性です。彼女に会うためにたった数日前に電話したとき、私と彼女の物語を話してくれた、失われた世代の一人です。

彼女の好む呼び名を借りるなら、彼女、Nanna Nungala Fejoさんが生まれたのは1920年代の後半でした。

（以下略...時間があれば最後まで訳したいけど...）

それから、この演説を理解するための鍵となる一節についてコメントしたうにさんの記事にもリンクを貼っておきます。

●壊れる前に…
ケビン・ラッドの言葉を聞いて
http://eunheui.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2008/02/post_c9bc.html

なぜ謝罪が必要かという問いについて、彼はいくつかの答えを用意していたが、そのうちの二つに私はとても心を動かされた。

一つは、「自分の身に起こったらどうだったかと考えてください。そうすれば、どんなに赦すことがむずかしいか分かるでしょう」という言葉。

もう一つは、世代を超えた責任についての話で、「私たちは先達たちから多くの恵みを受け継いでいます。だから私たちは先達たちの重荷も受け継がなくてはならないのです」という言葉だ。

どちらも、当たり前のことをごく普通の言葉で表現したものだ。これらの考えが当たり前になっておらず、これらの言葉を聞くことができない国に自分が生きていることを悲しく思った。

ボーナストラック

ボーナストラックを用意しました。アボリジニへの公式謝罪を拒否していたジョン・ハワード保守党政権下の2000年に、現在のケヴィン・ラッド労働党内閣で環境・遺産・芸術大臣になった Peter Garrett ピーター・ギャレット氏が、アボリジニ問題についてのアピールを全世界に向けて行なったときの映像です。



正確に言えば、ギャレット環境相が政界入りするまで1978年以来ボーカリストとして在籍したミッドナイト・オイルというオーストラリアはじめ欧米でも人気のあったロックバンドが2000年のシドニーオリンピックの閉会式のアトラクションに登場して彼らの最大のヒット曲、"Beds are burning"（1987年の曲なんですね、これ）を演奏したときの、全世界に中継されたテレビ映像です。

バンドのメンバーが"Sorry"と白文字で書かれた黒いTシャツを着ている意味は、シドニーオリンピックから約8年がたった今日、ラッド首相のスピーチの文面を見ればよくわかります。シドニーオリンピック閉会式の文脈の中でその演出の意味を説明したページ↓を見つけました。

http://homepage2.nifty.com/wombat/temp/sokuho0010.html

この閉会式のショーは、単なるディスコパーティー風の演出と思った人がいるかもしれません。また、オーストラリアのエンターテイメントの単なる羅列の冗漫な演出と思った人もいるかもしれません。
　確かに、近年オーストラリアでヒットした音楽や、人気歌手、世界的に活躍する人々をこれでもかという感じで総動員しました。
　我々は、何故オーストラリア人がこのような演出をしたのか、その理由も考えてみる必要があると思います。
(...)
今回の開会式、閉会式の演出には、詰め込み過ぎとも言えるオーストラリアの文化が披露されましたが、その背景には、先住民を含めた民族の融合やオーストラリアの正史を開会式に描き出し、そして、自分たちのありのままの姿を閉会式にこめて、世界という大舞台に対してはじめて「オーストラリアとは何か」ということを発信したのでした。オーストラリアの歴史は、建国以来ずっと、自らのアイデンティティを探求する歴史でした。しかし、今回はじめて、内向きの問いかけではなく、外に向けてそのエネルギーが発散されたことは、とても重要なことです。
(...)
ミッドナイト・オイルのボーカルのピーター・ギャレットをはじめメンバー全員が、「sorry」と書かれたＴシャツを着ていたのに気づきましたか。
　ミッドナイト・オイルは、社会性のある硬派な歌を歌うことで有名なロックバンドです。特にピーター・ギャレットの社会問題への関わりは常に真摯で話題を呼んできました。
　今回のステージで、彼が伝えたかったメッセージは何でしょうか。
　おそらく、オーストラリアで今もっとも重要な政治問題である、アボリジニに加えられた「奪われた世代」、その他の抑圧に対して、ハワード政権が正式な謝罪を拒んでいるということを、ギャレットは浮き彫りにしたかったのでしょう。
　ミッドナイト・オイルの次のステージは、最も人気のあるアボリジニバンド、ヨス・インディでした。
　ここで観客は、アボリジニ対して向けられた「sorry」というギャレットのメッセージに気づいたことでしょう。
　オリンピックという国家的なイベントに参加しながらも、政府に対して反骨精神を忘れないギャレットのロッカー魂は、同時に、反骨の気概を重んじるオーストラリア人の美風とも言えるでしょう。

この曲、"Beds are burning"（と関連のもう一曲、"The dead heart"）についての説明はこちら↓がよさそうです。

●Heart of darkness
今週の1枚：「Diesel and Dust」
http://sawneybean.seesaa.net/article/65661179.html

ピーター・ギャレット環境大臣
http://sawneybean.seesaa.net/article/70465619.html


歌詞の一部も訳しておきましょう。

Beds are burning

ミッドナイト・オイル

(...)
正しいことは正しいと言う時が来た
借りを返すときが来た
われわれの取り分を払うときが来た

事実は事実だと認めるときが来た
これは彼らのものなのだから
返してやろうじゃないか

われわれの地球が回っているとき、踊ってはいられない
われわれの寝床が燃えている間、眠ってはいられない
(...)

晴れがましいシドニーオリンピックの閉会式で、このヒット曲を自国オーストラリアの人気ロックバンドが全世界に向けて謝罪の意思を堂々と掲げて誇らしく演奏する姿を、謝罪拒否派の当時のハワード首相はどんなに苦々しい思いで見ていたかを想像してみましょう。（爆）とはいえ、「こんな自虐史観を歌う反豪バンドは出演させるな」とオリンピック委員会に圧力をかけることはしなかったと想像します。笑

ピーター・ギャレットとミッドナイト・オイルのそれぞれのオフィシャルサイトにもリンクしておきます。上で訳した歌詞原文はそのサイトからとりました。

●Peter Garrett　ピーター・ギャレット　オフィシャルサイト
http://www.petergarrett.com.au/

●Midnight Oil　ミッドナイト・オイル　オフィシャルサイト
http://www.midnightoil.com/

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自公チュー政治に有権者、納税者からの「ノー」を！

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人気blogランキング（政治部門）参加中。当秘書課広報室を応援してくださる方は、一日一度クリックお願いです。
ゼノフォビアブログに囲まれながらも、ペガサスや白鳥のように高く飛翔したいと願って、浮游するお玉の上で「そもそもどーなの？」とさるのつぶやきを続け、右も左もなくアブナイばらんすとりながら、天木直人さんや保坂展人さんの憂国の思いを激励しようと世界愛人主義同盟秘書は書いてます。気分はときどきSaudadeでも、晴耕雨読の生活の中、伊達と酔狂で革命を語り、生活の中で感じた疑問や思いをあれこれ土佐高知の雑記帳に書き、負けずに現政権に「ノー」を言えば、気分はgoodになるかもしれません。灰色のベンチから広島瀬戸内まで人気ブログランキング政治部門に平和的共生と立憲主義の風を入れましょう(^_^)/

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当ブログは国会議員やマスメディアに意見を届けるためのお手伝いもしております。下記をご自由にご活用ください。引用や転載や転送も歓迎します。

マスメディア・官庁・国会議員への電話・投書先のポータルページ
News for the people in Japan
マス・メディア 問い合わせ用　リンク集
http://www.news-pj.net/link/media.html

村野瀬玲奈の秘書課広報室に備え付けの資料
各種国会議員名簿のポータルページ
http://muranoserena.blog91.fc2.com/blog-entry-86.html

官庁への意見送付先について
http://muranoserena.blog91.fc2.com/blog-entry-51.html

新聞（全国紙、地方紙）、雑誌　読者の意見を伝える窓口（まだ整理しきれていませんが）
http://muranoserena.blog91.fc2.com/blog-entry-49.html

テレビ報道番組のご意見窓口リスト（「わんばらんす」さんからの転載）
http://muranoserena.blog91.fc2.com/blog-entry-50.html