Born On A Cusp

If you can, get your hands on a copy of the 2002 film, Rabbit-Proof Fence. The movie tells the true story of three young Aboriginal girls of mixed parentage who defied Australia’s policy — carried out for over half a century from the early 1900s — of abducting such children from their parents and relocating them far away.

The girls — 14, 10, and eight — created history in 1931 by fleeing the settlement and walking a 1,500-mile-journey back home. Over three months, the girls walked through field, forest, and desert, with much of their journey back home to the Outback guided by a rabbit-proof fence that cuts across the country from north to south.

I saw this movie at the time of its release, and the vivid images have to this day remained in my head.

I was reminded of it after reading today’s news about the Australian government’s forthcoming apology to the Aboriginal people, aimed at the “Stolen Generations” — those forcibly taken from their families in what was Australia’s programme to assimilate the aboriginal children into white communities.

Australia’s Indigenous Affairs Minister said the apology would be the first item in the legislature’s agenda when it convenes on February 13. It is “the first, necessary step to move forward from the past,” the minister was quoted to have said.

The policy of “legalised kidnapping” — lasting from 1905 to 1971 — is said to have been inspired by the government’s belief that it was ‘rescuing’ the children from their life of illiteracy and poverty. Once in the camps, the children were forbidden to speak their native language and were indoctrinated into the religion and customs of the dominant white culture. Eventually they were integrated into the general population as domestic servants and farm labourers.

Get the movie. It will move you without being overly dramatic. It will remind you of the resilience of the human spirit.

(Photograph from australiansinfilm.org)