They're arriving soon, those crotchety aunts who look under beds, sniff inside cupboards and just can't bear to keep a couple of cockroaches or hair balls to themselves. Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron made the blunder when he submitted to a Senate committee a report that debunked as myth the stolen generation, the term used for the legions of Aboriginal children taken from their parents and placed in white foster care and institutions from 1910 to '70. Outrage was immediate and widespread, especially among a minority for whom the stolen generation stands as a symbol of so many thefts and so much pain since the arrival of whites in the late 1700s.
Reconciliation is finished now.
We are not going to lie down like a mongrel dog so people can come along and kick us. We are going to start biting. Aboriginal people will rise up and show the world how racist Australia is. It remains to be seen how effective Aborigines might be at trashing Australia's house during the Olympics, especially since the country's greatest hope for gold in track and field, 400-meter world champion Cathy Freeman, an Aborigine, voiced her view two months ago that politics should be left out of the Games. But recent events have hardened resolve to shame the Games with marches and the opening of a shadow embassy in Sydney to expose world media and VIPs to poverty-devastated indigenous communities and to statistics showing that Aborigines earn half as much and live an average of 20 years less than other Aussies.