By formally accepting that the Aboriginal communities were wronged through actions of previous governments which, for a centruy to 1970, took mixed-race Aboriginal children from their families and put them as wards of the state in dormitories or industrial schools, claiming it was protecting them, the Rudd government has responded to a long running sore that tore at the fabric of Australia's image as a modern, democratic nation. In his statement, the Prime Minister said,

To the mothers and fathers, to the brothers and sisters we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation on a proud people and a proud culture we say sorry.

As a result of the policy, "stolen" children lost contact with their families and heritage, received poor education, lived in harsh conditions, and often endured abuse.

But the apology is only the first and public face of what is a long campaign to address deep running issues of neglect and abuse. It is important now that steps are made to incorporate the Aborigines into the economic and social heart of the Australian nation.  There are great disparity between the lives of the Indigenous people and the generation of immigrants into Australia on several measures.

Their life expectancy is around 20 years lower than that of other Australians - and this gap has recently increased from 20.6 to 20.7 years for men and 18.8 to 19.6 for women. For men, this represents a lower life expectancy than that in Papua New Guinea, Burma, or Cambodia. For women, it is the same as sub-Saharan Africa, with HIV-AIDS factored out. Infant mortality rates are 2.5 times that of the rest of Australia, with the rate in the Northern Territory, where there are large Indigenous populations, four times the national average.

The number of babies of low birth weight is double the non-Aboriginal average and actually increased in the late 1990s. The figure is higher than those for Ethiopia, Senegal, Mexico and Indonesia. The unemployment rate for Aborigines is about three times higher than that of the non-Aboriginal population. Aborigines are 16 times more likely to be imprisoned than the rest of the population and, since 1999, have made up 20% of the national prison population (a rise of 6% since 1991). They are half as likely to have completed basic schooling and only about 40% of them are employed. Aboriginal households earn, on average,  about $200 less per week than non-Aboriginal households. They are also 5.5 times more likely to suffer domestic violence, 3.4 times more likely to suffer assault, 2.8 times more likely to suffer sexual assault, and 2.5 times more likely to be murdered. Paints a grim picture does it not? Well, here is the clincher, all this in the country which the UNDP's Human Development Index ranks 3^rd out of all the countries in the world.

It is not that previous Australian governments have ignored these populations. The greater problem has been a raft of disastrous policies and the cultivation of mindsets that have led to mistakes being compounded and to the exacerbation of an already bad situation. The traditional, and perhaps the easiest, line has been the attempt to make a parent of the state, instituting welfare quick fixes that may have been important as a social safety net, but which also perpetuated the view among Australians that the nation owed them, and that they would receive something in compensation for the lands they lost to the non-indigenous Australians. This expectation and grievance culture has worked against the best interests of the Aboriginal peoples. A lack of ownership of development projects and public assets has led to education being shunned as foreign and public assets suffering defacement and even arson. 

The solution, as with other communities around the world that lag behind on social and economic indicators, will have to involve not just state and private effort, but also a communal undertaking from the Indigenous peoples to shift to more assertive and independent social and economic paradigms. The creation of a united nation in which divergent cultures are brought together for a common goal demands the presence of opportunity for the pursuit of economic gain, and the benefit of the whole from the inter-dependence of its parts. As in Kenya's less wealthy areas, both the Australian state and its private sector will have to invest in the outlying areas, creating opportunities there for employment and at the same time taking advantage of such markets as these populations provide.  On the part of the Indigenous people, and for the citizens of Kenya's poorer regions, and those from regions that see themselves as dominated by others, introspection is called for; a self-examination that looks at societal causes for their diminished position and that continuously seeks such opportunities as are available for communal improvement is necessary.

For the economic and social problems that afflict the Aboriginal people of Australia have, in addition to decades of mistreatment, cultural explanations, some of which have to do with the psychological consequences of living in a state of de facto exclusion, and the enduring narrative of incapability fostered by handout solutions from various governments. These are fortified by the sense that the system is so stacked against the marginalised, that their efforts are in vain, depressing both enterprise and the fellow-feeling necessary for nationhood.

Measures - from within and without - must be taken to counter these perceptions, to ensure collaboration in policy and planning, and participation in implementation, so to promote ownership. Measures to provide increased access to the empowering effects of private enterprise must also be on the agenda. The invocation of the spirit of entrepreneurialism at the grassroots level, along with the promotion of partnerships with other Australians along the lines of South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment will serve to transfer to the Aboriginal people's and the people of the regions of Kenya that feel themselves aggrieved and left behind a sense that they too have a stake in a successful and prosperous nation. In Australia and in Kenya, the hope is that, with time, this transfer of skills and confidence will serve to diminish the grievances of the past and promote the sentiment that they belong, that they are integral to the national experiment and are valued citizens.

The first step in Australia was this bold apology. Should the Kikuyu, seen as dominating other Kenyan ethnicities to their detriment, apologise too?