"Between knowing and not knowing": public knowledge of the stolen generations.

Following the publication of the Bringing Them Home report in 1997, the Stolen Generations has emerged as one of the most emotional and hotly debated public issues in contemporary Australia. Personal stories of removal and loss have been recounted across the country like a tragic chorus and Australians have been exhorted to join in a national process of ‘remembering’ as a symbolic way of sharing in the pain, acknowledging past wrongs and signalling ‘hope for a different and renewed future’.3 However, few Australians seem to have any memories of these past events to recollect. ‘I’m sorry I just didn’t know’, sobbed a woman at the 1997 National Adoption Conference in Perth. Her cry was echoed around the country. Historian Inga Clendinnen, speaking of policies of Aboriginal child removal in her Boyer Lectures 1999 True Stories, claimed ‘As for the rest of us — I didn’t know anything about the policy’.4