Australia's apology

Here is the text of Kevin Rudd's apology to the indigenous peoples of Australia. Among other things he said:

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 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.

Rudd's predecessor, John Howard, had refused to make an apology, holding that present-day Australians weren't to blame for the injustices of the past. This is true, but as I've argued before, communities have a collective existence and persons of a later generation can perfectly feasibly apologize for past misdeeds of the collective - there is nothing either metaphysical or inappropriate in this. In the piece here Noel Pearson, Aboriginal lawyer and activist, expresses the concern that Rudd's apology might foster a 'politics of victimhood'. Pearson says:

We lose power when we adopt this psychology. Whatever moral power we might gain over white Australia from presenting ourselves as victims, we lose in ourselves.

My worry is this apology will sanction a view of history that cements a detrimental psychology of victimhood, rather than a stronger one of defiance, survival and agency.

But surely Rudd's apology can just as much discourage as encourage a politics of victimhood, by the very recognition it involves; and the absence of an apology vice versa. (Thanks: JN.)