The State of “Sorry”: Official Apologies and their Absence

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Notes

1. See, for example, Nobles (2008)—discussed in detail below—as well as Smith (2008) and Oliner (2008). Janna Thompson refers to an epidemic of apology in a slightly earlier work, whose focus is more broadly on efforts to respond to historical injustices (Thompson 1992).

2. In the former case, the refusal is more extreme than in the latter; the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge that any genocide occurred. Such acknowledgement (i.e., that a genocide against the Armenian people did occur and that the Turkish government is culpable for it) is a necessary condition for apology, since, among other tasks, apologies perform a narrative function: They identify the story of wrongdoing as such. See my discussion of Austin on p. [376] for further discussion. In the US example, no one will deny that slavery occurred, but few are willing to accept a level of responsibility that would entail financial liability or reparations.

3. The texts of the apology and the report are both available online. See Rudd (2008) and “Bringing Them Home” (1997).

4. Or, on the other hand, the decision may also reveal the exceptionalism with which North American academics continue to approach the phenomenon of the War on Terror, in general. The two essays on the topic do not convince me that the War on Terror resists the kind of analysis offered for other forms of internal state or international apologies, or that it is the only phenomenon to transcend the boundaries between the two.

5. Nicholas Tavuchis originally provided a standard typology of apologies: distinguishing between interpersonal or One-to-One apologies, and One-to-Many, Many-to-One, and Many-to-Many (Tavuchis, 1991: 48). Melissa Nobles distinguishes between apologies offered by: (1) heads of state and government officials, (2) governments, (3) religious institutions, (4) organized groups and individual citizens, (5) nongovernmental organizations and institutions, and (6) private institutions (Nobles 2008: 4).

6. This point is taken from personal correspondence with Cels regarding her ongoing research. For more information on her work in progress, see Cels (2010).

7. Admittedly, the mechanics of edited volumes rarely allow for extensive coordination between individual contributors. Thus I take these inconsistencies to be understandable, even expected, given the current state of the literature, and not indicative of particular editorial failings. But the wider lack of engagement between individual theorists is lamentable.

8. As one contributor to The Age of Apology notes, apologies may look like—and mean—very different things in different parts of the world (Alison Dundes Renteln, “Apologies: A Cross-Cultural Analysis”). Another contributor, Elizabeth Dahl, draws out ways in which practices of giving and receiving apologies are gendered as well as culturally situated apologize (Elizabeth Dahl, “Is Japan Facing Its Past? The Case of Japan and its Neighbors”).

9. For example, in Canada, there are still issues arising from the gendered nature of registered Indian status. According to the Indian Act, an Indian woman who married a white man would lose her Indian status, as would her children, even if she remained on the reservation (the same was not true for an Indian man who married a white woman). This was not changed until Bill C-31 in 1985, and its consequences are still being felt by the now-adult children of indigenous women and non-indigenous men, today. In fact, a bill to rectify the differential treatment of indigenous women and indigenous men was introduced by the Canadian government on March 11, 2010. If passed, this bill would effectively render a further 45,000 Canadians eligible for Indian Status. See “New Law to Extend Indian Status to Thousands” (2010).

10. Many official statements of regret, or indeed, reconciliation, will stop short of responsibility and thus apology, in order to avoid incurring financial liability. See Macduff (2009).

11. Stewart, Jane, Honourable, Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, “Statement of Reconciliation on behalf of Canada's Government to Canada's Aboriginal Peoples,” January 7, 1998.

12. The contrast I emphasize between the 1998 and 2008 statements should not be read as an unqualified endorsement of the latter as a good apology. Indeed, there remain serious points of concern in the wording of the 2008 apology and the policies surrounding it. Nevertheless, as far as determining what qualifies as an official apology (imperfect or otherwise) goes, this example is fairly unambiguous, as indicated in the following sentence: “Therefore, on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this Chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to Aboriginal peoples for Canada's role in the Indian Residential Schools system.” PM Harper goes on to say, “[T]he Government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly” (Harper 2008). www.fns.bc.ca/pdf/TextofApology.pdf (Accessed March 18, 2009).

13. I have argued elsewhere that our approach to understanding practices of moral repair such as forgiveness and apology should be plural and particularistic, focusing in part on how individual instances are understood and interpreted by those involved (MacLachlan 2009).

14. See Griswold (2007), Norlock (2009), and MacLachlan (2009).