We Brits are widely regarded as obsessive apologisers. Supposedly the average English person says sorry at least eight times every day. We have the sympathetic expression of regret, as in ‘Ooh! I’m so sorry, that must have hurt!’ when having seen someone fall over. The interrogative, ‘Sorry, but can you tell me where…’ The passive/aggressive, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to say…’ And a current favourite of our politicians, the non-apology, ‘I’m sorry if some people think…’ Then there’s the historic apology, particularly for the excesses of Imperialism. Slavery.
The Emergency in Kenya. Bloody Sunday. Jallianwala Bagh. The Bengal Famine. Suddenly we’re in an area where the British become very picky about what we will and won’t say sorry for and uncharacteristically careful with our words: ‘An expression of profound regret falling short of a full apology?’ Strangely nuanced for a people happy to say sorry for poor weather or random misfortune.
But does an apology for the actions of people long dead, in a context that had already disappeared before we were born, even mean anything anyway? Clearly, to some people it does, but to me it smacks of hypocrisy, virtue signalling and some kind of nationalistic inheritance which makes me deeply uncomfortable.
There’s too strong a whiff of ‘our blood’ and ‘my country right or wrong’ in it to sit easily with me. Some argue you don’t have the right to glow in the past achievements of your nation if you’re not willing to be ashamed of its wrongs, but I am wary of either. Legacy pride seems to me every bit as cheap and tawdry a concept as inherited guilt.
I do however recognise people like me, born centuries after slavery ended and years after the Empire began to fall apart, are still potentially indirect beneficiaries of these past wrongs, which itself imposes an obligation, but that is a different issue from being complicit in the original sin, and as such demands a different response.
Which leads me to the kernel of my doubts about historic apologies: It is not that an expression of regret is too much to ask, but that it is too easy, glib and ultimately self-serving to offer. What is needed is rather an acknowledgement of what actually happened, an acceptance of the implications of those acts and action both to redress the wrong, if that is even possible, and to ensure whatever lessons offered are learnt and applied. In short, honest education.
Symbolic gestures are important, whether they are an apology, the taking of a knee or the removal of a statue, but they are not, and must never be allowed to be, an end in themselves.
Author of five novels, Mrs A’s Indian Gentlemen* being the latest
Twitter: @dawoodmccallum *Writes as Dawood Ali McCallum