A couple of weeks ago, in South Korea, the Namdaemun Gate, a 600-year-old building in Seoul, was destroyed in a fire started by an arsonist. The “Great South Gate” was the country’s foremost cultural and architectural treasure. It had survived the 20th century Japanese occupation and the Korean War, and its destruction plunged the nation into deep mourning.
Following accusations of poor security against the Cultural Heritage Administration, which had responsibility for the care of the national icon, and reports of dithering by firefighters, there has been a spate of apologies. The mayor of Seoul has apologized. The head of the Cultural Heritage Administration has apologized and resigned. Even the arsonist has apologized to the nation.
In Japan, someone might well have performed seppuku or hara-kiri, the ritual of the samurai code of suicide by disembowelment to avoid death with dishonour.
In Australia, also a fortnight ago, the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in the first parliamentary act of his Labour government, issued a national apology to the Aborigines for injustices over two centuries of white settlement and more specifically to those thousands of mostly mixed-race children, who were forcibly removed from their families in a policy of assimilation between 1910 and 1970. The “Stolen Generations”, as they were called, were placed in the care of white foster parents or sent to institutions most of them to be prepared for a life of domestic drudgery. Many suffered neglect, cruelty, continued discrimination and sexual abuse, and it is questionable whether any ever really recovered from the pain of being torn from their blood families. To this day, many Aborigines still live on the margins of society.
Mr Rudd’s Conservative predecessor, John Howard, had refused to apologize, as had previous governments, maintaining that Australians did not have to say sorry for the injustices of the past.
But Mr Rudd had no qualms about apologizing: “As Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the Government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry.” Significantly, he did not say that he was apologizing on behalf of the Australian people. Nevertheless, he used the word “sorry” repeatedly and the next day it was splashed across front pages in huge type. In light of Mr Howard’s refusal to say the word, it took on huge symbolic and emotional meaning and the apology was widely welcomed, amongst Aborigines and white Australians alike.
Cathy Freeman, the Olympic gold medallist and national sporting heroine, has spoken of the “horrible” treatment of her ancestors and said that the apology was much needed: “For my family, it allows some kind of healing and forgiveness to take place where there is less anger and bitterness in the hearts of people. It takes away the pain. We will never forget, but this allows us to forgive.”
It is now hoped that Mr Rudd’s apology will herald a new period of national healing and reconciliation.
Of course, as most of us can testify, on a personal level, it takes a big heart to say “sorry” and perhaps an even greater generosity of the soul to forgive. In politics, the situation is even more complex.
And if we might be forgiven for momentarily moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, right here at home, Mr Kellawan Lall, in the matter of his egregious public behaviour, is proving, as Elton John sang, that “sorry seems to be the hardest word”.
But in Mr Lall’s defence, we do not in Guyana appear to have embraced a culture of apologizing for anything, least of all our misdeeds, whether they be individual or collective, private or public.
Has the PNC, for example, seen fit to atone publicly for the excesses and abuse of its misrule, particularly in the latter part of the Forbes Burnham administration? Has the PPP apologized for its own 15 years of presiding over what is an increasingly rapid degeneration of the rule of law? As most of us recognize, our leaders have been too busy playing, in the words of a recent letter writer, “the political blame game”.
Now, in the midst of the latest consultations with stakeholders and all the talk of action (an oxymoronic phrase, if ever there was one), no one – not the Police Commissioner, not the Minister of Home Affairs, not the President – no one in high office has thought of saying “sorry” to those who have lost loved ones, to the traumatized people of the nation, for the quite literally sorry state of affairs that now holds sway.
No one appears ready to take the high ground and say “sorry” for anything. No one wants to be the first to reach out to the other side. How then will the healing start?
And no one will take responsibility and, speaking figuratively of course, fall on his sword in atonement. That would require a certain sense of honour.
