Ottawa Citizen
April 26, 2005 Tuesday
Final Edition

The sorry state of world affairs

The cleansing, restorative words of a heartfelt apology come easier
to some than others.

Turkey, accused of massacring 1.5 million Armenians 90 years ago,
can’t bring itself to cop to the charge, even when a simple “sorry”
would grease the nation’s longed-for inclusion in the European Union.

Japan recently apologized to China for the slaughter of 300,000
Nanjing residents in 1937 — though the mea culpa scored poorly on
the heartfelt-ness meter, extracted as it was under duress. Germany
long ago apologized to European Jewry for the Holocaust; the Kremlin
has yet to beg pardon for starving as many as 20 million Ukrainians
to death in the 1930s.

No word yet on whether Pope Benedict XVI will apologize for the
Catholic church’s occasionally spotty track record: his predecessor,
John Paul II, was big on atonement, asking forgiveness for the
Inquisition and the Crusades, but leaving sexual abuse cases for
future consideration.

Canada has apologized for mistreating aboriginal peoples, especially
the grievously wrong-headed residential school system. Paul Martin
has apologized for the sponsorship scandal; Jean Chretien has not.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman apologized for cancelling last year’s
hockey season, though saying “sorry I’m doing what I’m doing,” isn’t
the same as saying “sorry I did what I did.”

We’ve all done things we’re not proud of, things we wish we could
take back or do over. And yet the words come hard. Perhaps what the
world needs is an international day of apology. As Judaism discovered
with Yom Kippur, the “day of atonement,” it’s easier if we all do it
together.

Here then, in the interest of world peace and getting the ball
rolling, is one from the heart: If this editorial has offended Turks,
Armenians, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Germans, Catholics, Jews,
Natives, Liberals or hockey fans, we’re sorry.