SORRY UNDER PRESSURE ISN’T SORRY AT ALL
Caitlin Wall

Foreign Policy Passport
Feb 6 2008

Last week, Australia’s government announced that it will formally
apologize for its decades-long practice of stealing Aboriginal children
and giving them to white families to raise. The practice, intented to
destroy "Aboriginality" and force racial assimilation, was official
government policy from 1915 to 1969. During these years, many children
were raised in poor conditions in institutions, received little to no
education, and suffered abuse at the hands of caretakers. Apologizing
for it is an admirable step by the new Australian administration to
move forward from a dark past. Australia aside, though, there has been
a real lack of sincerity on the international apology front lately.

Over the past year, some in the U.S. Congress have attempted to force
apologies from other nations on two occasions. First, the House of
Representatives passed a resolution urging Japan to apologize for
forcing thousands of women into sex-slavery during WWII. More recently,
the House attempted a vote condemning Turkey for its treatment of
Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century. And while I by no
means wish to diminish these atrocities, I wonder: Would an apology
elicited under pressure really contribute to the healing process?

Consider the case of Iraq. This past Sunday, controversial legislation
to reintegrate former Baathists back into Iraqi government became
law. It was one of the key "benchmarks" the U.S. Congress has been
using to judge the Iraqis’ progress. As Feisel al-Istrabadi, Iraq’s
former deputy ambassador to the U.N., pointed out in a recent Seven
Questions interview, de-Baathification had gone horribly awry. The
question, though, is not whether reconciliation is warranted,
but whether it is real and sustainable given how the bill came
about-under U.S. pressure. Can reconciliation be treated like just
another benchmark? Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a top Sunni
leader and influential member of the Presidential Council, certainly
doesn’t think so.