Asia Times: It's hard having to say sorry


	May 24, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

It's hard having to say sorry
Commentary by Mushahid Hussain

ISLAMABAD - In what was a historic first, Pope John Paul visited a mosque in Damascus, Syria, on May 6, and offered "forgiveness from the Almighty and to each other" (Muslims and Christians) for "all the times" that the adherents of the two faiths might "have offended one another".

This is a part of the pattern of the policies of the Pope, who in the past has expressed contrition to Jews for the Holocaust, or to Orthodox Christians for the 1204 sacking of Constantinople.

His decree on the Holocaust came in 1998, following a campaign initiated in 1995 to recognize and rectify the wrongs done by Christians by making "an act of courage and humility".

For Muslims, the Crusades launched by Christianity in the Middle Ages still rankle, and the Pope's visit to famous Omayyad Mosque in Damascus and his remarks there are a watershed meant to strengthen Muslim-Christian relations. However, the Pope's apology is part of a new pattern in international relations, where, increasingly, for a variety of reasons, countries and peoples view rectifying wrongs of the past as necessary to "move on" in the future.

History impinges on relations in different ways.

One of the issues still adversely affecting Pakistan's relations with Bangladesh is the demand for a Pakistani apology for what happened in 1971, when a Pakistan army crackdown led to deaths and destruction, a demand Pakistan refuses to accept.

In different cultures, apology, regret, sorrow, self-criticism, remorse and atonement are different faces of the same coin - basically, admitting a fault to rectify a wrong. It is not only cultural but can have political overtones (in the case of nations) and moral ones (in the case of individuals and religions).

For example, in the Sikh religion, atoning for mistakes and sins includes a humbling experience at Sikh places of worship by shining the shoes of pilgrims.

Two prominent Sikh leaders in the Sixties - Master Tara Singh and Sant Fateh Singh - had to undergo this exercise, probably a harsher physical counterpart of Chinese-style confession and self- criticism evident during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Politicians belonging to the Buddhist faith have done the same.

One reason the Iran-Iraq War became prolonged and the Islamic nations' mediation failed was Ayatollah Khomeini's insistence that Iraq apologize for the invasion, which should be condemned as it started an unprovoked war.

At the Arab League summit in Amman in March 2001, Iraq was criticized for its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and its refusal to express regret for this action.

In March 2000, then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright came close to apologizing to Iran for the 1953 Central Intelligence Agency coup which ousted a democratic government and returned the Shah to power, when she expressed America's "regrets" over the episode.

Politicians often apologize for mistakes made while in office. Former US President Bill Clinton offered "profound and sincere regrets" several times for lying on his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Indira Gandhi apologized to the Indian people for "excesses committed in the Emergency" after she lost the elections in 1977, an apology apparently accepted by the electorate who returned her to office by a thumping majority in 1980.

Recently, the two former ruling parties of Pakistan - the Muslim League and the People's Party - apologized to the people for "mistakes committed while in office", and promised not to repeat these.

Three kinds of situations in the contemporary world provide the framework for an apology at various levels.

First, it can have a religious or moral dimension, as is the case with the Pope, the Sikh religion or the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the demise of apartheid.

During the commission's widely-publicized hearings, former officials of the racist regime confessed their crimes and sought public atonement for all the wrongs they did. The Catholic Church has been embarked on a similar exercise in recent years under Pope John Paul II.

Second, an apology is tantamount to an acceptance of responsibility to settle an impasse or event that could develop into a crisis if the apology is not forthcoming. This happened in the US spy plane incident in April, where the Chinese demand for an American apology was met, and it resolved the issue.

Years earlier, then US president Dwight Eisenhower had apologized to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for the U-2 spy plane that was shot down in 1960 by the Soviet Union and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, captured. That apology too resolved what could have been a potentially serious crisis.

In December 1968, the United States apologized for the spy ship USS Pueblo which was captured by North Korea along with its crew. They were released after the US apologized, although that apology was recanted after their release.

Third, an apology is often deemed necessary for setting the historical record straight so that relations among nations are normalized.

Germany's apology to Israel for the Holocaust, Albright's apology to Iran for the CIA's 1953 military coup that toppled a democratic government and brought back the Shah to power, Japan's regrets to South Korea and China for its actions during military occupation in the 1930s and 1940s, or Bangladesh seeking an apology from Pakistan for the excesses during the 1971 civil war are cases in point.

In the final analysis, the decision to tender an apology or not is a political one, guided less by motivations of morality or pangs of conscience than by considerations of realpolitik.

However, whatever the impulse, an apology does help clear the air, resolve issues, and in a world which is increasingly volatile, stabilize situations.

(Inter Press Service)

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