Done properly first day no need for apology

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Leader of the UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn is in the news every day as are indeed most British politicians in the lead-in to the UK election this Thursday.

Last month Corbyn was interviewed by Andrew Neil on a BBC programme. Neil asked him four times to apologise for anti-Semitic views within the Labour Party. On all four occasions he refused to apologise.

He did say that all forms of racism are a poison in society.

The fact that he did not apologise created a furore in British media. The following day the headline on ‘The Daily Telegraph’ ran: ‘Corbyn refuses to apologise to Jews’.

However last Tuesday in an ITV interview Jeremy did apologise.

People who personally know Jeremy Corbyn say he is not anti-Semitic. Indeed, a friend of mine, who is no fan of Corbyn met him some months ago and was struck by his kindness and genuine concern. Corbyn has a long history of being on the side of the poor and marginalised. He’s a conviction politician. 

But this column is not about Corbyn, the UK election, anti-Semitism or any form of racism. It’s about the use or more accurately the over-use of that word ‘apology’.

I’ve vague memories of a comment my late mother once made about how people make apologies. 

Not wanting to do my mother an injustice, but if I recall correctly, she once said to me that I should only apologise if in the first instance I could have avoided doing that for which I subsequently apologised. Maybe it was, that she felt I was far too quick in apologising. In other words, I should spend less time doing the wrong thing, rather than easily tripping off my tongue: ‘I’m sorry Mammy’.

These days every time I hear that word ‘apology’ I am back thinking of my mother’s advice.

Of course there are special moments in history when an apology plays a profound role.

On a cold grey December day in Warsaw in 1970 German Chancellor Willy Brandt spontaneously went down on his knees at a monument to those who lost their lives at the hands of the Germans in Polish ghettos. He stayed there close to a minute. The gesture has since been referred to as ‘The Genuflection at Warsaw’. It was not planned, nothing to do with choreography, nor a PR stunt. It was a genuine act of penance, apology, recognition of the savagery and barbarity unleashed on the Polish people by the Germans.

In 2010 Prime Minister David Cameron on the publication of the Saville Inquiry apologised in the House of Commons for the wrong done by the British Army in Derry in 1972. Again, the apology was a significant moment and helped heal wounds.

People might argue that it was easy for Brandt and Cameron to apologise for events in which they played no part. Nevertheless, as statesmen, their words were important and greatly significant.

But these days I am finding it tedious listening and reading about people apologising for what they have said or written in the past.

Before the Friday, November 30 by-elections we were bombarded with politicians apologising for previous words they said. A day seldom passes without hearing State agencies apologising for some misdemeanour or other.

It’s easy to lose track of all the apologies. Also, it becomes difficult to take them seriously.

I’m back thinking of my mother’s words; why not spend more time on doing the right thing first and avoid all the apologies and the cost too.

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