Quote:
Originally Posted by Igottago
That's a really good point. It makes the apology less significant than the politicking going on around it. Sadly, it may also be the case for some of the native people lobbying for the apology. They may be jockeying for position within their own tribes or community councils, and getting the apology makes them look good.
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That's most of why I hate these public apologies. We're sorry because we got caught, got pressured, and found a way to politically spin this to make us look nice with an election looming in the next 12 months.
I also find the whole apologizing for past generations a little comical and hollow in and of itself. "I'm sorry for something I was not alive for, and am only superficially aware of. As leader of a nation that bears little resemblance to the one that wronged people who may or may not be even alive to hear this apology, I offer my most heartfelt apology and stoic look I can muster from drama class..." is all they ever sound like to me and probably to the people they are apologizing to.
Yes, there's shared history, and yes there's something to say about acknowledgment, but its not like saying sorry and dishing out a few million is going to make the pain go away or allow some mystical white-out to erase the incident from the books. It happened, it was bad, it was ended by a wiser generation, acknowledgment was made for the sins of the fathers (literally and hypothetically)... a politically convenient photo-op apology isn't going to change anything... I doubt the hate will simply vanish. The First Nations are not simply going to say, "alright, apology accepted. Lets move on." More concrete actions and difficult decisions are needed, not superficialities.