Item — HN Reader

How do you apologize for something you haven't done? Governments are constituted by human beings; so who today is complicit in the persecution of Turing? Answer, no one at all. The past is the past.It happened and there's nothing we can do to change it. Use of the word apology' in this context by people not responsible for that action merely degrades the meaning of the word. By all means express regret that a previous government did such and such but don't let's call it an apology which is rather cheap if you think about it.

If this pseudo-apology-for-past-sins-by-dead-people bandwagon gets going, where's it going to stop? Will we define a year zero prior to which we will not be apologizing for what we now regard as foul behaviour by the elite who ran the country at that time? Or do we form national bureaucracies to deal with the massive inbox of accumulated misdeeds down the ages?

3 comments

After reading what you wrote South Africa comes to my mind. On the one hand there are people who think that "black economic empowerment" should stop because it's causing reverse-discrimination towards young white South-Africans who were born after apartheid and therefore have nothing to do with it.

On the other hand the reverse argument is that although many young white South Africans have had nothing to do with apartheid directly, many of them are indirectly better from it - eg - the suburb/area they're raised in, the business connections they have, etc.

I don’t have a concrete opinion on this, because I’m not South African. However, being an Australian, I can see how important the public apology to the indigenous Australians was.

Before the public apology was given, many (particularly older generation Australians) disagreed by your line of argument – which is that we shouldn’t apologise for something done by people in the past.

It’s true that the atrocities committed towards Indigenous Australians are in the past, but where the Indigenous Australians are now is a result of all that has happened to them. To these people the apology goes a lot deeper than just a symbolic gesture. It's a form of closure that begins and allows the healing process.

> n the one hand there are people who think that "black economic empowerment" should stop because it's causing reverse-discrimination towards young white South-Africans who were born after apartheid and therefore have nothing to do with it.

My views on this is different and sure to be controversial, but here it goes (you are free to differ with me). Firstly, white people did not benefit from Apartheid. Taxation (of whites) during Apartheid was higher than taxation during the Mbeki era (the middle class white people actually got a lot richer during the Mbeki era).

The Apartheid experiment also cost a lot of money. All the universities (for both black and white people) were built during the apartheid era. So did the costs of setting up governments in the homelands. The apartheid government tried to “kick start” the economies near major black areas – buy for instance starting industrial zones that are free of value-added tax (a lot of those factories are empty now).

Now, the new South African government only replaced the white ruling elite with even smaller black ruling elite. For that small elite life is better in the new South Africa – but for all the other black people the living standards fell.

Here are a few good examples: Since 1995 the income inequality greatly increased – both between black and white and in the black group itself (i.e. the forming of an elite). The number of people living on less than a dollar a day increased by more than a million since the end of apartheid. Life expectancy took a nose dive and unemployment significantly increased (unemployment is 40%+). The new government did not build a single new university during the past 15 years. What is worse, they closed all the teacher and technical colleges. These colleges mainly served black people (especially in rural areas) and it led to the current severe shortage of qualified teachers. Violent crime significantly increased. The government was also not willing to provide anti-retrovirals to HIV positive people for a long time – which caused probably a million of people to die.

Here is an article that discusses some of the aspects I mentioned: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/safr-m21.shtml

So with all these metrics, you cannot realistically say that the Apartheid government was worse than the current government. What you can however say was that the motives for the actions were different.

Now for the apology part. Many white South African’s have apologised repeatedly for Apartheid and have repeatedly been shamed for it. All of South Africa’s ills are blamed on Apartheid/white people (a universal scapegoat). If you are a white person you are expected to be ashamed that you exist and take all accusations. Affirmative action have become somewhat of a joke. For example, the biggest municipality in Gauteng put a moratorium on the tendering of contracts to white owned business.

Affirmative action has become just an excellent excuse to enrich a few cronies. The biggest benefactors of BEE are black billionaires with ANC connections (e.g. Patrice Motsepe, Tokyo Sexwale, Sandi Majali, Saki Macazoma) (This is basically a black oligarchy)

My point (rant?) is that white people are politically and culturally powerless. The only sustainable solution I see(in which everyone will be happy) is for white people to leave South Africa (a million already did). Most young people I know have either short term (1-2 years) or medium term (2-5 year) plans to leave this country. I will go overseas to study early next year – I doubt that I will return after I finished.

Whether or not the government consists of individuals is really irrelevant. The government, regardless of who happens to there at any point in time, is an entity onto itself. Much like a corporation is an entity apart from the people running it. So in one sense the government of today is different than the government of the 50s (different people minding the shop); but in a legal sense it is exactly the same (it's the same shop). So the people minding the shop should are in no way personally responsible, they do have a responsibility for addressing valid grievances (whether or not they were running the shop at the time).

"By all means express regret that a previous government did such and such" Of course the government didn't act unilaterally against the wishes of the people - they implemented the laws as required by society at the time.