Chapter 11 State Apologies and the Rehumanization of Refugee, Indigenous, and Ethnic Minority Groups

Germany and the Holocaust

No conversation on state apologies would be complete without at least some discussion of German apologies for the Holocaust committed during the Second World War. As Marrus (2007, 88) aptly states, “One can hardly speak of the role of guilt and national obligation, and the consequent collective atonement, compensation, memorization, commemoration, reparation and healing, without thinking of the great impact of Holocaust motifs and reparative programs.” Furthermore, this process was not limited to Germany but rather occurred in nearly all territories that had some connection with the decimation of European Jews. It even extends beyond states, with churches and corporations also engaged in the process of atonement for their complicity in the Holocaust. However, qualitatively, the majority of Holocaust apologies—even among nation-states that were complicit in doing little to assist European Jewish refugees, as discussed in Bakan’s chapter—exist somewhere between those that are focused on restoring the transgressor to trustworthiness and those intending to rehumanize the apologizer. This is notably evident in examining one of the most famous apologies: Willy Brandt’s Kniefall.

On December 7, 1970, West German chancellor Willy Brandt, while visiting Warsaw, fell to his knees in front of the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, remaining completely still on the wet floor for over half a minute (Borneman 2005). This apology—known thereafter in German as Kniefall—was the first time a German leader had so explicitly admitted responsibility and guilt for Jewish and Polish suffering. It is this recognition that Germany now shared social norms with their victims, norms that the Nazis had abhorrently violated, that makes this apology about more than just restoring the state’s trustworthiness. Nevertheless, as Borneman (2005, 62) contends, this apology was primarily an act that was necessary as a “symbolic purification ritual” to transform Germany from a “criminal nation to a rehabilitated member of the international community.” Put differently, it was a necessary action to restore the state to a position of trust. Brandt’s Kniefall provides additional insights into apologies that are important to consider.

One of the unique features of Brandt’s apology is that it was entirely unspoken. Therefore, it does not comprise the aforementioned four necessary elements of a complete apology, at least not explicitly. Brandt’s apology was effective insofar as it helped restore Germany’s relations with the Nazi regime’s former victims, particularly Poland and wider Eastern Europe. Here a signalling taxonomy is informative. While Brandt’s apology was silent, it did implicitly contain the costly signal of status loss; by its very nature, kneeling reduces an individual’s status in the eyes of witnesses. Moreover, the reaction of some German conservatives at home, who questioned his patriotism and whether he should have knelt at all, signalled that Brandt paid a price for his actions. Brandt’s apology also provides evidence for the role that the individual representative can have in making an inter-group apology effective. In this case, Brandt’s apology carried a particular sense of sincerity and conviction, considering he had spent much of his life actively resisting the Nazi regime, often at substantial risk to his own safety (Borneman 2005). It is entirely possible that such an apology would have been far less effective coming from someone else. Lastly, it must be noted, however, that concerns over the reality that antisemitism is returning to Germany have become widespread, with a number of people within Germany seriously questioning the country’s culture of Holocaust remembrance and atonement (Staudenmaier 2019; Weinthal 2014).

South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

South Africa represents, perhaps, the most informative case study on the process of rehumanization, apologizing, reconciliation, and peace building in the wake of severe and prolonged injustice during apartheid (1948–94). This policy ensured that South Africa’s various ethnic groups would be dominated politically, economically, and socially by a small white population. With the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, one of the most pertinent questions was how to move forward: What was the best way to heal the grievous wounds of the past in a way that allowed for a new democratic, peaceful, multi-ethnic South Africa? The choice was made to embark on an approach of restorative justice in the form of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This process invited victims who were recognized as having undergone gross human rights violations to supply statements about their experiences. The perpetrators of these acts were also able to give testimony and petition for amnesty from both criminal and civil prosecution for politically motivated crimes. It was through this process that the architects of the TRC hoped to heal the deep wounds of the past and rehumanize non-white ethnic groups who had suffered under apartheid (Gobodo-Madikizela 2002; Vora and Vora 2004). Despite these good intentions, the actual successes of the TRC are far more muddled, with examples of both deep failures and some successes.

One of the worst days of the TRC occurred when Frederik Willem de Klerk apologized to the victims of apartheid on behalf of the National Party. Speaking to the TRC (1997), de Klerk, responding to assertions expressing the contrary, insisted that he had previously apologized for apartheid and offered this statement:

Let me place once and for all a renewed apology on record. Apartheid was wrong. I apologise in my capacity as leader of the National Party to the millions of South Africans who suffered the wrenching disruption of forced removals in respect of their homes, businesses and land. Who over the years suffered the shame of being arrested for pass law offences. Who over the decades and indeed centuries suffered the indignities and humiliation of racial discrimination. Who for a long time were prevented from exercising their full democratic rights in the land of their birth. Who were unable to achieve their full potential because of job reservation. And who in any other way suffered as a result of discriminatory legislation and policies. This renewed apology is offered in a spirit of true repentance, in full knowledge of the tremendous harm that apartheid has done to millions of South Africans.

On the face of it, this apology was profound and sincere, and it should have satisfied even the most exacting of standards. However, during follow-up questioning by TRC staff and commissioners, de Klerk undermined his apology so abominably that the African National Congress issued a statement rejecting it with “contempt” (Govier and Verwoerd 2002). Throughout the entirety of the follow-up, he persistently denied any knowledge of or responsibility for the prevalence of severe mistreatment and torture committed by state agents, especially against anti-apartheid activists. While he claimed to regret the murder, torture, rape, and abduction of anti-apartheid activists, he did not apologize for them, as he believed that he, and by extension the National Party government, was not responsible. He also failed to commit to and was vague in discussing any “practical” or material amends to the victims of apartheid (Govier and Verwoerd 2002). Put another way, de Klerk was unwilling to use costly signals and instead offered a partial apology that did not take responsibility for these heinous transgressions. Additionally, unlike Brandt, whose personal story lent sincerity to his apology, de Klerk had been a member of the National Party since 1972 and had long been a strong proponent of apartheid. These factors made his apology seem insincere at best and very far from a “spirit of true repentance.” In reviewing de Klerk’s apology, Govier and Verwoerd (2002, 78) contend that “he wanted to take a position of pride (we ended apartheid), not shame (we admit responsibility for gross violations of human rights).” As such, he wanted to rehumanize himself and the National Party but did not attempt to rehumanize the victims of apartheid.

The apology from de Klerk was further undermined because his mandate to speak on behalf of the National Party was extremely dubious. As Govier and Verwoerd (2002, 78) note, “Members of the older (pretransition) party such as former South African President P. W. Botha were not present and had not authorized de Klerk to speak for them. Botha publicly criticized some of de Klerk’s statements, immediately revealing that his mandate as a spokesperson was questionable.” While serving as a particularly stark example, this reflects a common difficulty in state apologies. That is to say, inter-group apologies are complicated, since groups contain numerous autonomous agents who are capable of acting in distinct ways, even actively opposing the apology or the group receiving the apology. This can, unsurprisingly, serve to compromise the apology in the eyes of the recipient group and raise questions about how committed to reconciliation the perpetrating group truly is.

The TRC itself had noble intentions, and evidence suggests that South Africans, especially the Xhosa, found it was successful in establishing the truth of what happened, an important aspect of rehumanization. Moreover, for some individual members of the TRC, the process proved cathartic and helped provide psychological healing (Avruch 2010). Nonetheless, this was by no means a universal experience; many found that reopening the wounds of the past caused further psychological damage (Vora and Vora 2004). This was especially problematic, as there was a substantial lack of support and mental health resources available to the victims who testified, a common problem in most TRCs (Cilliers, Dube, and Siddiqi 2016). Furthermore, the TRC was not successful at achieving inter-group reconciliation between white and non-white ethnic groups, although interpersonal reconciliation was achieved for some people (see, e.g., Chapman 2007).

Several explanations can be offered to explain this failure. The simplest explanation is that reconciliation is hard and can take generations to occur, and as such, it is no surprise the TRC was unsuccessful at achieving it. Chapman (2007) criticizes the TRC for trying to reduce inter-group reconciliation between white and non-white ethnic groups to the interpersonal and suggests that significantly more attention needed to be paid to the institutions and regimes behind apartheid, such as the police force (eerily similar echoes can be heard in present-day multi-ethnic jurisdictions such as the United States, Canada, and Australia). Critics have also noted that many of the perpetrators, similarly to de Klerk, offered weak apologies, believing they personally had committed no wrong; made excuses for what had occurred; or did not apologize at all (Avruch 2010). Nevertheless, victims were still pressed by the commission to offer forgiveness. Lastly, by embedding amnesty inside the TRC, the cost for perpetrators to apologize was significantly lowered, potentially reducing the efficacy of their apologies.

Costly signalling theory can help illuminate what Tavuchis (1991) classically terms the paradox of apologies. Apologies need to be costly in order to rehumanize the apologizer. However, an apology made with this benefit to the apologizer in mind effectively lowers the cost of the apology, making the apology less credible and thus less effective. While the function of an apology may be to rehumanize the apologizer, an apology that appears to be motivated by restoring the apologizer’s status is likely to fail. A good apology has to be focused on the victim. As a consequence, apologies with a focus on rehumanizing the apologized party may be more beneficial for the apologizer as well. We turn to examples of such apologies next.

Canada and Residential Schools

On June 11, 2008, the then Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper apologized to the victims of residential schools. Residential schooling in Canada has a long and tragic history, beginning in the early 1600s with the opening of the first boarding schools. However, it was not until the Indian Act of 1876—which made Indigenous peoples wards of the state and the Canadian federal government responsible for their education—that the system truly took effect. From 1867 to 1983, nearly one-third of all Indigenous children, approximately 150,000 in total, were taken from their families and communities and sent to these schools, which were funded by the state and presided over by the churches (Anderson 2012). These schools were devised to sever the connection of Indigenous children to their cultural identity and traditional practices, which were considered inferior to those of European settlers, and to educate them in “civilized ways.” This has become epitomized in Canadian discourse by the phrase “killing the Indian in the child.” Beyond the significant damage caused by removing children from their families and denying them access to their languages and cultural practices, students also experienced physical and sexual abuse. Claes and Clifton (1998, 24) note that “brutal and arbitrary punishment was a daily feature of school life; public beatings and humiliations, head shaving, and being kept in locked closets on bread and water for days are described.” Many of the students who graduated from these schools had trouble reintegrating into their own communities and yet continued to be victimized by the prevalent prejudicial attitudes in white Canadian society. In effect, they existed in limbo, trapped between two worlds yet fitting into neither.

The impact of this system continues to reverberate throughout Canada’s Indigenous communities, with research suggesting that it perpetuates higher rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence, mental illness, and suicide among Indigenous people in Canada (see Bombay, Matheson, and Anisman 2014). While complaints and allegations were made, the voices of those who suffered were neither heard nor accepted at the national level until the 1990s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP; Anderson 2012). The government of the day, led by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, responded to RCAP on January 7, 1998, with an announcement of an Indigenous action plan and the reading of a statement of reconciliation by Minister Jane Stewart (Nobles 2008). According to Anderson (2012, 573), many Indigenous Canadians found this response entirely insufficient: “The healing fund did not include all survivors, the statement’s language was fairly general, but perhaps most importantly, the symbolism of the event indicated the government was not taking the issue seriously enough.” In particular, Chrétien himself was not the one to offer the apology, nor did he attend the lunchtime ceremony where Stewart, a junior minister, read it out. This action can be easily understood as one that is trying to restore the state to trustworthiness rather than rehumanizing the victims. Nearly a decade later, the government of Canada, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, took a very different approach in addressing the legacy of residential schooling in Canada.

In 2006, the government announced the approval of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), which included five components: (1) the Common Experience Payment (CEP), (2) the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), (3) a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, (4) commemoration, and (5) health and healing services. Under the CEP, the IRSSA was to provide CAD 1.9 billion (~USD 1.51 billion) to former living members of recognized residential schools; this was intended to holistically address the experiences of attending residential schooling (Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs 2019). The IAP was a claimant-based, out-of-court process that addressed specific claims of sexual abuse, serious physical abuse, and other psychologically damaging acts suffered at Indian residential schools. As of 2017, CAD 3.1 billion (~USD 2.46 billion) has been paid out through the IAP. The IRSSA also included CAD 60 million (~USD 47.57 million) in funds for a five-year-long Truth and Reconciliation Commission and CAD 145 million (~USD 114.96 million) for commemoration and healing events.

The actual apology was offered in the Canadian Parliament. Its tone and substance were directly informed by letters from Indigenous groups such as the Assembly of First Nations and through meetings with survivors of residential schools. This can be understood as an important process in giving voice to the grievances of those who suffered by directly allowing them to have influence in the tenor of the apology. Further, the Harper government “found” a loophole that allowed Indigenous leaders to directly respond to the apology in the Canadian Parliament rather than at a press conference as the government originally planned. Harper’s apology was effusive, praising the strength of Indigenous communities and apologizing profoundly for the government’s role in the residential school system as well as the damage it caused, and continues to cause, to Indigenous communities. Moreover, he directly referenced how the TRC was an “opportunity to educate all Canadians” on residential schools (Canadian Press 2008). This is important, as misconceptions about residential schools were widespread in Canadian society, and many in Canada, prior to Harper’s apology, questioned the need for Canada to apologize at all (Gray 2011). In principle, by shining a bright light on the suffering experienced by survivors of Indian residential schools and giving Indigenous peoples a platform to respond, Harper’s apology not only provided greater public awareness of the issue; it also helped build a bridge of greater empathy between Canada and Indigenous people. Put another way, the intentions of Harper’s apology and the TRC can be seen as an attempt to rehumanize Indigenous people in the eyes of Canada’s general public.

Harper’s apology contained all four of the elements Marrus (2007) identified as being necessary for a complete apology. Further, using Ho’s (2012) taxonomy, the apology contains costly signals. The tangible cost is evident, as the apology followed on the backdrop of the substantive IRSSA funding. Further, while not expressly promising to not repeat the act, Harper implicitly did so through indicative comments such as this: “There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian residential schools’ system to ever again prevail” (Canadian Press 2008). Furthermore, Harper experienced some status loss through apologizing; foremost, he praised his political rival and ideological opposite Jack Layton, leader of the New Democrat Party, for having spent the last year and a half persuading him to apologize. Praising a rival leader in this manner shocked many in the Canadian media (Anderson 2012).

In theory, the TRC was intended to allow the victims of Indian residential schools to tell their truth and to illuminate to all Canadians the grievances of Indigenous peoples, with the hope that through this process, it would heal the massive traumas they experienced (James 2012). Similar to most TRCs, this was done through interpersonal storytelling, with little focus placed on how the Indian residential school system fit into the broader colonial framework or the public institutions that contributed to Indian residential schools and continue to negatively impact the lives of Indigenous people (Coulthard 2014). The TRC failed to spark meaningful debate because it did not adequately consider that the same systems originally responsible for creating the Indian residential schools continue to impact contemporary Indigenous relationships in almost every respect, including child welfare, criminal justice, health and human services, resource extraction, and sanitation (see, e.g., Coulthard 2014; James 2012).

Finally, while both Harper’s apology and the TRC may have had good intentions and may have helped rehumanize some people, both succumbed to one of the biggest pitfalls in apologizing; apologies are not a magic wand that can rectify ongoing transgressions. When going forward, promises to do better only work in the eyes of the apologized party, if, in fact, the apologizer meaningfully improves their conduct. Few Indigenous people in Canada would say this has come to pass in light of continuous and serious injustices perpetrated against them (perceived or real) by the Canadian state, Canadian institutions, and the dominant population.

These include, but are by no means limited to, a failure to fully implement the recommendations of the TRC, disproportionate rates of violence committed against Indigenous women and girls, the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system, the failure of the treaty process in British Columbia, and pervasive prejudicial attitudes and actions against Indigenous peoples throughout Canada.

Canada and the Chinese Head Tax

In 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of the Canadian government to all Chinese Canadians for both the Chinese Head Tax, which lasted from 1885 to 1923, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was in place from 1923 to 1947. These legislations not only disrupted families and hurt Chinese Canadian immigrants economically; they also conveyed a status of ethnic undesirability (see Winter 2008). The Chinese Canadian community has actively sought an apology and material compensation since the 1980s from the Canadian state. However, a procession of Liberal- and Conservative-led governments refused to supply them. Prior to Harper’s apology, previous governments announced their intent to create a memorial fund that would apprise all Canadians of the injustice that had been perpetrated (Li 2008). However, they also stated that they had no plans to apologize. Despite being the first administration to acknowledge the injustice, many members of the Chinese Canadian community were upset by the government’s failure to actually apologize. Blatz, Schumann, and Ross (2009) hypothesize that this is a form of reactive devaluation that highlights that during negotiations, if one group offers X but withholds Y, the other group will devalue X and desire Y more. In the context of apologies, this means that if a group demands just an apology and the government provides one, they will likely be satisfied. If, however, the group demands both an apology and financial compensation but the government only offers the apology, the group will devalue the apology, as it fails to fully meet their demands.

Broadly speaking, Harper’s apology to the victims of the Head Tax and the Chinese Canadian community was extremely comprehensive and contained nine out of the ten criteria outlined by Blatz, Schumann, and Ross (2009). Furthermore, this apology was arguably about rehumanizing the Chinese Canadian community by highlighting the suffering the community experienced and praising the important role the victims of these policies played in constructing Canada, going so far as to say that the back-breaking labour Chinese immigrants provided in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway “helped to ensure the future of Canada” (Deveau 2006). Additionally, Harper stressed the invaluable role Chinese Canadians continue to play in Canada. In effect, this helped shift the narrative concerning Chinese Canadians from that of an undesirable immigrant group to a crucial and valued part of Canadian society. This apology also included a material component, with payments of CAD 20,000 (~USD 15,848) offered to the few remaining survivors of the Head Tax or their spouses and CAD 34 million (~USD 26.94 million) for recognition projects, with CAD 10 million (~USD 7.92 million) earmarked toward educating Canadians about the discrimination and hardship faced by Chinese Canadians due to wartime measures or immigration restrictions. In addition, Harper’s apology contained a commitment to improved conduct, stating that the “government will continually strive to ensure that similar unjust practices are never allowed to happen again” (Deveau 2006).

Research conducted following Harper’s apology found it was positive overall, but with some caveats. Blatz, Schumann, and Ross (2009), in their survey of both Chinese Canadians and non-Chinese Canadians, found both groups reported significant satisfaction with the apology, although Chinese Canadians evaluated it somewhat less favourably. Both groups assessed the Canadian government and Canadians of European heritage more favourably after the apology, but the apology had little effect on the participants’ perceptions of Chinese Canadians. Moreover, Chinese Canadian participants generally possessed greater skepticism toward the motivations behind the apology and were more inclined to view it as a strategy to secure Chinese Canadian votes in the subsequent election (Li 2008). Chinese Canadian participants were also more inclined to believe that negative effects ensuing from the Head Tax on the Chinese Canadian community persisted (Blatz, Schumann, and Ross 2009). Wohl, Hornsey, and Philpot (2011, 86), in their research on inter-group apologies—including the Head Tax—found that “the historically victimized group often waits to see if the apology produces behavioural change after granting forgiveness.” In the case of Harper’s apology, they found that among Chinese Canadians, the apology increased expectations that it would “lead to conciliatory discourse and behaviours.” In a revaluation one year later, they found that “Chinese Canadians who assigned collective guilt were less likely to think that the apology had transpired into actual change.”