ABSTRACT
An outbreak of apology has swept the globe. Bill Clinton has apologized for slavery, Tony Blair for British policy during the Irish potato famine. The Canadian government has apologized to indigenous communities for breaking up their families and to Japanese Canadians for putting their families in internment camps during World War II. The Vatican has apologized for its failure to condemn the Nazi treatment of Jews, Queen Elizabeth for the British exploitation of the Maoris. The Japanese government has apologized to Korean women who were forced into prostitution during World War II, and some former government officials in South Africa have apologized for their behaviour during the period of apartheid. Though the Australian Prime Minister has refused to apologize for past treatment of Aborigines, many Australians have taken it upon themselves to make an apology. But does it make sense to say ‘Sorry’? Can it be done without hypocrisy? The following paradox suggests that there is something wrong with the exercise of apologizing for what our ancestors did, or something wrong with common assumptions about such apologies.
