PUBLIC APOLOGIES

Everybody seems to be saying sorry these days. Politicians are particularly keen on apologising for historical failures, such as slavery. But the range of subjects is much wider than that.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is good that people own up to their mistakes. But I sometimes have a problem either with the selective choice of those mistakes or the fact that the owning up takes place in public. Blanket coverage of the inappropriate devalues the meaning of the appropriate. The latter would include the Australian Government's apologies over its past treatment of aborigines and orphaned children. It could have included an apology by Tony Blair for the civilian costs of the Iraq War. But when asked by the Inquiry whether he had any regrets, he appeared not to have any.

Three different apologies have been on view in recent weeks, one bad, one good and one in between. The bad one was Tiger Woods' "press conference" (to a selected audience of friends, colleagues and sponsors, who were not allowed to ask questions) apologising to the world for having had extra-marital sex. Mr. Woods is a brilliant golfer, quite possibly the best ever; but the issue of where he puts his club off the course has nothing to do with any of us except him, the women concerned and - most of all - his wife. The revelations may well affect his value as a wholesome family man in the eye of his sponsors; again, though, that is a matter between him and them, not us.

The in-between one was the apology by the President of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, to the company's customers for the faults in its cars. Toyota, the world's largest car company, is currently in the middle of a recall of millions of its vehicles to fix problems associated with its accelerator pedals and brakes, problems that have led to a number of horrific accidents. In principle, a public apology was the right thing to do; it is, after all, difficult to communicate quickly with millions of people in any other way. However, the apology was tarnished by two things. First, the fact that it had taken Toyota so long to admit to the problems. Secondly, minute scrutiny of the depth of Mr. Toyoda's bow, bowing being the normal Japanese way of apologising. What could have been an honest "mea culpa" by the company ended up as a bit of a boomerang.

The good apology was that by the quality Danish newspaper Politiken. In a joint press release together with organisations representing almost 100,000 of the prophet's direct descendants, the newspaper apologised for any offence caused to Muslims (and others) by its reprinting of the (in)famous Mohammed cartoon by Kurt Westergaard originally published in Jyllandsposten. It was hoped that the apology would lead to greater understanding between Denmark and the Muslim world.

I support what they did. In the same way as you apologise if you have been rude to another person, so Politiken apologised to the many people who felt that it had been rude to them. The newspaper was careful to stress that it had the right to be rude, since freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Danish constitution. That distinction, between a right and the exercise of that right (together with judgement about when to exercise it), was originally highlighted by the thoughtful former Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, who supported Politiken's decision. Regrettably, however, his is a rather lone voice in Danish politics. It is not at all surprising that Politiken was instantly condemned by the anti-Muslim Danish People's Party, which has kept the minority right-wing Government in power since 2001, but it was disappointing to hear their views echoed by the left-wing opposition. Competition for votes, it seems, trumps decent behaviour.

Walter Blotscher