“Now is the time,” no one appears to actually say, but that’s the term used by Sky News’s sub-editor in their story, for King Brian to apologise for monarchy’s role in brutal trade. He’s said things like “I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many, as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact” and his son Prince William added, “Slavery was abhorrent and should never have happened.” But apparently, sorry seems to be the hardest, and most absent, word. Their ancestors made a shed load of cash from slavery, just say the S word and let’s move on, right?
That, and actually meaning it, would be helpful, if only for symbolic value and, it seems, these days symbolism is everything. How far should we take this? Given my heritage, I have to much to apologise for, including the slavery in which my Dutch ancestors engaged. Obviously, I’ll have to say sorry for all the rape and pillaging carried out by my Viking ancestors and, having recently discovered that I have some Welsh DNA, too, I suppose I should apologise for Max Boyce. I’ll get it out of the way in one fell swoop. I am very sorry for the horrible things done by distant family members. Had I been alive, I’d have done my best to stop them, especially with regard to Max Boyce. But actually, the reality about whether we are responsible for the actions of our ancestors is more convoluted than that.
Scrabbling around on the internet for answers to this question is much easier than thinking it through myself, but I managed to come up with one set of words that makes some sense. How about this: “If there does exist a state of inequality, injustice, or unfair imbalance existing today, which is due to “injustices of the past,” then each and every one of us is “responsible” to do what we can.” I get that. If, in some way, my life is better today as a result of the actions of my ancestors, no matter how distant, then I have some kind of responsibility to put things right. I am strongly opposed to slavery, rape and pillaging and, yes, Max Boyce, but the fact that they happened at all is down in some small way to what happened before. In which case, sorry.
All this extends, one would think, to reparatations, too. If the generations of people who succeeded those who we enslaved, repressed or whatever, are still suffering as a result, then I can see the logic of future generations putting things right, so to speak.
I don’t really mean the stuff about Max Boyce, by the way, or for that matter Father Abrahams and the Smurfs from the Netherlands, and I would not expect the Irish nation in its entirety to apologise for Mrs Brown’s Boys, although perhaps someone should. But especially when it comes to grotesque events like slavery then why not be sorry it happened, even if one wasn’t around to inflict it upon people?
I don’t know why King Brian or Prince William can’t bring themselves to use the S word, but that said they’ve said far more on the subject than Queen Elizabeth II did, which was next to nothing. Quite clearly, the royals of the past benefited considerably from slavery and in this instance a sorry is, I reckon, appropriate.
