The end is nigh. Following a series of debates that, if you consider social media your prime source of news, centered around binders, bayonets, battle ships and Big Bird, the American public is now well on its way to electing the 45th President of the United States, the leader of the so-called free world.
Keeping that in mind, it is fitting that the final debate focused largely on foreign policy and the United States role in international affairs. A well-wrinkled Bob Schieffer supplied both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama with topics ranging from Iran’s supposed tooth and nail quest for nuclear weapons to the candidates’ plans for ensuring another century of American innovation and international leadership.
Though throughout the characteristic pandering, bickering and do-si-doing around truthful answers remained the factually void claim to which Romney clung more tightly than saran wrap: in a typical, spineless liberal fashion, the president embarked on a Middle Eastern apology tour in 2009 to freedom-hating countries like Egypt and Iraq, all the while leaving his “helpless” Israeli and American allies feeling vulnerable, weakened and more susceptible to attack.
Unfortunately for Romney and for Americans who still believe that politicians don’t check their honesty and integrity at the door when running for political office, this was not even close to the truth. One because Obama’s case-by-case approach to foreign policy has surprised many liberals with its aggressive and occasionally lawless counterterrorism strategies in the Middle East; and two because Obama, above all else, is an American president whose career requires fluency in both rhetoric and realpolitik. And in either language, the word “sorry” simply doesn’t exist.
If not rooted in reality, Romney’s basis for Obama’s apologist mega tour is rooted on this planet. Said the No Apologies contender on Monday, “the president began what I would call an apology tour of going to various nations in the Middle East and criticizing America. I think [Iran] looked at that and saw weakness.” He continued, “You went to the Middle East…and you said that America has been dismissive and derisive. You said that on occasion America has dictated to other nations. Mr. President, America has not dictated to other nations. We have freed other nations from dictators.”
Save for obvious examples to the contrary (re: US occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1965, US support of the Pinochet military dictatorship in 1973 Chile, etc.), Mitt Romney’s assertions about Obama’s Middle Eastern apology tour would only be remotely true if the Middle East included Strasbourg, France, as well as Trinidad and Tobago. Yes, in 2009 Obama did utter the words “dismissive and derisive,” though it was in reference to the United States’ appreciation of European leadership abroad. And as far as “dictating” is concerned, the full quote can be lifted from an Obama speech in the Caribbean while he discussed US efforts to promote peace and prosperity in the region–not the opposite.
But no matter. Those are only facts, and if those were still worth anything Romney would have already invested in them long ago. But let’s pause for a moment and pretend that the Seine runs parallel to the Euphrates and that Mitt Romney’s alternate version of reality actually warrants consideration. What, then, would be so particularly dreadful if the president of a Western, historically colonial power actually did apologize to the victims of its unsavory, undemocratic and often illegal actions in decades past? Since when is self-awareness, accountability or a fully-functioning national conscience worthy of scorn, and since when should its outward expression be viewed as a debilitating weakness?
The good news is that it’s not. At least in, you guessed it, France. Upon the 70th anniversary of the Rafle du Vél´ d’Hiv (the days-long incarceration of Jews within an indoor bicycle track that lacked adequate water, food and ventilation) this past summer, French President François Hollande both acknowledged and apologized for France’s guilt in the horrific incident—one that according to historian David Bell had remained purposely submerged in the harder-to-reach depths of the nation’s consciousness until the 1970s and 80s. Last week, as France passed another major anniversary of past human rights infringement, Hollande took a seminal step to shedding a much-needed light on the 1961 police-led massacre of Algerian protestors in the streets of Paris by first ending official denials to the contrary and then by paying homage to those who suffered at the hands of the state.
As Bell stated in a recent article in The New Republic, Hollande was not the first head of state to apologize for its role in the Holocaust, but he did so with much more empathy than his predecessors. And unlike Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, Hollande did acknowledge the state’s responsibility for the 1961 massacre. Said Hollande, “There cannot be, and there will not be lost memory under the Republic.”
Granted, the list of wrongs committed by any developed nation is one which—depending on who’s keeping score—could be infinite, and apologizing for events outside of living memory might be an exercise in futility. But the simple utterance of genuine remorse, the assumption of responsibility and the presence of a public majority who—save for the usual, hard-right non-apologists—supports its leader’s statements is certainly a nice jumping-off point, and one on which other allegedly “justice-seeking” nations should take notes.
To the chagrin of Obama and Romney alike, the apology has not always been a pathetically tattered white flag of surrender; rather, it has seen a formidable amount of success in terms of fostering security—namely because silly things like respect, shared dignity, dialogue and reparative justice are necessary on the path toward reconciliation (one well-trod in international relations) as well as lasting, stable relationships among state actors. In an article published by UC Berkeley, University of Massachusetts Medical School Dean and psychiatrist Aaron Lazare cited several instances wherein true apologies coupled with forgiveness have promoted cooperation and cohesion in a global society otherwise embroiled in cultural, political and military conflicts.
A prime example would be South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which sought to help deal with the atrocities committed under apartheid “come to terms with the nation’s past, on a morally accepted basis, and advance the cause of reconciliation”. Another one would be Pope John XXIII’s elimination of all negative comments regarding Jews in Roman Catholic liturgy (Vatican II), which Lazare argues resulted in a turning point for Church relations among various faiths.
However, forgiving what Lazare deems an “unrepentant offender who shows no signs of remorse or change of behavior” is not only foolish for their victims to grant; it’s self destructive. The United States, like most other well-developed nations, has a lot it needs to seek forgiveness for, and it’s only the president who has the authority to do so. But when one currently vying for the spot has written a book advocating the opposite and the other squirms at a blatantly false accusation of seeking it, meaningful reconciliation is nowhere in sight.