This page intentionally left blank The Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apologies In the last years of the twentieth century, political leaders the world over begantoapologizeforwrongsintheirnations’pasts.Manydismissedthese apologies as‘‘merewords,’’ cynicalattempts toavoidmorecostly formsof reparation;othersrejectedthemasinappropriateencroachmentsintopolitics or forms of action that belonged in personal relationships or religion. Yet political apologies have gripped nations and provoked tremendous resist- ance. To understand apology’s extraordinary political emergence, we have to suspend our automatic interpretations of what it means for nations to apologizeandinterrogatethemeaningafresh.Takingthereaderonajourney throughapology’sreligioushistoryandcontemporaryapologeticdramas,this bookarguesthat theapologeticphenomenon marksa newstageinour rec- ognition of the importance of collective responsibility, the place of ritual inaddressingnationalwrongs,andthecontributionthatpracticesthatonce belongedinthereligiousspheremightmaketocontemporarypolitics. Danielle Celermajer is currently a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social PolicyattheUniversityofSydney.ShewasformerlyDirectorofIndigenous PolicyattheAustralianHumanRightsCommission.Shewastherecipientof grantsfromtheFulbrightFoundationandtheRockefellerFoundation,aswell as a Mellon Fellowship. She has written extensively on transitional justice, human rights, religion, and the political thought of Hannah Arendt, and she recently co-edited a forthcoming book on Hannah Arendt and political judgement. The Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apologies DANIELLE CELERMAJER UniversityofSydney CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521516693 © Danielle Celermajer 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2009 ISBN-13 978-0-511-54086-8 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-521-51669-3 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. For Isaac, Hela, and John before and Arielle after. Contents Acknowledgements page ix Introduction:TheApology andPolitical Theory 1 1 The Apology Phenomenon 14 2 Apologies asSpeech Acts 43 3 Judaism’s Apology: Reconstituting the Community 65 4 The Privatization of Repentancein Christianity 108 5 Australia’s DividedHistory 142 6 Saying Sorryin Australia 171 7 Apology’s Responsibility 215 8 Apology asPoliticalAction 247 Bibliography 265 Index 279 vii