Yet Italy is the latest in a string of nations to apologize for past misdeeds, acknowledging last month its role in the death and displacement of thousands during its 30-year occupation of Libya, which ended in 1943.
“It is a material and emotional recognition of the mistakes that our country has done to yours during the colonial era,” Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said of the formal apology during a ceremony in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi.
He even went one step further, offering Libya a US$5 billion compensation package, complete with money for infrastructure, student grants as well as pensions for Libyan soldiers who served with Italy during the Second World War.
“This agreement opens the path to further cooperation,” Berlusconi added.
Here lies the controversy of apologies. While it seems that saying sorry has become far less taboo in political circles than it once was—Australia, Canada, and the United States have also issued formal apologies this year—the question of reparations remains a thorny one. How can a country today make up for its most brutal mistakes of the past?
Italy’s compensation package serves as a useful example. That’s because pledges like Berlusconi’s to assist with development projects and educational or social programs improve the overall quality of life of those still affected.
And when all is said and done, that does far more to right the wrongs of the past than a simple “I’m sorry” or a one-time reparation payment.
Direct payments to sufferers of oppression, the most common form of political repentance, may indeed help specific victims. But it doesn’t address the larger social legacies that past injustice have left behind, such as widespread poverty and inequality.
It also raises countless legal questions about who can be held responsible for something, and for how long.
This certainly doesn’t mean that all cruelty can be remedied—that would be a tall order for even the most ambitious of leaders. But by tackling the impact of our role in some of modern history’s worst transgressions, from colonialism and slavery to the oppression of indigenous people, we can ensure its terrible effects no longer linger.
And of course, investments in development and social programs are about more than just healing wounds. They improve the well-being of people and raise a country’s standard of living—things that benefit everyone.
It was in this spirit that Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also apologized in February for decades of blatantly racist laws and government policies that “inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss” on the country’s aboriginal population.
He, too, went further by promising to close the staggering 17-year life-expectancy gap between aboriginals and other Australians, as well as to cut in half the aboriginal infant- mortality rate, which is the highest in the country.
While it remains to be seen if Rudd will keep his promises, the apology was a step toward improving lives after a decade of stonewalling on the issue by former Prime Minister John Howard.
Canada, which also apologized this year for its mistreatment of aboriginals, has yet to take that extra step. It has said it would pay survivors of longstanding government discrimination nearly $2 billion in compensation, but continues to waver on aboriginal rights.
It was one of only four countries that refused to ratify last year’s U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a move condemned by aboriginal groups and Amnesty International.
In the United States, where the House of Representatives apologized in July for America’s part in the slave trade, any sort of redemptive action beyond an apology is a long way off.
It seems rather odd that the exceedingly wealthy and undeniably conservative Berlusconi would provide an example of this kind, and it’s easy to question whether he has ulterior motives. But it’s impossible to deny the benefits Italy’s development package will have for students, war veterans, and other poor Libyans.
And that is why, for nations serious about addressing past mistakes and helping those who need it today, Italy’s path is worth following.
Chris Mallinos is a Toronto-based journalist whose work has appeared on six continents and in seven languages. You can reach him at www.chrismallinos.com.
