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Comment by eshvk | Hacker News Reader

Are these symbolic apologies, pardons any good practically? They keep coming up especially in the colonial setting where governments apologize for what happened a few decades ago. It feels like a zero cost (apart from parliament costs i.e.) way to absolve their own personal guilt.

In the real world, does it actually help the oppressed?

(Who wants to place bets on an official apology to the families of Snowden/Manning coming up in a few decades after they have been caught and "justice delivered" to them.)

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I think they represent a government that is willing to look at its past and say "we were wrong". Too often we've seen "Mistakes were made", which is a way of skirting responsibility. At least this shows a society willing to acknowledge its faults and publically address them.

Does it really? It seems like more of a "I apologized, now hurry up and accept it" kind of gig. A true apology is one where people learn from it.

Gay marriage has this week been legalised in the UK. I'm really not sure what else they can do.

*in England & Wales. There is a bill that will be considered in Scotland once the parliament reconvenes. Northern Ireland has thus far rejected all legislation to change the law there.

What do you want them to do? Just ignore it? As much as we might want to we can't change history. Times change, social norms change and hopefully laws change with them (gay marriage is not legal in the UK, for example), but the best we can really do is say, "Yeah, we fucked up." and hopefully that creates a meaningful dialogue.

I think it is useless. It is about as meaningful as Bush standing in front of a banner that says "Mission accomplished".

Yes, you are right. No one can change history. That is not my point. My point is to emphasize that the gesture is meaningless; if people want to actually admit they fucked up, they should actually prove that they learnt from the mistake and do something about current problems. Otherwise, it is just a big hoopla about nothing.

So the huge strides made for gay rights in the UK (i.e. the legalization of gay marriage) is not doing something about current problems?

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