How can people deny facts or can't seem to apologise ?

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I have heard many times of people calling for the UK to pay reparations and apologise for the wrong-doings of its colonial past. Recently King Charles has made a visit in Kenya and said he expresses regret and sorrow for what happened to the people of Kenya during the British suppression of the Mau Mau Uprising in the 1950s but didn't actually say sorry. I does remind me a little bit like when the Emperor of Japan made a visit to Britain some years ago and expressed deep sorrow for the mistreatment of POWs and other atrocities in World War 2 and didn't say sorry. There is a part of me that wishes they should apologise but there is a part of me that thinks is it enough as though one sorry isn't enough to bring back the many victims that died.

I did find it quite irritating when there was a guy had been former member of Margaret Thatcher's government and said that there is ''nothing'' that Britain should apologise for and was coming across like that we should be proud of everything in our country's past both good and bad. He explained that the British were trying suppress terrorism in Kenya and that we should be proud of defeating terrorism and even said there was no need to apologise for Dresden in World War 2 either probably because well, the Nazis were bombing us, so we did the same thing to stop them for bombing us at home. I do think Britain is a great country and has done great things in its history like coming up with cures against deadly diseases, inventing great things, defeating the Nazis, freedoms of speech and expression and so on but I don't really like this idea that ''everything'' about a country is ''great'' which some people seem to put across as though nothing terrible at all whatsoever happened because.

I'm not sure why, but it certainly is frustrating.

With your example of the Mau Mau uprising (for example) they insist they needed to defeat terrorism, but the terrorism was the direct result of their presence.

People seem to choose to ignore all of the facts that don't support the position they've already decided is the correct one.

I'd like to see the actual individual perpetrators of colonial oppression apologise and face justice, but I suppose most of them are already dead. I don't particularly want the current elite to apologise for things they didn't actually do themselves, especially if it involves spending taxpayers' money on travelling there in style and getting slap-up meals. Any jerk in the right place can cry a few crocodile tears and carry on fleecing ordinary people. I don't see the British people as responsible for the behaviour of their leaders, because representative democracy isn't very representative. I also feel that true remorse is backed up by positive action to make amends, at the expense of those who actually did the wrong. I don't like being told that "we as a nation" have much to be ashamed of. I'm hardly responsible for what the Big People do, and definitely not responsible at all for what they did before I was born. I don't identify with the British ruling class or Britain as a nation. I think nations are too big anyway, and would be better split up into small groups which can be run like caring families.

None of this is very practical, and I'm sure they'll never do what I want them to do, but I presume we're talking about moral principles and stuff.

Governments generally won’t say sorry, because that is an admission of guilt, which has legal ramifications. The problem is most of the world was conquered and possessed by various dominant countries all throughout history. It’s hard to separate winning a war to take possession of that land from a general invasion that forces it’s original inhabitants to conform or die sometimes.

You mention the U.K and it’s colonisation and expansionism policy. That’s the way the world worked then, to to some degree even now. But, in Englands history, it was invaded and conquered quite a few times by various other countries. How far back are we supposed to go when apportioning blame and asking for apologies?

That's always the sticky wicket, isn't it?

yeah.

You could start your own political movement to...restore England to its original inhabitants. Namely the Celtic Britons!

Those English speaking "English" are descended from the invading Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians) who over ran the southeast corner of Britain in the Dark Ages after the Romans left Briton.

Wales, maybe Cornwall, and Brittany (a province of France) are the last bastions of the original Britons.

So...lets kick the English out! Dismantle modern England. And send the English back to their "homelands" on the north coast of Germany, the Netherlands, and south Denmark! So we can give what is now "England" back to the descendants of the Britons (basically the modern Welsh).

And when your movement gains traction both sides in the Arab Israeli conflict could point to you to ridicule the other side.

The Palestinians would say "Israeli Zionist are even more ridiculous than Dirk Gently because he is basing his claim on ownership of England from only 1500 years ago...while the Zionist are claiming ownership from two thousand years ago.".

And the Israelies would say "folks who oppose Zionism are just as ridiculous as Dirk Gently because he wants to dismantle England after England's de facto long existence...just like some folks want to dismantle Israel after modern Israel's long time de facto existence".

I think that people and governments especially don't actually apologize but "express sorrow" as the OP stated is because of pride. Pride makes the NT person more reluctant to admit wrongdoings and since there are a lot more of them the ASD folks who don't think that way get shut down pretty quickly. They can't understand why we would just admit we were wrong, apologize and move on. This is one of those issues that I think really shows the NT vs. ASD.

Could be something in that as a general thing. Strangely, I was one of those "it wasn't my fault" kids, and literally didn't know what sorry meant. I thought it was just a magic word for covering my back. Even now, if anybody tries to get an apology out of me I'll usually refuse. But if I find out for myself that I've done harm, the remorse I feel is very strong. If somebody were to spell out clearly how I'd hurt them, I'd get it. But usually they didn't. I also have a problem turning strong remorse into making amends because it's often so strong that it paralyses me.

I don't think people in high offices living today should apologise on the behalf of their predecessors. In my opinion it would be absurd if current prime minister Rishi Sunak travelled to India and apologised for Britains colonial past. If you have no part in it the proper thing is to express sorrow.

If Rishi Sunak apologizes it's because he's the current head of the organization that is still responsible. It isn't a personal apology, it's an institutional one.

We have had a long history of prime ministers who were mainly white men and women and I seem to think that now we have a prime minister who is of Indian descent but just tows the line like his predecessors did. I also seem to think if Sunak went to Amritsar, he would just say it was a regretful thing to have happened but not say sorry in the same way I think David Cameron did when he visited India.

I think its a good thing that now we people becoming members of parliament/politicians in the 21st Century that 100 years ago, parliament wouldn't have had and shows how far we have come but again, I seem to think even those generations of people still tow the line and may still not feel the need to apologise for the wrong-doings of Britain's colonial past despite themselves having had parents and grandparents who came from India and parts of Africa.

I am also wondering if the reason also why governments don't apologise for past wrong-doings in their history is because it would just end losing them support from people who support them if the prime minister we have now said that statues of people who owned slaves during the days of the British Empire should be torn down or went around other countries (which had once been colonies of the empire) and apologised for all the terrible deeds that were done there.

Is it the same institution though? I feel like there's a Ship of Theseus type of argument to be made regarding historical claims and current institutions, that they're not in fact the same.

I don't think Charles is actually 'allowed' to formally apologise, as it would be seen as him being political (which as monarch he isn't supposed to do). So he can make it as clear as he can that he personally regrets things that happened in the past, but he can't go any further than that.

As for how to fix who should live where in the world... get everyone to take a DNA test and move back to wherever it says they originated from! I'm guessing Africa would become incredibly crowded, but at least no one could claim anyone is in anyone else's land after that!

(I'm obviously joking, that would be an incredibly bad idea!)

The British state is still the British state, even if the government that runs it is very much a Ship of Theseus. All of the treaty obligations, territorial claims, etc that the British state has made (for example) remain present even when the government changes.

There's instances where successors have institutional responsibility, but in those contexts it's a commonwealth government (like Canada or Australia) who has assumed the responsibilities of The Crown.

The governments of both India and Pakistan have explicitly positioned themselves as not successors to the British Raj (articles 395 and 221 of the Indian and Pakistani constitutions, respectively).

With that in mind, no other polity except the British state could be seen as the responsible party.