Forums of apology and forgiveness

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In 1974, the Irish Republican Army bombing of pubs in Guildford and Woolwich led to the wrongful jailing of eleven Irishmen. The individuals were arrested by the British police based on evidence that was later discredited. In 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized to the surviving victims and their families. Mr. Blair had been expected to make his statement in the House of Commons, but Members of Parliament did not offer him that opportunity. Instead, he recorded a TV statement immediately afterwards from his office and after that, he spoke in private chambers with the families of the victims without any press present, repeating the statement he just had made.

There had been a “miscarriage of justice”, Mr. Blair said in this statement. “I recognize the trauma that the conviction caused the (…) families and the stigma which wrongly attaches to them to this day. I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice. That's why I am making this apology today. They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated”.

Gerry Conlon, one of the Irishmen who were wrongly jailed for the bombings, stated to the press afterwards that “[the Prime Minister] went beyond what we thought he would, he took time to listen to everyone. He exceeded our expectations in apologizing, he said it was long overdue.” Conlon added that Blair spoke with sincerity and that “…the good thing is that he has acknowledged it, and he accepts that we are in pain, that we are suffering terrible, terrible nightmares and terrible post-traumatic stress disorder”. Mr. Conlon concluded that he had got all he had wanted from Mr. Blair “and more”.

PUBLIC FORGIVENESS

Can this official apology be seen as an act of public forgiveness? If we understand public forgiveness as (a) a mutual process of transformation: a change of mind and heart on the part of the victim and the wrongdoer to end a cycle of offense and resentment6 that (b) takes place in an open, accessible forum, then the aforementioned apology seems to match the definition. Mr. Blair's statement evoked a positive reaction; Gerry Conlon, one of the victims who personally suffered from the wrongdoing, responded with gratitude to the Prime Minister.