Justin Welby prostrates himself.
The archbishop of Canterbury has apologised “in the name of Christ” for the 1919 massacre at Amritsar in India, when hundreds of people were shot dead by British forces.
Prostrating himself at the memorial to the Jallianwala Bagh killings, Justin Welby said: “The souls of those who were killed or wounded, of the bereaved, cry out to us from these stones and warn us about power and the misuse of power.
“I cannot speak for the British government … but I can speak in the name of Christ and say this is a place of both sin and redemption, because you have remembered what they have done and their names will live, their memory will live before God. And I am so ashamed and sorry for the impact of this crime committed here.”
The man is an embarrassment. He cannot speak for anybody but himself and as he wasn’t there, he has no business apologising. Yes, it was a dreadful incident and was recognised as such at the time, but everyone involved is now dead, so time to let it go. There is no one who can offer an apology and no one who can accept it. But that doesn’t stop this pompous buffoon making a complete arse of himself.
In 2013, David Cameron became the first serving prime minister to visit the site of the killings, bowing his head in honour of the victims. The episode was “deeply shameful” and should never be forgotten, he said, but he stopped short of apologising.
This year Theresa May called the killings a “shameful scar” in British-Indian history but also stopped short of formally apologising.
They were both right to do so. It is not the place of the living to apologise for the sins of the dead.
He added: “Learning of what happened, I recognise the sins of my British colonial history, the ideology that too often subjugated and dehumanised other races and cultures … We have a great responsibility to not just lament this horrific massacre but most importantly to learn from it in a way that changes our actions.”
Self-righteous, pompous popinjay. How dare you!?! Do you really think we are still living in the age of empire? That we have learned nothing? And that we need a lecture from you? Time to be rid of this troublesome priest – to borrow for earlier history…
“Learning of what happened, I recognise the sins of my Muslim history, the ideology that too often subjugated and dehumanised other races and cultures … We have a great responsibility to not just lament this horrific massacre but most importantly to learn from it in a way that changes our actions.”
To be quite honest, Justin Welby’s prostration is pretty typical of the nonsensical and idiotic aspect of this trend for apologising for things which were dealt with at the time (as laid out in the Hunter Commission report of 1920).
In the UK, the origin for this “Apology for ancient wrongs” seems to largely stem from Tony Blair’s pissing and moaning about British involvement in the slave trade at the time of the 200th anniversary of British abolition (despite the obvious fact that it was primarily because of the British approach that most Western use of slaves was ended).
Does any of this achieve anything other than virtue signalling? Yes. It actually undermines genuine apologies for modern wrongs. When is Tony Blair, Gordon Brown et al going to apologise to the British people for taking us into an illegal war?
That’s more relevant than trying to smear modern Britain with actions which were thoroughly reported on a century ago.
Dear Mr Longrider
Today is the anniversary of a massacre in which thousands of unarmed civilians were murdered.
I haven’t noticed any leaders of the religion whose members were responsible for that atrocity prostrating themselves before the memorial to the victims and apologising, even though the event is fully within living memory and the survivors and relatives of the victims still carry the pain.
DP
Indeed. But that’s different because reasons.
I haven’t noticed any leaders of the religion whose members were responsible for that atrocity prostrating themselves before the memorial to the victims and apologising
By which you mean the airplane religion:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/51630/heres-outrageous-911-tweet-new-york-times-quickly-amanda-prestigiacomo
Pointless Virtue Signalling
You mean there’s a kind of virtue signalling that isn’t pointless?
@John Galt
When is Tony Blair, Gordon Brown et al going to apologise to the British people for taking us into an illegal war?
Are you familiar with the concept of “When Hell freezes over and Satan buys a toboggan”?
Not really. I know that neither will ever take any ownership for what they did, since to do so would require them to pop the fantasy bubble within which they exist.
Plus, it might be enough to get the bastards into the ICC in The Hague. It’s a bit like fantasy football though, isn’t it? We can hope and dream, but it’ll never happen in reality.
It’s very far from pointless I am afraid – it’s part of the ‘long march’ through the institutions by the Hard Left whereby the past is traduces and people made to feel guilty for their skin colour, their nationality, their religion – everything that defines them. It’s been extremely effective, as a glance at our ‘higher education’ institutions will show – so pointless in terms of no one benefitting but when seen in the context of a Green/ Corbinite plan to destroy/ remodel the country it certainly serves a purpose
Judging by the recent past, you don’t get to be ABofC without being a pillock. A few years ago Carey was wibbling on about shops not stocking religious Christmas cards. Followers of Peter Hearty’s Platitudes blog all went out and bought nativity based cards and sent him one wishing him a merry Christmas. He never acknowledged that this had happened.
Apologising for something that you had nothing to do with is stupid enough, something that happened before you were even born more so.
I don’t know. I think sometimes apologizing for past wrongs even if we had nothing personally to do with them can be a good thing.
For example, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize for what one of my great great etc. grandparents did. He hit his brother with a stick and killed him, and then he went and had incest we think or maybe some form of beastiaIity which resulted in the line of ancestors which eventually produced me . He was a good guy otherwise, and his name was Able and he did not really mean to hit his brother with a Cane.
– MJM