Sorry, but I'm not Apologizing for the Empire

Ian McKellen once said in an interview that whereas Australian's ask tourists if they are enjoying themselves, he says sorry to tourists about everything when they come to England. The moment I heard this I realized I do say sorry for quite a lot as do many of the people here. In fact, I was walking through the National Gallery (The British one, not the Smithsonian one) and I stepped on part of a woman's foot. The woman immediately apologized and elected to move a few inches so I could better see the picture. Whenever people bump into me, I often apologize as well (I think, you might want to challenge my humility on that one). So the question really is: Why?

Frankly, we do have a lot to apologize for: The food, the weather, drunken British tourists, the public transport, football hooligans, the supposedly fire proof doors that require twice as much force to open, etc. This habit of apologizing may just be due to manners being beaten into us as children. However, I have a sneaky suspicion that it may just be guilt over ruling a quarter of the world. Following the Second World War Mr. Hitler made empires highly unfashionable what with his Third Reich and mass murder. Over the next twenty years the British and other European nations got rid of their imperial belongings willingly or otherwise. And then following independence a lot of nations collapsed or failed to grow. And since blaming native rulers for their country’s woes has proven very politically incorrect, the blame falls on former masters. So really the British have developed this habit because they feel they mismanaged the world and are the root cause of most of the world’s woes today. And this explains why apologizing for America is very politically incorrect in the US, they haven't controlled other countries quite like us Europeans.

Whilst I appreciate the culture of apologizing for things that aren't their fault: I take beef with people who apologize for the British Empire. Sure there were terrible things done in the British Colonies (Hitler didn't invent concentration camps, just the gas chambers) there were plenty of good things the empire did such as enforcing the abolition of slavery and ending cannibalism in New Zealand (So “Lord of the Rings" could be filmed there). Plus, much worse empires have existed (cough, Belgium, cough) and some weren't even European (cough, Mayans, cough).

Discussing this issue in detail is too much for one blog, so I leave you with this fact: I will not apologize for the British Empire, but I will apologize for not apologizing.