corporate social responsibility, leadership, public relations, sustainability,

■ On 13 February 2008, the Australian government apologized to the ‘stolen generations’: those children of Aboriginal descent who were removed from their parents (usually their Aboriginal mothers) to be raised in white foster-homes and institutions administered by government and Christian churches — a practice that lasted from before the First World War to the early 1970s. This apology was significant, in the words of Rudd, for the ‘healing’ of the Australian nation. Apologizing for past injustices has become a significant speech act in current times. Why does saying sorry seem to be ubiquitous at the moment? What are the instances of not saying sorry? What are the ethical implications of this era of remembrance and apology? This set of commentaries seeks to explore some of the ethical, philosophical, social and political dimensions of this Age of Apology. The authors discuss whether apology is a responsibility which cannot — and should not — be avoided; the ethical pitfalls of seeking an apology, or not uttering it; the global and local understandings of apology and forgiveness; and the processes of ownership and appropriation in saying sorry.

Stories of the nation unite and divide: those who are perceived as or who perceive themselves as authorized to speak from those who are not; those who belong ‘within’ from those who are consigned to the outside. By examining affective responses to a planned artistic appropriation of a historically significant site for Afrikaner separatists in post‐apartheid South Africa, this paper explores the process of relating the ‘nation’ to stories of the past and resulting contestations to this process. Significantly, it considers the implications of dis‐owned histories on its possessors and their relationship to ‘nation’. Résumé Les histoires de la nation unissent et divisent à la fois : elles séparent ceux qui sont perçus ou se perçoivent comme autorisés à parler de ceux qui ne le sont pas, et ceux qui « font partie » de ceux qui sont relégués à l’extérieur. En examinant les réponses affectives à un projet d’appropriation artistique d’un site historiquement important pour les séparatistes afrikaners dans l’Afrique du Sud post‐apartheid, l’auteure explore le processus de liaison de la « nation » aux histoires du passé et les contestations qui enrésultent. Elle examine notamment les implications des histoires dont ils sont dépossédés et leur relation avec la « nation ».

Relationships between South Asians and Australians during the colonial period have been little investigated. Closer attention to the dramatically expanded sea trade after 1850 and the relatively uncontrolled movement of people, ideas and goods which occurred on them, despite claims of imperial regulation, suggests that significant numbers of Indians among others entered Australia outside the immigration restrictions of empire or settlers. Given that many of them entered or remained in Australia without official sanction, their histories will not be found in the official immigration records, but rather in the memories and momentos of the communities into which they might have moved. Exploring the histories of Aboriginal communities and of maritime working class networks does allow a previously unwritten history to emerge: not only of Indian individuals with complex personal and working histories, but often as activists in the campaigns against racial discrimination and in support of decolonization. Yet their heritage has been obscured. The polarizing conflict between settlers and Aboriginal Australians has invariably meant that Aboriginal people of mixed background had to 'choose sides' to be counted simplistically as either 'black' or 'white'. The need to defend the community's rights has meant that Aboriginal people had to be unequivocal in their identification and this simplification has had to take precedence over the assertion of a diverse heritage. In working class histories, the mobilization of selective ethnic stereotyping has meant that the history of Indians as workers, as unionists and as activists has been distorted and ignored. I. Behind the back of EmpireAlthough invariably opening with an account of British maritime exploration, the major histories of colonialism in Australia rapidly move on to focus on land-based exploration within the continent and on the landed societies of the metropole and its other colonies.

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