Australian journalist was right not to apologise over Irish joke

The hoopla began familiarly enough. A person in the public eye made comments that some deemed offensive, triggering an angry and indignant backlash.

The villain this time was an Australian journalist, Josh Massoud, who took fire for his comments about the reputation of Irish in the country for partying hard and leaving destruction in their wake.

Posting a photo of storm damage in the Sydney suburb of Coogee, a popular Irish hangout, on social media on Monday, Massoud quipped: “Coogee demolished over the weekend and for a pleasant change the Irish aren’t to blame.”

Predictably, outrage ensued. A throng of Irish in Australia, at home and elsewhere, branded the 7 News Sydney reporter’s remarks “racist,” “offensive” and “disgraceful”.

Picking up on the kerfuffle, The Irish Times contacted the reporter for his response, probably expecting to find a chastened and contrite Massoud seeking forgiveness for the offense caused.

But here proceedings veered wildly off script. Massoud wouldn’t be apologising. In fact, he wasn’t sorry at all. He couldn’t even understand what the fuss was about.

Explaining that he was “intrigued” by the backlash since he found Irish people endearingly irreverent themselves, Massoud said it would be “disingenuous” to apologise since he’d only be doing so in response to the outrage, not his actual comments.

“Sure I could delete the post and apologise,” he said. “But if it takes almost two days to say sorry, how can that possibly be sincere? Is that what people really need to feel better these days?”

Apologies on demand

It’s refreshing to see such an unapologetic rejection of the recurring spectacle of the forced public apology, the insincerity of which is often equal to the questionable outrage that brought it on. Whether you appreciate the joke or not is besides the point. Massoud’s response was strikingly honest – striking because honesty is a quality that’s sadly lacking in the culture of apologies on demand. In his own small way, he gave back to “sorry” – that vital word – a tiny bit of the power it has been robbed of through promiscuous overuse.

The default expectation today is that almost any claim of offense will be met with a swift and earnest apology. But if the offending party doesn’t actually feel sorry, what’s the point in him pretending (lying, effectively) otherwise?

Who was really convinced when a stone-faced Johnny Depp mumbled “sorry” to Australia earlier this year after he and his now-estranged wife failed to declare two Yorkshire terriers they’d brought into the country?

Rather than being a heartfelt expression of remorse, the ritualised public apology too often feels like a cynical piece of theatre. Both the players and audience are aware of the con but neither wants to draw attention to the spectacle, which functions to save the offender from the baying mob and gift the offended their pound of flesh.

We demand sincerity from people who see the world differently when, by definition, sincerity can’t be summoned on demand.

Genuine remorse

After provoking outrage last week by joking that he and Roy Keane didn’t want to be thought of as “queers” while travelling together, Irish soccer manager Martin O’Neill faced more anger over the genuineness of his apology.

“If I had made inappropriate comments then I obviously apologise,” O’Neill said. “I will attempt during the rest of my time not to make such inappropriate comments.”

Irish Times columnist Una Mullally dismissed the effort as a "bullshit apology", calling for his reprimand, while Mark Kelly, director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, complained that it was not authentic.

While there is little reason to believe O’Neill has any malice toward gay people, it’s clear he’s not fluent in the vernacular of his critics, many of whom would sooner associate “queer” with the title of a university module than an acceptable way of referring to a gay man.

That’s hardly surprising for a man who came of age in 1960s Northern Ireland.

If O’Neill did not appear sufficiently remorseful, should he apologise again? Would it be genuine then, or would it just be a way to pacify the crowd while paradoxically convincing few of them anything inside his head had changed?

Whether we like or not, you can’t will someone into genuine contrition. And that’s as it should be. After all, an apology should mean something – it’s for people to give, not for other people to take. If the disrupters of our sensibilities aren’t really sorry, let’s allow them to say so.

And let’s stop demanding they pretend they are.

John Power is an Irish journalist based in Melbourne