Men's fear of public apology

             Happy young couple       Photo:atlantablackstar.com

The public apology is not a Kenyan male habit. Corrupt individuals will rip off state corporations, clean out the coffers and get caught in the act. You might wrestle out a confession but a public apology will be nearly impossible to extract.

That is tantamount to admitting liability and we are all innocent even when proven guilty. Given a chance, we will point out who is to blame. The resistance must stem from our past. The English came, stole land, occupied and exploited it and they never apologised to the original inhabitants they displaced.

It took a court case, half a century later filed by Mau Mau veterans to get Britain’s acknowledgement of colonial era torture and land grabbing. Therefore, the reluctance for public officials to seek forgiveness for wrongdoing has precedence.

Bad precedence

The same macho standard plays out in relationships. Behind closed doors, men are known to plead leniency for varied transgressions regularly. However, out in the public eye a different staunch is adopted. We are a society that lives by adage, ‘thou shall not wash their dirty linen in public’.  I may have messed up but darling, no need to humiliate.

Therefore, when a personal apology addressed to a wife appeared as a paid advert in one of the local dailies, it caused a sensation. Francis Onyiso probably went along with it thinking, no one reads the classified section.  Sadly, this is the 21st century and he became a news item.

A man takes out an ad to apologize to his wife for some hurt he caused and the public demands details! Francis Onyiso is obviously setting a bad precedence.

Now, if your wife insists on a public apology for some thoughtless act on your part, it won’t be thought of as malicious. After all, Onyiso did it and he is a public figure?