Ethical Restoration after Communal Violence: The Grieving and the Unrepentant 1498526691, 9781498526692

Citation preview

Ethical Restoration after Communal Violence

Ethical Restoration after Communal Violence The Grieving and the Unrepentant Marguerite La Caze

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9781498526692 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 9781498526708 (electronic)

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

I: Negative Conditions of Ethical Restoration 1 I Love Living: Derrida, the Death Penalty, and Unconditional Abolition 2 The Taste of Ashes: Beauvoir, Vengefulness, and the Death Penalty in Post-War France 3 At First Blush: Guilt, Shame, and Humiliation

3 23 45

II: Positive Conditions of Ethical Restoration 4 Pretending Peace: Kant, Améry, and Political Trust 5 Betrayed by Life: Derrida, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda 6 A Dreadful Solitude: Jankélévitch, Remorse, and the Demand for Atonement 7 This Hole in My Heart: Acts of Atonement and Post-Colonial Australia 8 In Search of a Magic Spell: Arendt and Self-Forgiveness

129 149

Conclusion

171

Bibliography

179

Index

193

About the Author

203 vii

67 85 105

Acknowledgments

After I finished writing my previous book on wonder and generosity in ethics and politics, I felt that there were still many questions that needed to be answered, especially about forgiveness and situations where forgiveness seems impossible. The project and this book grew out of the lingering sense that I needed to better understand those situations and to construct a philosophical framework for leading toward more hopeful ethical and political circumstances. I would like to thank the Australian Research Council for their support through a Discovery grant 2015–2018 which has enabled me to complete this book. My thanks also goes to Elese Dowden, who has pursued her PhD on a related project, also supported by the ARC grant, and Terrilyn Sweep who has done wonderful research assistance for the book with great enthusiasm. I am grateful to Tim Dunne and Lynda Cheshire for their encouraging feedback on the project. My gratitude goes to Simone Drichel and Magdalena Zolkos for coming to present wonderful papers for roundtables on trust in 2015 and on atonement in 2016 and the other speakers, Anne Brown, Stephen McLaughlin, Roland Bleiker, Daniel Brennan, Elese Dowden, and Annie Pohlman. Emma Hutchison could not make it but her work is an inspiration. My thanks also go to the other members of the European Philosophy Research Group, Aurelia Armstrong and Michelle Boulous Walker, for their support for these roundtables, as well as to the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Peter Cryle and Peter Harrison for their continued support. Colleagues in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry have kept me going, especially Gilbert Burgh and Gary Malinas, through coffee and conversations, and Clive Moore, who agreed to be my mentor. Christine Daigle and Matthew Sharpe visited the University of Queensland and discussed my work with me, and I acknowledge their kindness. My partner in life and philosophy, Damian Cox, has been a tremenix

x

Acknowledgments

dous support as well as considering all the ideas with unfailing interest. Friends and family have been there for me and distracted me when that was important, so I would like to acknowledge them. Conference presentations are a fantastic way to test out new thoughts, and I would like to thank colleagues at the following conferences for their helpful questions and observations: the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy, Ethical Theory, and Moral Practice; the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions; the International Association of Women Philosophers; the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy; the International Peace Research Association; the Historical Memory, Justice, and Reconciliation Symposium; the Nordic Society for Phenomenology; Derrida Today; and the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy. The philosophy departments at the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne invited me to present my work on this project, and I was hosted by Caroline West and Andrew Inkpin, and I really appreciate that. Thank you to the anonymous reader for Lexington Books for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am grateful to Jana Hodges-Kluck, senior acquisitions editor, for her enthusiasm, support and work to bring this book to publication. An earlier version of chapter 1 was published as “Derrida: Opposing Death Penalties,” Derrida Today 2, no. 2 (2009): 186–99; of chapter 3 as “At First Blush: The Politics of Guilt and Shame,” Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy 18 (2013): 85–99; of chapter 4 as “Pretending Peace: Provisional Political Trust and Sincerity in Kant and Améry,” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations, edited by Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux, 156–72 (London: Routledge, 2017) with kind permission from Taylor and Francis; and of chapter 8 as “Self-Forgiveness and Arendt: In Search of a Magic Spell,” Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy 24 (2015): 38–63; and some material from chapter 2 was published in “Possible and Impossible Reciprocity: Love and Hate in Beauvoir,” Thinking about Love: Essays in Contemporary Continental Philosophy, edited by Antonio Calcagno and Diane Enns (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2015). Thanks to Northwestern University Press for permission to quote from Robert Antelme, The Human Race, translated by Jeffrey Haight and Annie Mahler, 1998 and thanks to Hurst publications for permission to quote from Phil Clark and Zachary D. Kaufman, ed., After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Excerpt from HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR by Marguerite Duras, translated by Richard Seaver, copyright © 1961. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material outside of this publication is prohibited.

Introduction

This book grows out of the sense of great pain that continues to be experienced in most places in the world due to events and histories of great injustice, oppression, and violence. It struck me that European and feminist philosophical texts provide a special resource for reflecting on and developing an account of ethical and political restorative responses because of the richness of their interpretations of experience and the philosophers’ roles as witnesses of and sufferers of experience of communal violence. For instance, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir lived through the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, along with Vladimir Jankélévitch, who was banned from teaching philosophy because he was Jewish, Jacques Derrida, who was excluded from high school in Algeria for the same reason in that period, Jean Améry, who was tortured and interned in the concentration and extermination camps of the Nazi regime, and Hannah Arendt, who was twice detained but managed to go into exile in the United States. My aim is to develop an account of how we can respond to forms of injustice and political violence in ethically responsible ways, establishing the negative and positive conditions for ethical restoration by examining unjust and unproductive reactions, and giving an account of the best ways of restoring ethical stability, individual respect, and broken relations, without overemphasizing one aspect of our responses—that does not put the onus primarily on victims to forgive, for example. Here I examine both historical and recent cases: the post-liberation French purge, post-genocide Rwanda and post-colonial Australia and their struggles to go beyond the legacies of war, occupation, genocide, and violent colonialism, in order to draw out what is an ethical response to communal violence and what undermines those efforts. I develop a philosophical account of ethical restoration through focusing on

xi

xii

Introduction

just and decent punishment, rebuilding political trust, forgiveness, reconciliation, atonement, and self-forgiveness. This analysis of ethical restoration brings ethical and political questions together, and shows how punishment that respects life and does not humiliate as well as forgiveness and reconciliation are necessary to properly restore peace and justice in both transitional societies, such as post-war France and post-genocide Rwanda, and democratic societies such as the United States and Australia. Thus, the book is concerned with ethical restoration in this specific sense, not in individual criminal or legal terms, or ethical relations between nation states. The central problem for this study is how we can respond to the legacy of oppression and unjust political violence in ways that are just, caring, and not self-destructive or destructive of the rights of others. I develop this account through critical and sympathetic interpretations of Derrida’s concept of unconditional abolition of the death penalty, Beauvoir’s analysis of punishment as designed to restore reciprocity, Immanuel Kant’s and Améry’s views of trust, Jaspers’s, Arendt’s, and Agamben’s ideas concerning guilt and shame, Jankélévitch’s ideas of remorse, Derrida’s concept of forgiveness, and Arendt’s claims about self-forgiveness. These works are brought into relation to the experiences of communal violence in first and third-person accounts and to more abstract ethical and political philosophies of making amends and atonement, including Margaret Urban Walker’s and Linda Radzik’s. Here I consider that any attempts at restoring an ethical political community must themselves be limited by ethical constraints. The harm of political violence and oppression typically arouse feelings of hatred and a desire for revenge in victims and survivors, responses that can be legitimate yet can also be ethically and psychologically self-defeating. Thus, to understand how to break out of cycles of violence, forgiveness, reconciliation and their supporting conditions need to be discussed together. The concept of ethical restoration after political violence and oppression here is inspired by JeanPaul Sartre’s work on overcoming colonial violence and Jacques Derrida’s idea of the logic of autoimmunity. Sartre argued that we must be wary of mirroring previous violence and that our actions as a response must avoid undermining the very ends we are trying to achieve (2001a, 144). Aiming at peace, we must recognize the need for justice and respect, and in reacting against violence we have to beware of perpetrating more violence, or violence that is not a just punishment. Derrida’s reworking of the medical concept of autoimmunity is used to consider the issues concerning how best to restore an ethical political community following oppression and political violence (Borradori 2003, 94). We can see this concept as a complex refinement of Sartre’s view that we should not denature the end we aim at. Immunity refers to the integral protections that we find in individuals and democratic states. Derrida modifies the medi-

Introduction

xiii

cal concept of autoimmunity, as the destruction of our own systems of selfprotection, to describe the logic of responses to attacks on democratic political systems. Autoimmunity is seen, for instance, when democratic governments attack human rights by engaging in torture or capital punishment as a response to political violence. Then they are not just attacking a “part” of the system for the sake of the whole; they are attacking the practices and institutions that make democracy robust and enduring. The ideas of perfectibility and self-criticism built into democracy are the kind of nondestructive features that can be challenged in circumstances of political violence and oppression. The logic of autoimmunity shows that our efforts at punishment, forgiveness and reconciliation can undercut our own goals of a more peaceful and ethical society, so any account of ethical restoration must bear that in mind in considering all the ways we take to achieve peace and justice. This concept of autoimmunity suggests that any account of responses to extreme harm must not be self-destructive or destructive of basic values. These considerations place ethical constraints on what steps should be taken toward ethical restoration, rather than “peace at any price.” Thus, the focus here is on the negative conditions for ethical restoration: including avoiding irreparable punishments such as the death penalty, vengeance, and humiliating punishments, and positive conditions for ethical restoration: developing trust, pursuing justice, encouraging reconciliation but not coercing forgiveness, reflecting and acting on what genuine atonement involves, and attempting self-forgiveness where that is ethically appropriate. Certain processes of punishment and reconciliation strengthen peace and justice while others undermine it. Taking this view seriously enables an understanding of the wrong of the death penalty and revenge, as well the importance of acknowledging the angry, resentful, and indignant responses of victims and concerned bystanders. It demonstrates how punishment is an aspect of many reconciliation processes and how that punishment can be made compatible with reconciliation by respecting the person and eliminating capital punishment and humiliating punishments that attempt to shame the offenders. Looking at the problem of ethical restoration this way can both open up our imaginaries and suggest how things could be done differently. Overcoming the use of capital punishment and considering the role of punishment and of trust articulates conditions that make the positive features of ethical restoration such as forgiveness, apologies, atonement, and self-forgiveness possible. The book incorporates a conception of the way in which our ethical reactions to others, of different ethnic groups, for instance, may be undermined by a failure both to respect their humanity and the distinctiveness of their culture and history. An ethical response does both: recognizes humanity and acknowledges specificity. In other words, while human rights must be respected in responding to past wrongdoing, so must the cultural circum-

xiv

Introduction

stances and traditions that may call for specific responses in punishment, reconciliation, forgiveness, and atonement. By focusing on the cases of postwar France, post-genocide Rwanda, and post-colonial Australia, the book considers the cultural specificity of means of atonement in these different situations. These cases are chosen to show both continuity and distinctiveness as forms of ethical restoration. The purge in post-war France is distant enough in the past to allow a sober reflection on which aspects of it were justifiable and which not. The genocide in Rwanda challenges previous ideas of genocide as bureaucratic and demands a philosophical reassessment of those ideas, as does the hybrid process of gacaca trials, which I argue incorporated punishment alongside specific forms of forgiveness and reconciliation. One of the reasons for a focus on post-genocide Rwanda is that the situation is so unusual, since survivors often have to live near and work with perpetrators of the genocide, some of whom were relatives, friends and acquaintances. That circumstance makes the question of forgiveness quite specific and different from that of other genocides or extreme crimes. Considering the Australian case allows us to see how the concepts are modulated when applied in a democratic rather than transitional society, and how atonement and self-forgiveness are possible when both can seem impossible. Although reconciliation processes can be deeply flawed in many ways, they can still be the best approach to the legacy of violence and oppression, given the contexts, and such flaws should not be used as an excuse for apathy and quietism. The approach taken here enables an account that does not stress a single form of response to past oppressive violence at the expense of others. This book uses the works of Derrida, Camus, Beauvoir, Arendt, Sartre, Kant, Améry, Jankélévitch, and others by critically examining their arguments and by developing, extending and applying their insights to address the problem of ethical restoration following conflict and within democratic states. The philosophers at the core of the project are very influential figures, yet most of their work has not been connected and used in this way before. An understanding of the role of apologies in the process of reconciliation, other forms of reparations and atonement, both political and cultural, and developing trust is central to ethical restoration. The book brings together literature on extreme wrongdoing and forgiveness, topics generally pursued separately and goes beyond the question of what forgiveness is and what should be forgiven to consider how ethical restoration can encourage the grounds for forgiveness and self-forgiveness, such as atonement, without demanding forgiveness. Parallels to forgiveness exist in politics in reconciliation, amnesty, pardon, clemency, and mercy, and all these variations of political forgiveness are relevant to the post-war French purge, the Rwandan gacaca trials, and reconciliation in Australia. I try to address some of the hardest questions of ethical restoration, by considering the problem of the

Introduction

xv

unrepentant perpetrator and how reconciliation and atonement can be approached in those circumstances. The experience of survivors and the thematic of grief is one that haunts the pages, through the voices of the survivors and the words that cannot be spoken in relation to the suffering that has been undergone, rather than being explicitly discussed as a theory of grief. This book centers on three experiences of ethical restoration in contexts of political violence in depth, while considering others more briefly, and tries to give concrete expression to those experiences while reflecting on what has been done or could be done to restore a more ethical way of living. Ethical responses to wrongdoing are an important instance in which ethics comes into politics. This way of thinking will be developed in the book, using Derrida’s work on philosophical support for the death penalty in relation to Beauvoir’s equation of the death penalty and revenge and qualified support for both, in the book’s first section, concerning negative conditions of ethical restoration. In chapter 1, “I Love Living: Derrida, the Death Penalty, and Unconditional Abolition,” I argue that the first condition that needs to be fulfilled for ethical restoration is the elimination of the death penalty. I consider Derrida’s idea of unconditional abolition in his Death Penalty seminars (2014, 2017) and other writings to demonstrate the importance of this principle for both transitional and democratic societies. Derrida contends that both arguments in favor of capital punishment, such as Kant’s, and arguments for its abolition, such as those of Cesare Beccaria, are deconstructible. He also questions whether it is possible to develop a universal and unconditional abolitionist approach. The difficulty here is that his analysis of other unconditional concepts such as hospitality and forgiveness implies that such an approach is impossible, thus leaving the abolitionist in an untenable position. In this chapter, I examine Derrida’s claim about the lack of systematic opposition to the death penalty on the part of philosophers and suggest an answer to his question concerning the possibility of a universal and unconditional opposition to capital punishment. I also explore the odd support for capital punishment, found in Kant, Arendt, and even Beauvoir. Camus, however, stands out from this tradition and so I juxtapose his criticisms of the death penalty with that support. This discussion leads directly to the question of capital punishment and its use as a tool of revenge in punishment after occupation and genocide. Chapter 2 is called “The Taste of Ashes: Beauvoir, Vengefulness, and the Death Penalty in Post-War France.” In this chapter, I examine and criticize Beauvoir’s view on the post–World War II purge in France and the death penalty in her essay “An Eye for an Eye” (1946), concerning the trial and execution of writer Robert Brasillach (1909–1945). Her essay clarifies why vengefulness is almost always bound to be disappointed, through her argument that both private revenge and state punishment fail to bring about the perpetrator’s recognition of what they have done, their own ambiguous exis-

xvi

Introduction

tence, or an acknowledgment of the perspective of the victim. Beauvoir’s account acknowledges that punishment generally fails to achieve its aim of restoring reciprocity between perpetrator and victim and so implies that this aim must be gained through other means. She directly confronts the question of revenge and the kinds of emotions, such as hate, which underpin vengefulness. This chapter demonstrates the relationship between Beauvoir’s distinctive essay and her book The Ethics of Ambiguity, published less than two years later in 1947, and I argue that her discussion of the death penalty is inconsistent with her existentialist approach within the essay and in her other writings. Here I both challenge Beauvoir’s support for the death penalty and consider how her analysis implies that we need to minimize a culture of revenge, opportunities for revenge, and for violence that is not accountable. The problems with her argument suggest that the death penalty as a means of punishment or even revenge for perpetrators of political violence is a failure, a failure the Rwandan government recognized, as I discuss in chapter 5. Pursuing revenge after political violence can be both understandable and deeply wrong. So we need to turn to other ways of considering both perpetrators and victims. I also consider how Beauvoir and Arendt contribute to an understanding of the wrong of crimes against humanity and add clarity in developing appropriate responses. The contrast between the clarity with which they describe the nature of the crimes and the obscurity of their justifications for the death penalty in specific instances, that of Brasillach and Eichmann, show that while punishment is appropriate in these cases, the death penalty is not because it is incompatible with respect for humanity. Likewise, the use of humiliating and shaming punishments, such as the scapegoating of women suspected of collaboration, undermines the goal of restoration to bring perpetrators back into an ethical community, where they and the victims are regarded and treated with respect. Thus, the next chapter examines the differences between guilt, shame, and humiliation to articulate how a more positive approach can be taken to both punishment and reconciliation. In chapter 3, “At First Blush: Guilt, Shame, and Humiliation,” I link an examination of punishment to questions of guilt and shame because understanding them can contribute to establishing the negative conditions of ethical restoration. This chapter focuses on the ways in which perceptions and experiences of guilt and shame are shaped by political conceptions of who belongs to the more guilty and shameful parties, to indicate how shaming and humiliating practices undermine the possibility of ethical restoration. A problem in the aftermath of political violence is that often the victims feel guilty and ashamed but the perpetrators do not. This phenomenon is the converse of the refusal to accept guilt when one is culpable, a danger with the concept of collective guilt Hannah Arendt points out. I use the debate between Karl Jaspers in The Question of German Guilt (1947), and Arendt in many of her

Introduction

xvii

writings on guilt and responsibility, as well as Sartre’s analysis of shame in Being and Nothingness (1943) and Giorgio Agamben’s work on shame in Remnants of Auschwitz (1999), to develop an account of the political aspects of perceived and felt guilt and shame. Some philosophers, for example Cheshire Calhoun (2004a), have argued that the oppressed should accept the burdens of guilt and shame expected of them because of the social nature of our ethical experience. However, I argue that the view that members of oppressed groups should experience the guilt and shame expected of them by dominant groups ought to be challenged, and that we should also acknowledge the dangers of humiliating punishment. The chapter examines Agamben’s reading of a young man’s shame on a death march at the end of World War II, and the use of contemporary shaming practices, such as pink uniforms for prisoners, in punishment of perpetrators. My argument is that the debate concerning shame and guilt has obscured emotions that are responses to the actions of others, such as humiliating treatment. This focus implicitly supports the dynamics of humiliation, and can affect victims and undermine just punishment, and is an element in some practices of transitional justice. The second section of the book considers the positive conditions and processes toward ethical restoration of political community. In chapter 4, “Pretending Peace: Kant, Améry, and Political Trust,” I show how Kant’s account of the wrong of lying and of certain deceptive acts even in conflict situations implies that there are basic conditions for maintaining trust. Kant argues in The Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and “Toward Perpetual Peace,” (1795) that even in the worst situations we should tell the truth so as to make it possible for a rightful political condition to arise. Even in the greatest conflict situations we should not do that which eliminates trust, in order to strengthen the conditions for a peaceful and stable community. This account illustrates how ethical constraints on political violence can enable the restoration of trust following such conflict. I argue that Kant’s view that there must be such conditions for leaving a path open for peace can provide a model for thinking about building political trust after wars and other forms of conflict and consider the importance of truthfulness to trust. In the second section of this chapter I consider the need for the possibility of help as also necessary to trust, through the work of Jean Améry in At the Mind’s Limits (1966). His work, and description of his experiences, show the caring aspect important to trust. Finally, I consider whether these conditions of trust obtain in post-genocide Rwanda, and suggest that people there are trying to establish the conditions for trust. Sometimes sincerity or full trust is not the most significant issue in establishing peace, but truthfulness and the willingness to act as if we were sincere and thought others and the world are worthy of our trust is crucial to begin the process of developing trust.

xviii

Introduction

Chapter 5, “Betrayed by Life: Derrida, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda,” explores the relationships between punishment, forgiveness, and reconciliation in reconciliation processes in post-genocide Rwanda, especially the gacaca courts and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Using Derrida’s reading of the logic of forgiveness in On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (2001), as in tension between conditional and unconditional forms, I argue that the trials should not be understood (in general) as forms of forgiveness but as both punishment and reconciliation and focused on justice, peace and stability. The new Rwandan state quickly realized they needed to abolish capital punishment and to make use of a form of their traditional courts to relatively quickly try so many perpetrators. Interpretations of the trials often tends toward romanticization of the possibilities of state-mandated forgiveness, and I try to counter that tendency, while acknowledging the inspiring progress that has been made. The experiences of survivors in Rwanda are very mixed, although there is a great deal of pressure to fully embrace the political reality of living side-by-side with the killers of their loved ones. I argue that while the approach here is encouraging in many ways, the burden on the victims is great, and the attempt to create a new Rwanda risks re-creating the conditions for more conflict. Chapter 6, “A Dreadful Solitude: Jankélévitch, Remorse, and the Demand for Atonement,” turns to the questions of how we should understand the response of perpetrators of political violence to their own past actions. This chapter considers how a community can atone for past violence and oppression, despite its apparently impossible ethical demands, as outlined by Vladimir Jankélévitch, Arendt, and Derrida. In relation to atonement, one difficulty is that there may not be subjects who are able to or who wish to receive atonement. Survivors of the atrocity may be few and unwilling to accept any gestures to make up for the past. The extremity of crimes may also mean that any attempt at atonement seems completely inadequate. Moreover, there may not be offenders willing to offer it, since they may be unrepentant or even triumphant, as depicted in Joshua Oppenheimer’s films The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), which both involve interviews with several of the murderers involved in the genocide of supposed communists in Indonesia in 1965–1966. Communal atonement must face these difficulties and attempt to atone in ways that are meaningful for victims and survivors, processes that have barely begun in countries such as Australia, Indonesia, and the United States. The first part of the chapter examines Jankélévitch’s detailed and searing account of remorse in The Bad Conscience (1933), a remorse that may not be felt by many offenders in extreme crimes, especially those committed with state sanctions or as part of a group. Nevertheless, it is important to comprehend the genuine experience of remorse and consider what could be aspired to. Jankélévitch’s account is at odds with Margaret Urban Walker’s transac-

Introduction

xix

tional account of “making amends” in her book Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing (2006) and I try to show how making amends or atonement needs to take seriously the asymmetry between victim and perpetrator and the specific place and circumstances of the violence and injustices committed. In chapter 7, “This Hole in My Heart: Acts of Atonement and PostColonial Australia,” I investigate Linda Radzik’s reconciliation theory of atonement in Making Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law, and Politics (2009), which provides an important way of thinking about communal atonement. However, my view is that atonement should be seen as one, albeit significant element, in reconciliation, since atonement also needs to focus on the harms to individuals and there are other aspects to reconciliation, as is discussed throughout the book. I argue that first the violence itself has to be exposed and acknowledged, and then explore how atonement can be offered and experienced through symbolic and practical means of apologies, reparations or making amends, memorials, commemorations, and cultural and legal recognition to attempt to overcome the impossibility of atonement. One of the important points that can be developed from Radzik’s discussion of collective atonement in relation to the Magdalen asylums in Ireland is the way that a community can act to take the role of atonement when it is not taken up by the perpetrators. The primary example here is the acts of atonement undertaken after the government apology to the Stolen Generations in Australia in 2008, and attempts to integrate atonement for specific injustices, such as compensation for the removal of children and for unpaid wages, with a broader concern with the quality of life of indigenous people. I also consider a number of examples of symbolic atonement, and argue that while these attempts fall far short of what is needed for genuine atonement, they are valuable and begin a process of continual negotiation toward fuller forms of atonement. Chapter 8, titled “In Search of a Magic Spell: Arendt and Self-Forgiveness,” revisits Arendt’s apparent arguments against the possibility of selfforgiveness in The Human Condition (1998) to investigate their import and explore how dismissals of the possibility of self-forgiveness relying on her account could have been too hasty. Self-forgiveness raises special puzzles of self-relation, for, as Arendt argues, forgiving, like promising, depends on plurality, others being with us and acting. She contends that we need to be forgiven by others in order to escape the consequences of our deeds. A great deal of light can be shed on her views by reminding ourselves that the forgiveness she is describing is political, not personal. Self-forgiveness is also an important component to forgiveness of perpetrators, and is linked to the process of forgiveness by victims. I argue that self-forgiveness is possible if we consider that we need the assistance of others or consideration of others, even if through imagination,

xx

Introduction

to properly acknowledge the wrong, and to be worthy of forgiveness. It could be argued that while we cannot forgive ourselves, we can come to some sort of accommodation with ourselves. Arendt refers to a similar idea in her discussion of the two-in-one dialogue in which we need to live with ourselves. I argue that it may be possible for some political leaders and perpetrators of communal violence to develop their own ethical response to their acts, in some respects, which may include self-forgiveness or at least an attempt to come to terms with their past actions, in relation to how they are seen by and relate to others. Cases for this final chapter are drawn from the range used throughout the book, and from fictional examples, as these often provide a more detailed description of the processes of self-forgiveness. These considerations enable us to understand the implications of the possibility of selfforgiveness for the bases of self-forgiveness, its relation to the forgiveness of others, the ethics of self-forgiveness and its role in ethical restoration. Some philosophers argue that self-forgiveness is the hardest ethical action of all, and that may be true, since first one must recognize the wrong one has done. So now I will turn to the first negative condition of ethical restoration, the abolition of that most irreparable punishment, the death penalty.

I

Negative Conditions of Ethical Restoration

Chapter One

I Love Living Derrida, the Death Penalty, and Unconditional Abolition

It belongs to life not necessarily to be immortal but to have a future, thus some life before it, some event to come only where death, the instant of death, is not calculable, is not the object of a calculable decision. —Jacques Derrida (2014, 256)

In these first two chapters, I outline how the abolition of the death penalty is a necessary precondition to ethical restoration. 1 Here I consider Jacques Derrida’s argument for the importance of unconditional abolition and his claim that it is deconstructible in order to provide a framework for thinking about the death penalty. In chapter 2, I examine Beauvoir’s qualified support for the death penalty during the post-war French purge and her arguments for revenge. Her approach provides us with insight into the desire for revenge of survivors, yet I contend that her arguments also lead us back to a rejection of capital punishment. Derrida’s purpose in “Death Penalties” (2004), a dialogue with Elisabeth Roudinesco, and his seminars on the death penalty (2014, 2017) is to show how both arguments in favor of capital punishment, exemplified by Kant’s argument in The Metaphysics of Morals (1996), and arguments for its abolition, such as those of Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishments (1964), are deconstructible. 2 In the course of his discussion of arguments for the death penalty, Derrida claims that “never, to my knowledge, has any philosopher as a philosopher, in his or her own strictly and systematically philosophical discourse, never has any philosophy as such contested the legitimacy of the death penalty” (2004, 146). In relation to abolition, Derrida asks how it is possible “to abolish the death penalty in a way that is based on 3

4

Chapter 1

principle, that is universal and unconditional, and not because it has become not only cruel but useless, insufficiently exemplary?” (2004, 137). The difficulty here is that his analyses of other unconditional concepts such as hospitality and forgiveness imply that such an approach is impossible, thus leaving the abolitionist in an untenable position. In this chapter I examine Derrida’s claim about the lack of systematic opposition to the death penalty on the part of philosophers and suggest an answer to his question concerning the possibility of a universal and unconditional opposition to capital punishment. To establish or reinstitute a peaceful and just society, abolition of the death penalty is one of the first steps and the most crucial step, as we will see in examining the post-war French purge’s use of judicial murder as punishment and revenge, and in seeing how the post-genocide Rwandan government at first used capital punishment and then abolished it. I will first examine Derrida’s claim that philosophers have not systematically opposed capital punishment. THE DEATH PENALTY AND PHILOSOPHY My primary concern here is to understand and critique Derrida’s argument concerning capital punishment, because he attempts to articulate the strongest opposition to it possible. Such a robust conception of abolition is needed where we are discussing how to respond to the worst atrocities and crimes. Nevertheless, I will briefly consider the question of philosophers’ lack of opposition to the death penalty, since it is so fascinating and important. There is a surprising level of support for Derrida’s claim, or rather absence of counter-evidence to it. Derrida cites and discusses Plato, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Marx as examples of philosophers who supported the death penalty. 3 He could have added Arendt and Beauvoir, as I will explain in the following chapter. Yet, Albert Camus famously opposed capital punishment so why is he not an example of a philosopher who contested it? Derrida’s view is that although Camus’s essay “Reflections on the Guillotine” is “beautiful and courageous” his opposition was not part of his philosophy but rather a venture outside his philosophical system, whereby he opposed the death penalty as a writer (2004, 143; Camus 1960). Clearly, the key phrase here is that philosophers have not opposed the death penalty qua philosophers. However, Derrida’s separation of Camus’s essay on the death penalty and Camus’s philosophical writing merits further discussion, given that his essays and literary writings are not clearly distinguishable from his philosophy. It is also odd that Derrida would make such a sharp distinction in this case, given his questioning of such distinctions between literature and philosophy.

I Love Living

5

An editorial note to Derrida’s seminars quotes a qualified version of the claim about philosophers and capital punishment: “why have abolitionism or condemnation of the death penalty, in its very principle, (almost) never, to date, found a properly philosophical place in the architectonic of a great philosophical discourse as such?” (2014, xv). So one response could be that Camus was not the kind of philosopher to construct an architectonic philosophy. At the same time, that interpretation of Derrida’s view of philosophy makes it much narrower than one would think he would wish to accept. To return to Derrida’s argument, it is that capital punishment has been opposed by writers or philosophers as writers in the cases of Voltaire, Hugo, and Camus, or as jurists or legal scholars, examples being Beccaria and Robert Badinter. Victor Hugo, he writes, opposed the death penalty unconditionally in the name of “the inviolability of human life” (2004, 143; 2014, 100). The claim could be interpreted positively about literature and other fields as praise for their capacity to challenge capital punishment, and Derrida does observe that “a good number of the most eloquent and committed abolitionist discourses, in what I call literary modernity, that is, literature in the strict sense, were put forward by writers and poets, for example, Shelley, Hugo, Camus” (2014, 30). 4 However, as we shall see, it is difficult to maintain unconditional abolition, according to Derrida. Derrida also observes that there is silence on the matter on the part of some philosophers, which he believes can be counted as lack of opposition. The examples he gives here are Heidegger, Sartre, and Foucault (2004, 146). 5 Sartre is an interesting case because Beauvoir argued in support of the death penalty for Robert Brasillach (Beauvoir 2004). Beauvoir and Sartre both refused to sign the petition for a pardon for Brasillach, although Camus signed due to his objection to capital punishment. 6 I will discuss Beauvoir’s view in the following chapter, as she makes her argument in the case of the post-war French purge, a time following the Nazi occupation of France and the Shoah. Derrida says that even Levinas does not think opposition to the death penalty within philosophy when he discusses the issue in an interview. The Levinas quotation he refers to is: “The suppression of the death penalty seems to me an essential thing for the co-existence of charity with justice” (Levinas 2001, 51). As charity is a Christian concept, Derrida believes this shows that Levinas is not criticizing the death penalty using philosophical concepts (2004, 228). In a way similar to Kant and Hegel, Derrida argues, Levinas tries to separate the lex talionis from revenge and make it “the origin of the rational foundation of criminal justice” (2004, 146). 7 Again, this might seem to be a surprising claim, yet an examination of this brief text is revealing. Levinas, in “An Eye for an Eye,” states that the idea of an eye for an eye really means a fine, and that it is the spirit of the biblical verse from Leviticus that matters rather than the letter (1990, 147). He remarks, however, that a fine should not be considered a way out of recognizing the wrong done. To

6

Chapter 1

add to Derrida’s list a living philosopher, Martin McQuillan observes that Slavoj Žižek defends the death penalty, and even makes a virtue of it (2009, 148). For him, it is a worrying sign in some forms of continental philosophy today that should be countered. Based on this history of lack of support for abolition amongst philosophers writing as philosophers, Derrida speculates that there is something that unites philosophy and the political theology of capital punishment and the principle of sovereignty (2004, 147). He believes philosophy, politics and the idea that the capacity to risk life is proper to the human are linked by the death penalty. Thus the death penalty is considered to be what is “proper to man” in that human dignity transcends our “condition as a living being” in the thought of philosophers from Plato to Heidegger (2004, 147; 2014, 8). According to Derrida, capital punishment is the keystone of the onto-theological-political. He reads Kant as finding a categorical imperative and an a priori idea of pure reason in criminal law that “would not be possible if the death penalty were not inscribed within it” (2004, 148). 8 He argues that the death penalty is the consequence of an alliance between “a religious message and the sovereignty of a state” (2004, 144). 9 In his discussion, Derrida does not mention philosophers who argue for the death penalty in particular cases. Beauvoir’s essay on Brasillach’s trial (2004) is an example of this position, as is Arendt’s support for the death penalty for Eichmann in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1994). 10 Of course, if their arguments for these cases are successful, then they must apply to other similar cases, although that is not the issue they concern themselves with. For the time being, it is enough to note that Derrida’s contention that philosophers historically have not opposed capital punishment has further support. I will examine his deconstruction of philosophical arguments for the death penalty so that we can come to understand the importance of abolition for ethical restoration. KANT’S JUSTIFICATION FOR THE DEATH PENALTY Derrida’s primary example of an argument in favor of the death penalty is Kant’s in “The Doctrine of Right” in The Metaphysics of Morals (1996). Here Kant argues that the death penalty must be applied strictly as a matter of justice, not to achieve any other ends. Derrida says we need to deconstruct Kant’s argument precisely because it is not a utilitarian one, for otherwise abolitionist discourse would be restricted to empirical considerations (2004, 149–50; 2017, 42). In the first seminar publication, he describes Kant’s view as that “the affirmation of the principle of the death penalty, as pure juridical rationality, of the jus talionis as “categorical imperative” of penal justice, can be advanced without reference to the least phenomenal, empirical interest, for the body of society or the nation” (2014, 140–41). Here I will sketch how

I Love Living

7

Derrida approaches Kant as the most rigorous defender of the death penalty in order to oppose his view philosophically. Thus, Derrida’s argument is that these distinctions in Kant should be deconstructed: (1) The distinction between internal or self-inflicted punishments, (poena naturalis) and external punishments that are carried out by society (poena forensis). Derrida draws our attention to Kant’s idea that whatever harm I do to others I do also to myself. Kant says very emphatically: “If you insult him, you insult yourself; if you steal from him, you steal from yourself; if you strike him, you strike yourself; if you kill him, you kill yourself” (1996a, 6: 332). He explains what he means through the example of theft. When someone steals from another, they make everyone’s property insecure, and when the Lex talionis or as Kant has it, ius talionis or law of retribution, is applied, they also lose the security of their own property through imprisonment. Yet Derrida will show both the inconsistency between the categorical imperative and the Lex talionis and the inconsistencies of any application of the Lex talionis itself. (2) The distinction between other and self-punishment. According to Derrida, Kant believes that the guilty person should “understand, approve, even call for the punishment,” including capital punishment. I should note that Kant does not claim that we will our punishment; pure reason subjects us to the law but “it is impossible to will to be punished” (1996a, 6: 335). However, Derrida says he does not mean that execution becomes suicide for Kant, but that a whole series of distinctions must be questioned: interior and exterior, self and other punishment, execution and suicide or murder. Derrida argues with regard to these distinctions that we cannot distinguish a pure “immune law” uncontaminated by desires for revenge, interests and passions (2004, 150; 2017, 39, 69). The general point that punishment is linked to our passions, and some of our worst ones, such as the desire for vengeance, is highly relevant and is addressed by Beauvoir in her account. 11 (3) Kant’s interpretation of Lex talionis is closer to the Jewish and Roman traditions than an evangelical one, according to Derrida (2004, 151; 2017, 91). In the case of murder, Kant supposes that killing the perpetrator is a suitable punishment. He says that “If . . . he has committed murder he must die” (1996a, 6: 333). Moreover, “anyone who commits murder, orders it, or is an accomplice in it—must suffer death” (1996a, 6: 334). 12 This is the only way to make the punishment sufficiently similar to the crime, Kant argues. However, Derrida notes that Kant fails to give a principle of equivalent punishment for sex crimes, for example, pederasty, rape, and bestiality. As he argues, the principle of an eye for an eye completely breaks down when Kant attempts to apply it to these cases. Kant asks the question of how we can punish crimes that it would be a “crime against humanity” to punish in a similar way. He concludes that the punishment for rape and pederasty should be castration, and that for bestiality should be expulsion from society, as the

8

Chapter 1

criminal has in that case made themselves unworthy of that society (1996a, 6: 363). The criminal is punished in terms of the spirit of the crimes rather than in a literally corresponding way because these crimes are against humanity. Likewise, the idea that someone who tortures should be punished by torture is absurd, and suggests that there is something wrong with the “principle” itself. Furthermore, Kant further undermines the idea of commensurability of crime and punishment by allowing the death penalty for crimes against the state (1996a, 6: 320). He does not delineate the set of acts that are high treason, although an attack on a head of state is an obvious example: “Any attempt whatsoever at this is high treason (proditio eminens), and whoever commits such treason must be punished by nothing less than death for attempting to destroy his fatherland (parricida)” (1996a, 6: 320). Here Kant is trying to establish that treason is a form of murder, and so should be punished by execution. Moreover, Derrida suggests that Kant tries to remove calculation from reason by giving a nonconsequentialist justification of punishment while simultaneously submitting it to calculation through the Lex talionis (2004, 151–52; 2017, 37–43). Kant is committed to avoiding the calculations involved in concerns with utility and happiness in his justification for punishment, yet has to enter into calculations concerning appropriate punishments for different crimes. (4) Derrida believes we should also question the sovereign’s traditional exemption from the death penalty (2004, 152; 2017, 88), which Kant supports. Kant says that the execution of a sovereign is even worse than murder because “while his murder is regarded as only an exception to the rule that the people makes its maxim, his execution must be regarded as a complete overturning of the principles of the relation between a sovereign and his people . . . so that violence is elevated above the most sacred rights brazenly and in accordance with principle” (1996a, 6: 322). Derrida’s assertion of the need to question this exception is based on the inconsistency of having such an exception. He links this sovereign exception to the possibility of bringing leaders in general to trial, and notes that there seems to be a connection between the trials of heads of state and the rejection of the death penalty in international criminal trials. The implication is that once the death penalty is not considered, it becomes possible to try sovereigns for crimes. Most importantly, Derrida points to an inconsistency in Kant’s application of the idea of respect for persons, which Kant claims is compatible with the death penalty (2004, 150–52). 13 Kant believes that we can respect a person and execute them by avoiding barbaric punishments (1996a, 6: 463). In contrast, Derrida points out that we cannot show there is no cruelty in the death penalty, or that it is not cruel to support the death penalty (2017, 186–209). The contradictory nature of Kant’s view on this point needs to be

I Love Living

9

emphasized. He argues in the “Doctrine of Virtue” that there are some punishments that dishonor humanity itself due to their cruelty (1996a, 6: 463). These, he says, are worse than the loss of life or possessions and cause spectators to feel shame. Furthermore, he states that we should “never break out into complete contempt and denial of any worth to a vicious human being; for on this supposition he could never be improved, and this is not consistent with the idea of a human being, who as such (as a moral being) can never lose entirely his predisposition to the good” (1996a, 6: 464). If we take this idea seriously, then capital punishment is not consistent with the idea of a human being, because it both denies that a human being can improve and deprives them of the possibility of so improving. In the seminars, Derrida suggests that the implication of Kant’s view of the dignity of the human being and the need to avoid mistreatment in punishment is that “the absolutely rigorous and inflexible supporter of the death penalty that Kant is would be in fact a de facto abolitionist. De jure, he is for the death penalty and de facto against it” (2014, 273). 14 If Kant were to follow the logic of his own categorical imperative coherently, he would oppose capital punishment. It could also be shown that the death penalty itself is cruel and barbaric, and that to take someone’s life away is itself cruel. More could be said concerning the deconstructibility of Kant’s argument, and in chapter 5 I will discuss how Kant allows that if capital punishment had to be applied to so great a proportion of the population that it could undermine the state, it should not be carried out (1996a, 6: 334). This possibility is relevant to the question of the punishment of the massive number of perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. However, here it is sufficient to show that there are serious difficulties with this attempt to provide principled support for the death penalty by one of the most rigorous philosophers. Are there similar difficulties with opposition to it, as Derrida contends? ABOLITION AND DECONSTRUCTION According to Derrida, abolitionist discourse is also deconstructible. In Beccaria’s work (1964), for example, abolition is conditional because he allows so many exceptions to the suspension of the death penalty, making it dependent on peace and order in society (2004, 149; 2014, 89–90). Furthermore, rather than denouncing the injustice of the death penalty, Beccaria argues it is unnecessary and ineffective as it is not cruel or repetitive enough to serve as a deterrent compared to a life of forced labor. In his criticism of the death penalty, Beccaria reasons that the death penalty cannot be a right because noone would willingly give others the authority to kill them (1964, 45), an argument that Kant dismisses as a sophistry on the grounds that it is our rational will that is relevant, rather than our desires (1996a, 6: 335).

10

Chapter 1

As Derrida explains the concept, conditional abolition only concerns issues such as the execution of the innocent, mistakes in the form of execution, whether capital punishment works as a deterrent, the cruelty of executions and solitary confinement on “death row,” the psychological effect on the executioners, substandard trials with corrupt lawyers and judges, racial bias in conviction and sentencing, execution of minors and intellectually disabled people, the expense involved, and other issues. 15 While these concerns are all compelling reasons for opposing the death penalty, Derrida’s contention is that unconditional abolition is to be against the death penalty tout court, even if all those abuses could be rectified. Furthermore, Derrida argues that abolitionism in general is deconstructible because respect for life or the prohibition on killing is not upheld in wars, for example. It is limited “to national law and to a national territory during peacetime” (2004, 152). 16 This is most obvious in Beccaria’s work, where he allows that in times of conflict or disorder, the death penalty may be necessary. Yet ordinarily killing in war does not take the form of execution, although war may sometimes provide a cover for such practices. It might be concluded that the problem is unsolvable and unconditional abolition is completely impossible, if it is accepted that some wars and therefore killing are necessary and thus believe that possibility is inconsistent with opposition to capital punishment. Yet capital punishment can be distinguished from the state’s power to wage war as war involves the risk of being killed, not a decision to execute. A military leader or head of state does not have the power over life and death but only to put soldiers at risk. However, cases where soldiers were sent to certain death on suicide missions and the like would be relevantly similar to capital punishment and should be opposed as part of a principled abolitionist position. The question of conscription is also relevant, as it could be understood as states keeping “a sovereign right over the life of the citizens” (2014, 5) and so understandably provokes strong opposition in a way volunteering to soldier does not. 17 Derrida’s view is that distinctions such as between war and peace, civil and international war, terrorism, war and humanitarian operations are lacking in clarity so that the abolitionist argument, in so far as it is based on a prohibition on killing, is undermined (2004, 152–53). He clarifies the point by noting that “cursory killing” and supposedly “legitimate self-defence” may be authorized in such contexts. 18 Cursory killing understood as extrajudicial killings, such as that of Osama Bin Laden and other targets, or the killings of suspected drug dealers and drug addicts in the Philippines, are a form of execution without trial, and thus unconditional abolition would necessitate being opposed to these as well. Another idea Derrida considers is that one must uphold the absolute sanctity of life to be properly against the death penalty. This line of thinking could suggest that one must also be against abortion, euthanasia, and be a

I Love Living

11

complete pacifist to count as principled abolitionist for Derrida. More convincing is the view that one must have a principled way of distinguishing capital punishment from these other cases. 19 I will return to discuss this point in the final section of this chapter, as Derrida is concerned to articulate the intrinsic wrongness of the death penalty. In some ways, the position Derrida articulates appears to point in the direction of an end to all killing, all wars, and so to broaden the idea of the death penalty beyond its normal use. Then it is like Kant’s idea of “perpetual peace” between all nations, a contribution to the conceptualization of ethical restoration that I will examine in chapter 4 (Kant 1996a, 8: 344–86). Yet in other ways, Derrida attempts to be precise about the definition of the death penalty. For example, he wishes to distinguish some state-sanctioned killings from the death penalty strictly speaking. Thus, the Shoah, Derrida argues, cannot be understood in relation to the death penalty, because there was no semblance of legality, such as a trial. It may also be wrong, according to him, to speak of the death penalty when there is no “official announcement,” as that is required by European law (2004, 154). Countries wish to retain the right to invoke the death penalty in certain cases and circumstances, and this is why, Derrida suggests, many international declarations concerning a right to life are only advisory and recommend that the death penalty be an exception or should be practiced according to certain procedures (2004, 153). This is another sense in which opposition to the death penalty is conditional, in that even those countries that do not have capital punishment as part of their laws do not dare to proscribe it in other countries and bow to the authority of those states to practice it. Furthermore, countries that have the death penalty, especially America with its large film industry, export the culture of the death penalty through film, literature, and the other arts. 20 This cultural imaginary of death is one that makes the abolition struggle more difficult and means that capital punishment is given a presence even in countries that have abolished it decades ago, such as Australia, which abolished the death penalty at the federal level in 1973. So how can unconditional abolition be theorized? UNCONDITIONAL ABOLITION Derrida begins his discussion of capital punishment by stating that unless we elaborate an abolitionist discourse based on “unconditional principles, beyond the problems of purpose, exemplarity, utility, and even the ‘right to life’” we will not be able to prevent the return of the death penalty (2004, 137). He contrasts unconditional or principled abolition with the limited, convenient, provisional, conditional and conditioned kind (2004, 149). As I noted above, the relevant unconditional principles here would not be based

12

Chapter 1

on the “right to life” or “sanctity of life” because that would not distinguish capital punishment from other forms of killing that we may consider acceptable in certain circumstances, such as euthanasia and some killing in war. Universal also means for Derrida applicable in all countries so we are not only opposed to it in our own country. 21 In addition, capital punishment must be opposed on the basis of injustice rather than other contingent categories such as its ineffectiveness as a deterrent. Derrida believes that the death penalty was abolished in Europe more because people felt it was not necessary as a deterrent than on principled grounds (2004, 137). In “Peine de mort et souveraineté,” Derrida examines the relation between Christianity and the death penalty to lead us toward the idea of an unconditional abolition that would not rely on Christian concepts. He discusses the seeming contradiction between the biblical commandment “Thou shalt not kill” and the judgments that recommend a death penalty for transgressions against the commandments. This inconsistency can only be avoided by making a distinction between murder or assassination as killing outside the law and the legal killing according to the law (2002, 24–27). 22 Thus the distinction is not between life and death but between two ways of killing. Furthermore, in “Death Penalties,” Derrida notes that historically the Catholic church has been in favor of the death penalty, for example Saint Thomas Aquinas and Donoso Cortès. Now, however, the Catholic church campaigns against it (San Martin, 2016). Cortès connects capital punishment with a history of blood sacrifice within which the death penalty is a form of expiation. Derrida also argues that the elimination of the death penalty for political crimes such as treason as contrasted with criminal law leads directly to its universal abolition. Cortès and Kant both see in such abolition the elimination of criminal law (Derrida 2004, 142; 2017, 262). He is also thinking that many secular governments, perhaps all, have a strong religious element and this is connected to the death penalty. For example, Derrida observes that the United States has a Judeo-Christian culture (2004, 138). One cannot begin to think about the theologico-political without thinking about the death penalty, he says, because capital punishment “is less a phenomenon or article of criminal law than, in this tradition, the quasi-transcendental condition of criminal law and of law in general” (2004, 145). If that is the case, we need to reflect on the possibility of law without the death penalty. Derrida maintains that capital punishment is the condition of possibility of law—it is internal (included) one punishment among others, although more severe; and external (excluded): “a foundation, a condition of possibility, an origin, a non-serial exemplarity, hyperbolic, more and other than a penalty” (2004, 142). The death penalty seems more and other than a penalty, I would say, because it destroys the agent. The principled abolitionist must oppose the view that law, even criminal law, necessarily involves the death

I Love Living

13

penalty, the possibility of its ultimate sanction. We should note that the death penalty is being used less and less in the United States, the only democratic country in the world to practice it, with almost half of the states abolishing capital punishment or imposing a moratorium on executions (Bazelon 2016) and it is being gradually abolished worldwide. The situation in the United States has changed considerably since the time of Derrida’s seminars, when the rate of executions was at its height since its reinstatement in 1976. From the high of ninety-eight executions per year in 1999, the rate has dropped unevenly down to twenty-three in 2017 (Death Penalty Information Center 2018). So we need to take care not to exaggerate the importance of the death penalty for the rule of law. And yet we should also be mindful that abolition of the death penalty can be reversed, as it was in the United States after being suspended in 1972 because it was being applied arbitrarily. As it was reinstated, US states formulated laws that restricted the death penalty to certain kinds of crimes (Bazelon 2016; Derrida 2014, 41). The fact that there seems to be a trend toward abolition may not mean it is inevitable. According to Derrida, we have to take on this paradoxical status of abolitionism in order to formulate a consistent abolitionism. This will involve a history of blood as part of a history of the exception (that is, the right to suspend the law) and a history of cruelty. Cruelty can be psychic cruelty, understood as pleasure taken in suffering, in Derrida’s view. Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (1948) and the death penalty can be opposed on the grounds that it is cruel. However, it seems to me that this is another form of conditional opposition to the death penalty, as proponents could respond either that the death penalty, in the form of lethal injection, say, is not cruel, or that once a noncruel method has been devised then there is no reason to be against capital punishment. 23 Derrida discusses this line of argument as “anesthesial logic,” the idea that if cruelty could be taken away from the death penalty, then it could be justified (2014, 49–50). Of course, another way to argue, as I suggested earlier, is to show that death or being killed or being deprived of life is cruel in itself. Sovereignty, according to Derrida, is defined by this possibility of making a decision over the life or death of subjects and so as being above the law or able to make an exception for itself (2004, 144). He believes that to properly question the death penalty we need to also question the sovereignty of the sovereign: “one cannot again place the death penalty in question in a radical, principled, unconditional way without contesting or limiting the sovereignty of the sovereign” (2004, 144). The implication is that the power of the sovereign over life or death has to be taken away in order to ensure that the death penalty cannot be invoked by them. Questioning the power of life and death, the state’s “monopoly on violence” (2002a, 268) is to question sovereignty. 24 He believes that sovereignty is questioned in Europe, writing

14

Chapter 1

“all the old states of Europe . . . have at the same time abolished the death penalty and begun an ambiguous process that, without putting an end to nation-state sovereignty, exposes it in any case to an unprecedented crisis or puts it back in question” (2002a, 262). Abolishing the death penalty limits the sovereignty of the state to some extent. In the case of democracies, Derrida notes that sovereign power can be transferred to the people (2004, 144). In the United States, the constitutional right to bear arms undermines the state’s monopoly on violence. In this case, Derrida might suggest that this transfer of the right to violence transfers sovereign power to the people and makes it more likely that they kill others or at least to believe they have the right to do so. One should consistently argue that sovereignty must be limited in this respect in the case of both the state and individuals, since this kind of belief is a feature of large-scale violence. This question of sovereign power over life or the “right to take life or let live” is one that Michel Foucault discusses in Society Must Be Defended (2003, 241). He argues that life and death are not symmetrical, as the sovereign has no power to grant life, so the scales are always weighted toward death. However, in the nineteenth century, Foucault contends, this right was added to by the biopolitical power “to make live and to let die” (2003, 241). Instead of the individual and society, Foucault sees the new focus as the collective understood as masses or populations. He also ties the functioning of biopower to a biological racism of purity that is used to justify the killing of certain populations, an issue that Derrida does not consider in depth as he is concerned with the fundamental basis of any death penalty. Andrew Krinks, for example, argues that Foucault’s understanding of power as “dispersed, multivalent, and concerned with the management of bodies and populations” (2018, 139) should be used to understand the carceral society and the whiteness that structures it in the US context. 25 In his seminars, Derrida discusses Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1991), considering his view that at the start of the nineteenth century, punishment became less of a spectacle, an assessment that he does not entirely support, although he thinks that the visual aspect of punishment became more mediated or complicated through technology (2014, 43; 2017, 220). 26 One of the complexities of using Derrida’s discussion of the death penalty to think about ethical restoration in these contexts is its interaction with a series of other concepts he has deconstructed. In “Psychoanalysis Searches the State of its Soul: The Impossible Beyond of a Sovereign Cruelty,” Derrida simply refers to an “unconditional without sovereignty, and thus without cruelty, which is no doubt a very difficult thing to think” and links it to other “impossible” concepts such as hospitality, the gift, and forgiveness (2002a, 276). For him, such concepts are unpredictable, they will be an event that is surprising and unprepared for. 27 Thus he indicates that unconditional abolition has a similar structure to these other unconditional concepts. Kelly Oli-

I Love Living

15

ver argues that we need to think these impossible concepts, which “may be the very condition of possibility for ethics, insofar as it must operate within the world of real politics and yet cannot be reduced to that world” (2013, 202). This point is an important one, and Derrida’s complicated discussion of the debate surrounding capital punishment and the difficulties of articulating unconditional abolition should be taken seriously. Yet, what I would like to do here is to take Derrida’s views further, show the relevance of his reflections to ethical restoration and how a repudiation of the death penalty is essential to the process of creating and maintaining a just and peaceful society. One of the conceptual questions that is significant is how does unconditional abolition compare to other unconditional concepts such as unconditional hospitality or forgiveness? (Derrida, 2001). It is difficult to see how in the case of capital punishment the conditional can temper the unconditional as it does in the case of hospitality, by limiting it for example. That approach would imply that we should accept the death penalty in some cases. This appears to be an unwelcome implication for Derrida, given his opposition to the death penalty. The idea of negotiation between the two that he advocates in relation to ethics and politics, for example, is problematic as this would also mean accepting some forms or cases of capital punishment (2002c). In contrast, unconditional abolition and the death penalty do not stand in the same relation as unconditional hospitality and forgiveness do to conditional hospitality and forgiveness. In these cases, both have the same aim, albeit in a limited form in the conditional case. Unconditional abolition and the death penalty are opposites. Unconditional abolition and conditional abolition are also not precisely parallel in that unconditional abolition is not self-deconstructing in the same way as hospitality. Unconditional abolition of capital punishment could coexist with limited sovereignty, whereas unconditional hospitality undermines sovereignty and thus the conditions for hospitality. It is only if questioning the death penalty must imply the complete elimination of sovereignty that the parallels with the destruction of unconditional hospitality arises. 28 Limiting sovereignty does not destroy it; as Derrida himself notes, the sovereignty of individual states is limited by transnational pressures concerning the death penalty (2014, 76). States may have a great deal of sovereignty without allowing the death penalty. Conditional abolition may still allow the death penalty, which is much more serious than hospitality being limited in some ways. In the final section of this chapter, I will focus on how Derrida isolates the wrong of the death penalty and how that is relevant to understanding the significance of its cessation for ethical restoration.

16

Chapter 1

THE DEATH PENALTY AND THE IRREPARABLE Derrida’s arguments for the impossibility of unconditional abolition of the death penalty are not conclusive, as it seems to have more potential for principled support than an unconditional hospitality or forgiveness, for instance. And in the seminars, he makes the strong claim that while the abolitionist struggle is “uneven, heterogeneous, discontinuous,” it is also “irreversible and tending toward the worldwide as conjoined history” (2014, 30). Another way to approach the question is to consider whether the intrinsic wrongness of judicial execution can be expressed in some other way. Respect for the dignity of human life is one focus, as I have suggested, and the other aspect of that respect is that it is not for the state to choose the time of death. This is the argument that Derrida discusses in the death penalty seminars: that ordinarily we do not know the manner or time of our death, and the death penalty imposes itself as control on death. Generally, the time of our death is undecidable, but “execution interrupts with a trenchant calculation” (2014, 266). As Geoffrey Bennington puts it, what Derrida “calls the “madness” of the death penalty is that it represents an attempt to put an end to, to finish off, the finitude that is the very opening to the unforeseeable future event that constitutes life itself as thus intrinsically finite and mortal” (2012, 36). For Derrida, “the essential trait of my relation to death” is that it is indeterminate, I do not know when I shall die (2014, 219). There are complicated cases he mentions where there is not an exact time specified or a state behind what is a kind of death sentence, such as fatwas “or ritualized violence that infringes on the right to life, on the right to the reproduction of life, on the right to the enjoyment of life” (2017, 197–99). As he also says, “it belongs to life not necessarily to be immortal but to have a future, thus some life before it, some event to come only where death, the instant of death, is not calculable, is not the object of a calculable decision” (2014, 256). 29 What the death penalty does in condemning a person to death is to violate that essential trait and determine or calculate the moment of death. Derrida’s argument points to the way the death penalty interferes in the very ontology of a mortal human life to isolate the key reason it must be opposed. The dimension of time and how it is distorted in imprisonment and waiting for death needs to be recognized. Moreover, the person’s freedom is taken away when the state decides the time of death, rather than the person themselves, as in euthanasia. 30 In a related consideration in his essay on capital punishment, Camus suggests that at least the Greek practice of being able to choose when within a day to drink the hemlock, as Socrates could, was more humane, as it gave one at least some control over the timing of one’s death. He contends that if the death penalty must be retained, then a compromise would be to have such a choice to take an anaesthetic, and that would bring some “decency” into the punishment (1960, 202). 31 Derrida criticizes Camus’s compromise, since al-

I Love Living

17

though it may be more humane, it also implies the path to the use of lethal injection for the death penalty in the United States, for example. 32 This method is supposed to avoid the cruelty of other forms of capital punishment, and so is a further legitimization of the death penalty (2014, 282). In the crucial tenth death penalty seminar in the first year, Derrida also specifies the problem that the death penalty can never be commensurate or proportionate to a crime, which arose as a difficulty for Kant’s account of punishment. While capital punishment is claimed to be equal to certain crimes, he contends that “If there is a scandal in all these penalties, in all these punishments, the unheard-of, unique scandal of the death penalty is precisely this excessiveness, the fact that it cannot be measured, ‘commensured,’ so to speak, with any crime. The death penalty dares to claim to measure the beyond-measure in some way” (2014, 248). This problem of capital punishment is one that appears in relation to many responses to harms that cannot be measured: an attempt at measurement or exchange that we will see in much of the discussion of ethical restoration or moral repair. So Derrida’s discussion of the failure of calculation in this case is relevant to all attempts to calculate and repair or respond to damage and harm. This intrinsic wrongness of the death penalty can be seen writ large in the circumstances I am concerned with here: in attempting to restore an ethical political community after mass violence or oppression. As I will argue in the following chapters, the ending of a life through state-sanctioned violence continues the violence that has already occurred, stays trapped in a logic of revenge, and adds to an irreparable crime an additional irreparable one. 33 Derrida notes this in his first session: “the death penalty, inasmuch as it puts an end, irreversibly, along with the life of the accused, to any prospect of revision, reparation, redemption, even repentance, at least on earth and for someone living, the death penalty signifies that the crime it sanctions remains forever, on men’s earth and in men’s society, un-forgivable” (2014, 45). Having noted the seriousness of the death penalty and its halting of all possibility of forms of restoration, it is imperative for us to reconsider the possibility of unconditional abolition. One way to think about such abolition is to hold that sovereignty can be limited without disappearing, as I have argued, that opposition to the death penalty can be universal and include extra-judicial assassinations, like those in the Philippines, executions with hasty trials such as those of Saddam Hussein, and executions without trial, such as the targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden, and capital punishment can be distinguished from killing in just wars. It does not have to be based on a sanctity of life argument; respect for human life, as Derrida realizes, could give us a sufficient principle to distinguish these cases (2002c, 308–9). Moreover, he uses similar language in the seminars when he says he is against the death penalty because he loves life and living and because “the death penalty is not the ‘best’

18

Chapter 1

means of protecting or affirming the primacy of life” (2014, 255). A principled upholding of respect for the dignity of life can be developed into a consistent argument against all instances of capital punishment. To some extent, Derrida admits that the death penalty cannot strictly be equated with all killing or even all state-sanctioned killing, when he says in the seminars that genocides or more metaphorical “putting to death” of a language or culture do not exactly belong to the logic of the death penalty. This is because, strictly speaking, for an act to be defined as the death penalty, “There must always be a judgment, a verdict, and the subject of it must be a personal, nameable subject, answerable to his or her name” (2014, 253). Thus, this definition would include targeted assassinations, as I suggested above. Derrida’s stated further reason for pessimism regarding unconditional abolition of the death penalty is that even if it were abolished universally, it would still survive in symbolic forms, through figures and through rhetoric (2014, 282). This consideration is one that has plausibility, yet for my purposes here, it is enough to show how abolition of the death penalty is a necessary step in bringing about justice and peace in the aftermath of largescale violence and oppression. In some respects, Derrida’s texts touch on the concerns of ethical restoration, which often takes place after a history of occupation or colonialism, as is the case with the post-war French purge after the Nazi occupation, the Rwandan genocide following the long history of colonization by the Germans and the Belgians, and the Australian context of lingering colonial attitudes and structures. His text traces a genealogy that links him to Camus, that links Algeria and France through the French colonization of Algeria, and that links the two countries through the history of the death penalty, and in particular of the guillotine. In the seminars, Derrida quotes an extraordinary passage from Victor Hugo, which comments vividly on both the death penalty and the French colonization of Algeria. Hugo does this by describing how a mixed group of people are staring at a strange arrival at the wharf: “On the wharf, customs men were opening the crates and, through the planks of the gaping boxes, in the straw that was partly shoved aside, beneath the packing canvases, one could make out strange objects, two long joists painted red, a ladder painted red, a basket painted red, a heavy crosspiece painted red in which seemed to be encased on one of its sides a thick and enormous blade in the shape of a triangle. A spectacle that was in fact otherwise enticing than the palm tree, the aloe, the fig tree, and the lentisk, than the sun and the hills, than the sea and the sky: it was civilization arriving in Algiers in the form of a guillotine” (2014, 227). What was an object of curiosity is revealed to be an object of horror. The sarcasm in Hugo’s comment is evident, stressed by the contrast between the beauty of the landscape and the repellent character of “civilization.”

I Love Living

19

Indeed, Derrida also comments on the use of the death penalty during the Algerian war, in addition to all the other kinds of crimes and violence that were perpetrated during that period (2014, 81–82). These references are linked by Derrida to Camus’s writing against the death penalty in his essay on the guillotine, and the fact that Meursault in The Stranger is a man condemned to death. Furthermore, in his “Reflections on the Guillotine,” Camus describes how his mother told him of his father’s witnessing an execution in Algeria and coming home and vomiting, and in The Stranger, Meursault recounts a story of his father, told by his mother, that he witnessed an execution and was violently ill afterward (Camus 1988, 102; Derrida 2014, 228, 233). 34 Camus’s rejection of the death penalty also makes an important contrast to Beauvoir’s views on the matter, which I discuss in the next chapter. Moreover, Algeria’s relation to the death penalty is complex and relevant in another way. That is, capital punishment was suspended in 1993, during a civil war in which 150,000 people were killed, and although it is still in law and people are sentenced to death, no sentences have been carried out since then. 35 One of the issues that emerges from Derrida’s discussion is the relationship between opposition to the death penalty and a broader questioning of punishment. In the interview with Derrida, Elizabeth Roudinesco suggests that the abolition of the death penalty obliges forgiveness (2004, 161). She also adds that we should not dismiss criminals as inhuman. However, although a capacity for forgiveness may make people more likely to be against the death penalty, the abolition of it does not entail the forgiveness of all who commit “capital” crimes. Derrida essentially agrees with this view, because he says that forgiveness is on a different level from the political or legal (2004, 162). One should note Arendt’s connection of forgiveness and punishment in The Human Condition, where she states that what cannot be punished cannot be forgiven (1998, 241). Derrida comments on this link in “To Forgive” (Caputo 2001, 31), saying that the only place where forgiveness is part of the law is in the sovereign’s right to grant clemency. Otherwise forgiveness and punishment are of two distinct orders, and I will discuss the relationship between them in chapter 5, when I consider punishment and state-mandated forgiveness in post-genocide Rwanda. I think that even in this case the sovereign does not have to forgive when they “pardon”. Perhaps a better way of thinking about this issue of the kind of attitudes involved in abolition is that abolishing the death penalty involves renouncing revenge. While Kant tries to separate capital punishment from revenge, as Derrida suggests, such a separation is tenuous at best, so I will discuss the link in the following chapter (2004, 150).

20

Chapter 1

CONCLUSION Following reflection on the problem of the death penalty, as Roudinesco proposes (2004, 161), we should reconsider “life in prison” as concern about the death penalty should be related to concern about prison reform, punishment, and justice in general. 36 Unconditional abolition should be universal, so held to apply in all countries and should question both state sovereignty over life and death and the power of non-state actors to choose the death of others in such cases as targeted assassinations, killing for political purposes, and should be tied to efforts to limit killing in war as well as conscription. The death penalty must be opposed because it does not respect life and undermines a crucial feature of the human condition through the state deciding the time of our death. In relation to ethical restoration after political violence, oppression, and genocide, the death penalty must be eschewed, and I will discuss how Rwandans came to that conclusion after the genocide in chapter 5. The issues of the nature of punishment and the need to avoid humiliating punishments is also linked to these questions, and I will examine the relationship between guilt, humiliation, and shame in these contexts in chapter 3. In the next chapter, I consider how Beauvoir argues for the death penalty; her argument is interesting since she is remarkably honest in connecting the death penalty with desires for revenge (2004, 247). At the time of her writing, the death penalty was considered an appropriate punishment for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and half of the twenty-two Nazis tried at Nuremberg were sentenced to hanging, with others given different length prison sentences or acquitted. Others avoided conviction, sentencing, and execution by committing suicide. Furthermore, Winston Churchill had wanted summary executions of fifty to one hundred of the most senior war criminals, while Stalin proposed killing one hundred thousand German soldiers—the death penalty without trial—such that the trials themselves stand as a testament to a more civilized approach to restoring justice and peace after horrendous crimes (Bass 2000, 181). However, they still included the death penalty, and Beauvoir’s essay provides us with further insight into why it cannot be an aspect of ethical restoration. She maintains that human beings have a spiritual appetite for vengeance that is a “metaphysical requirement” (2000, 247) and the appeal of her view needs to be examined before we see later how central a rejection of the death penalty was in post-genocide Rwanda. NOTES 1. The phrase “I love living” is from Derrida’s seminars (2014, 255).

I Love Living

21

2. The dialogue gives his view of the death penalty, explored in much more detail in the seminars. In chapter 4 I discuss the important implications of Kant’s views of trust. 3. Derrida discusses Plato’s support for capital punishment in the laws in (2002b, 19–23). See Plato (1999, Laws X, 907910d). Derrida also notes that Rousseau is unusual in separating sovereignty from the exercise of the condemnation of criminals. Rousseau writes: “condemnation of criminals is a right the sovereign can confer but not exercise himself” (1968, 79). 4. Caroline Sheaffer-Jones argues that Derrida’s interpretation of Camus should be countered by a consideration of his ideas of revolt and of limit, such that they are both advocating a continuing struggle against the death penalty (2016). 5. I will briefly discuss the relation between Derrida’s and Foucault’s views of sovereignty further on in the chapter. 6. See Kaplan’s book for a discussion of Brasillach’s trial (2000). The death penalty was not abolished in France until 1981. 7. Lex talionis refers to the idea of “an eye for an eye,” or like punishment for like crime, from Leviticus 24: 17–22. 8. John Stuart Mill also, disappointingly, argues against abolition (1988, 266–72). 9. Derrida discusses this connection with religion through the figures of Socrates, Jesus Christ, Al-Hallaj and Joan of Arc (2002b; 2014, 21–26). He sees the theologico-political power over life and death as the essence of sovereign power (2002b, 34). What these four figures, who were put to death, have in common is that they hear the voice of God and so the truth unmediated by earthly representation. In doing so, they challenge the authority of the state. 10. In his seminars, Derrida mentions Arendt’s support and justification in that case (2014, 253). 11. Derrida discusses the strange cases Kant raises as disquieting, that of maternal infanticide and killing in a duel (2014, 124–27). 12. It should be noted that Texas has a law that accomplices to murders, for instance the drivers of getaway cars, should be subjected to capital punishment, called the “Law of Parties” (Editorial Board of the New York Times, 2016). 13. Derrida also raises the question of whether we know that criminals are fully responsible for their actions (2004, 152). 14. Nelson Potter makes a similar point—that the implications of Kant’s view of the importance of dignity and respect for persons must lead to a rejection of the death penalty (2002). See also Ataner (2006), who argues that the idea of equivalent punishment for crimes cannot be made sense of in Kant’s own terms. 15. Much of the debate in the United States still stresses these issues. See (Bazelon 2016; Eckholm 2016; and Liptak 2016) for example. 16. Derrida also makes this point in (2002b, 23). 17. Michael Naas sees conscription as linked to the death penalty since he sees the idea of conscription as the right of the state “to put its citizens to death through the death penalty, or to force them to risk their lives through war” (2012, 41). 18. In the second seminar series, Derrida connects the logic of self-defense to defense of the law as such and so to the death penalty (2017, 43). 19. Derrida does not associate his own opposition to the death penalty with opposition to abortion, suggesting that this pairing is sometimes a Christian fundamentalist position (2004, 140). 20. Kelly Oliver notes the prevalence of revenge fantasies in popular culture, including a four-season television series called Revenge (2011–2015) (Oliver 2013, 206). 21. This inconsistency has been noted in relation to the Australian government’s lack of condemnation of the death penalty for the Bali bombers in Indonesia (Zwartz 2008). 22. Derrida makes the distinction between the death penalty and assassination through the idea that a person condemned to death is still a subject of rights (2014, 8). 23. Derrida mentions that some states in America decided that lethal injection was not cruel or unusual punishment (2004, 157). 24. See “Force of Law” for Derrida’s discussion of the founding violence of the state (1992).

22

Chapter 1

25. Lisa Guenther’s essay in Oliver and Straub (2018) explores how the logic of the death penalty is linked to racism, and argues that abolitionists should move to prison abolition and the abolition of white supremacy. 26. See Trumbull (2016) for a discussion of Derrida’s disagreement with Foucault concerning his claim that capital punishment is no longer public. Deutscher finds a point of convergence in the way they see the logic of capital punishment repeated in forms of abolitionism (2016, 169). See also Custer (2016) and Naas (2016). 27. See my discussion of forgiveness and hospitality (2013, chapters 5 and 6). 28. On these lines, Adelsberg describes the distinction between conditional and unconditional abolition as that between phenomenal abolition and sovereign abolition, whereby sovereign abolition would require “opposition against all instances of the sovereign power over life and death. The sovereign abolitionist therefore stakes her/his abolition against the sovereign itself” (2015, 87). 29. Similarly, Derrida says in the interviews after September 11 that what he is most fundamentally opposed to in Al-Qaeda is its cutting off the future (Borradori 2003, 113). 30. Lisa Guenther, in her book on solitary confinement, shows how this kind of cruel treatment affects the experience of time (2013, 195–220). Her discussion is relevant to understanding the death penalty in the United States, as most prisoners condemned to death are in solitary confinement (American Civil Liberties Union 2017). 31. See Derrida (2014, 266–67). A connection Derrida draws between Camus’s comment here is with his discussion of suicide in The Myth of Sisyphus, where he says that the one truly serious philosophical problem is that of suicide (Derrida 2014, 274; Camus 2005, 1). 32. Peggy Kamuf describes how several countries that produce the drugs used in executions have refused to supply them for that purpose (2012). 33. Camus discusses the irreparability of the death penalty (1960), and, in chapter 6, I interpret Jankélévitch’s account of remorse for the irreparable action and show how it relates to the possibility of atonement. 34. At this point, Derrida comments that he is not sure if Camus scholars have noticed or analyzed this connection (2014, 229). 35. Amnesty International (2017). Derrida discusses the suspension of the election results that lead to the civil war in Rogues (2005, 30–35). 36. Angela Davis takes this approach, in considering how we could completely rethink our approach to crime and punishment, and consider a reparative rather than criminal law (2003, 105–15). Amy Swiffen points out that Derrida’s argument against the death penalty’s “mastery over the time of life of the other” also applies to a life sentence without parole (2016, 184).

Chapter Two

The Taste of Ashes Beauvoir, Vengefulness, and the Death Penalty in Post-War France

All I hear is the sound of the scissors on my head. . . . Oh! What pain. What pain in my heart. It’s unbelievable. Everywhere in the city they’re singing the Marseillaise. Night falls. My dead love is an enemy of France. Someone says she should be made to walk through the city. My father’s drug store is closed because of the disgrace. I’m alone. Some of them laugh. At night I return home. —Marguerite Duras (1961, 62) 1

While in the previous chapter I examined the underpinnings of an unconditional rejection of the death penalty, here I turn to Simone de Beauvoir’s work for its description of the experience of desire for revenge in the context of the punishment of collaborators following the end of the Nazi occupation of France. Written just after the liberation of France and during the trials of these collaborators, Beauvoir’s essay “An Eye for an Eye” (1946) 2 describes the worst of crimes as those that reduce the human being to a thing. She suggests that we can only truly understand reactions of outrage to these crimes, such as vengefulness, in these extreme situations when we feel them in their “true concreteness.” This essay is an important act of witnessing, referred to in much of the recent literature on the purge (épuration); however, my focus will be the philosophical aspects of the essay as both phenomenology and an attempt to justify certain kinds of punishment. I argue that “An Eye for an Eye” works to undermine her own refusal to sign a petition for clemency for Robert Brasillach (1909–1945), an anti-Semitic writer tried, convicted, and executed for treason or complicity with the enemy. He edited the fascist newspaper Je suis partout (I am everywhere), which revealed the 23

24

Chapter 2

identities and addresses of French Jews and resistants during the Nazi occupation of France, until 1943. Beauvoir’s reasoning demonstrates how reflection leads away from justification for irreparable punishment, and clarifies why vengefulness is almost always bound to be disappointed. For her, the extremes of the crimes of the Nazis and collaborators taught people who care anger and hate in a way they had not experienced before. This experience was thought to promise a corresponding joy when the worst criminals were punished but instead dissatisfaction resulted. Although Beauvoir argues that these particular negative effects are both ethical and understandable, ultimately, they cannot be satisfied or resolved. 3 She sets out to comprehend why what she sees as the need for a restored reciprocity in the light of these crimes usually cannot be fulfilled. Both private revenge and state punishment fail to bring about the perpetrator’s recognition of what they have done, their own ambiguous existence or an acknowledgment of the perspective of the victim. This chapter demonstrates the relationship between this distinctive essay and her ethics of ambiguity, published less than two years later, and shows how a charitable and critical reading of it demonstrates her insight into human desires for revenge and the profound flaws in acting on those desires. 4 I argue that Beauvoir’s discussion of the death penalty is inconsistent with her existentialist approach even within the essay and in her other writings, a difficulty that the essay and comments later made by Jean-Paul Sartre suggest she was conscious of. Her arguments reflect the self-deconstructing feature of arguments for the death penalty Jacques Derrida observes, although with a sense of awareness of that. This reading leads us into considering how punishment in the context of mass atrocity and historical oppression needs to be reconceived. I begin by examining how Beauvoir understands hate and vengefulness. VENGEFULNESS AND HATE Beauvoir looks for the reasons for the disappointment that is felt after the punishment of the worst perpetrators in the occupation of France and the Shoah, as well as the surprise and worry that comes from seeing new meanings in both vengeance and justice. There are a number of reasons for the lack of satisfaction in vengeance, she says: one is the complexity of the purge of collaborators after the war, another is the brutal deaths and disappearances of war criminals, and yet another is German attitudes. She is not very specific about what she means here. In any case, Beauvoir says “But this is not enough to explain why a revenge so eagerly desired has left this taste of ashes in our mouths” (2004, 246). 5 She asks if the need for vengeance is

The Taste of Ashes

25

well-founded and whether it can be satisfied. Her answer to the first question is yes, but her answer to the second question is no. In order to explain this dissatisfaction, Beauvoir needs to sketch an account of punishment and revenge. She distinguishes between punishment and the conflict of war, war being a case where hurting or harming someone is a means to an end. Furthermore, she distinguishes between punishment and utilitarian considerations, such as deterrence or prevention of similar crimes. Utilitarian considerations may mean punishment is avoided, as we may think it is better for everyone to let a crime go unpunished. Beauvoir concludes that in cases where executions are carried out to make an example or where they “proceed from preestablished orders, one should not speak of punishment” (2004, 247). Instead, punishment is defined by being aimed at the individual, rather than the group, and at affecting the individual. In this respect, Beauvoir is aiming to delineate an unconditional account of punishment. 6 She undertakes a phenomenological investigation of what lies beneath our everyday experience of punishment through the more spontaneous experiences of the liberation, which she calls a revolutionary period. Similarly, Hannah Arendt, in her essay “Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship,” questions the nature of punishment after conflict, and argues that in the case of war criminals our usual justifications for punishment—protecting society, rehabilitation, deterrence, and retribution—do not apply. However, “our sense of justice would find it intolerable to forego punishment and let those who murdered thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions go scot-free” (2003, 25–26). 7 It is very interesting that both Beauvoir and Arendt attempt to justify capital punishment in specific cases, as Beauvoir does here and Arendt does in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1994). Their focus on punishment after genocide makes them distinct from the philosophers and writers Derrida examines, and raise a number of distinct questions. These experiences reveal something profound about the nature of vengeance and hate, Beauvoir claims. She argues that vengeance is a response to a deep feeling: human beings have a spiritual appetite for revenge that is a “metaphysical requirement” (2004, 247). Here Beauvoir is suggesting that revenge is a basic human need. In order to understand the meaning of this need, she maintains that we must describe spontaneous examples of revenge, rather than cases obscured by societal accretions. 8 These spontaneous experiences of revenge can be seen in the period following the liberation of France, and Beauvoir mentions the shaving of the heads of women who slept with the Nazi occupiers, “lynching of snipers, summary executions of certain of the collaborationist police, and massacres of the S.S. prison guards by their freed captives” (2004, 248). This revenge is aimed at the individuals held directly responsible for wrongs and carried out immediately. In certain very specific cases, what Beauvoir calls the “privileged case” such as just after being liberated from the camps, vengeance against the worst criminals may be

26

Chapter 2

justifiable or at least appears justifiable, according to Beauvoir. Elsewhere in the essay, she says that no one was revolted by it (2004, 251), suggesting that such actions are to some extent excusable, in that the agents have suffered for years under the cruelty of the Nazis and so that counts as a mitigating circumstance. 9 However, the shaving of women’s heads, for instance, seems like a barbaric and possibly misogynist act not directed against the occupiers, and one would hope that Beauvoir was more critical of it. Herbert R. Lottman, in his history of the purge, notes that some regional authorities tolerated these shavings because they considered they provided an outlet for harsh feelings and prevented worse consequences, such as murder. Sartre referred to the practice as “medieval sadism” in an article in Combat. Furthermore, he reported that some women had mental breakdowns and others committed suicide (Lottman 1986, 67–68). Antony Beevor explains that the practice was used in the dark ages in Europe and that the Nazis punished German women who were thought to have slept with non-Aryans or foreign prisoners this way. These shavings and other abuses occurred in Belgium, Italy, Norway and the Netherlands (Beevor 2009). Twenty thousand French women were subjected to this humiliation, many baselessly accused to begin with, and they are known as les femmes tondus. It is rare for those treated this way to be quoted, so the quote from Marguerite Duras’s Hiroshima Mon Amour (1961) that I have used as an epigraph must stand in for all those women. Such humiliating forms of vengeance or punishment, as I will discuss in the next chapter, should not be part of any attempt to restore justice. During the épuration sauvage or “wild purge,” as the lawless period of the purge is known as, as many as ten thousand people are thought to have been killed. One thousand five hundred collaborators were executed in the legal purge (épuration légale), proportionately the highest rate in Europe (Wieviorka 2012, 28). To return to Beauvoir, she appeals to the feeling of hate to explain what she means by the privileged case here. She argues that the only justification for the retaliation against collaborationist police and SS guards, for example, is hate. Her claim is that hate is not a capricious passion. This contention is best understood as a normative account of hatred (la haine) or genuine hate, which takes hate to have a proper set of objects as well as proportionality. 10 Beauvoir’s account of hate directed against oppressors should be contrasted with prejudicial hate often directed against an oppressed group. This hate is meant to be an ethical response to certain kinds of wrongdoing, as she states that hate is “aimed at free beings actually engaged in evil” (2004, 252). According to Beauvoir, hate is directed toward abominations or scandals and a desire to eliminate such realities from the world. She holds that one only hates people, rather than natural evils, “because they are conscious authors of genuine [true] evil” (2004, 248). 11 Nor do we hate soldiers as they are fol-

The Taste of Ashes

27

lowing commands and we share a common situation with the enemy. However, this reciprocity could break down if extreme propaganda against the enemy was spread or if one or both sides commit atrocities and war crimes. In contrast, Beauvoir argues, outrages occur when one person treats another like an object by humiliating, torturing, assassinating, enslaving, and forcing them to labor. 12 For her, these actions are “absolute evil” (2004, 257). All these are quite extreme cases of treating someone as a thing, not even just as a means to an end. As Kristana Arp notes in her introduction to the essay, Beauvoir is concerned with suffering and delineating the idea of a crime against humanity (Beauvoir 2004, 240). A point she does not take into consideration is that made by Arendt that some of the worst crimes of the Shoah in particular, were characterized by “antiutility” or not making use of people for work when they could have, and murdering them instead. Her view is that the Nazis went beyond treating others as a means to treating human beings as superfluous (1973, 457). On Beauvoir’s account, the hatred focuses on another’s use of their freedom to demean a human being into a thing. She sounds rather Kantian here: we must not treat another as a thing or mere means (Kant 1996, 4: 429), and Ann Murphy notes this connection (2011, 43). Yet Beauvoir is also critical of the categorical aspects of Kantian ethics, so we need to focus on what is distinctive about her approach. One commentator, William Wilkerson, suggests that Beauvoir may be using Kantian language in her ethics so that people can connect to what she is saying (2012, 69–70). The distinction between ends and means is useful to exclude some treatment of others as objects, yet clearly Beauvoir is putting forward a narrower view of treatment that neglects consciousness entirely and/or involves degrading consciousness. In “An Eye for An Eye,” absolute evil is described as consisting in the denial of others’ subjectivity, “when a man deliberately tries to degrade man by reducing him to a thing” (2004, 257). People react directly to that denial through hate and vengefulness against the freedom of the perpetrator. Similarly, in The Ethics of Ambiguity, Beauvoir writes: A freedom which is occupied in denying freedom is itself so outrageous that the outrageousness of the violence which one practices against it is almost cancelled out: hatred, indignation, and anger (which even the Marxist cultivates, despite the cold impartiality of the doctrine) wipe out all scruples. 13 (1997, 97)

In “An Eye for an Eye” she explains that the ambiguity of the human condition is that every person “is at the same time a freedom and a thing, both unified and scattered, isolated by his subjectivity and nevertheless coexisting at the heart of the world with other men” (2004, 258). We are all a subject for

28

Chapter 2

ourselves and an object for others. We are both consciousnesses and material beings and we have a moral obligation to treat others not as objects only but as conscious creatures that know how they are being treated. Otherwise, in refusing to acknowledge this ambiguity, we are both in bad faith, or making an intellectual mistake, and unethical. This idea is explained very explicitly by Beauvoir in The Ethics of Ambiguity, where she says that the tyrant asserts himself as a transcendence; he considers others as pure immanences: he thus arrogates to himself the right to treat them like cattle. We see the sophism on which his conduct is based: of the ambiguous condition which is that of all men, he retains for himself the only aspect of a transcendence which is capable of justifying itself; for the others, the contingent and unjustified aspect of immanence. (1997, 102)

The tyrant is in bad faith and acting in an unethical way in not acknowledging either their own or others’ ambiguity. In the same text, Beauvoir uses the example of the lynching of African Americans in the United States and says that it is “a fault without justification or excuse” (1997, 146). 14 Absolute evil is unlike those ordinary crimes like stealing and murder that are committed because of the inequality that exists in society, which may be excused if not justified (2004, 245). The perpetrators are also different. They acknowledge only their own consciousness or subjectivity and only the physicality, materiality, and passivity of the victims. In her discussion of Beauvoir’s conception of evil, Anne Morgan suggests that what makes an action really absolute evil is the perpetrator willfully choosing evil (2008, 87). However, Beauvoir’s account is flexible enough to allow that the evil of treating someone as a thing could be done negligently or thoughtlessly as well. For instance, she says that “No one really willed these abominable acts. They were not deliberate; they resulted from a whim, from a heedless blunder, by chance, by mistake” (2004, 255). To some extent, Beauvoir is articulating the excuses that might be given by criminals or their defenders; yet she is also acknowledging that the extent to which evil is chosen can be greatly variable. In The Second Sex, Beauvoir uses the term absolute evil differently. Rather than using it to describe extreme kinds of actions or to condemn the perpetrator, she declares both oppression and bad faith to be absolute evils, in that they reduce a person to immanence and they should not occur (2010, 16). 15 However, it does not follow from this point that every oppressor or every woman in bad faith has committed absolute evil. This difference can be understood as the difference between saying that something is an evil, which we can say of a tornado or a tsunami, and saying that a person or action is evil. One apparent problem with Beauvoir’s view is that crimes or cruelty to others could be very much focused on the consciousness of the victim. How-

The Taste of Ashes

29

ever, even these sadistic kinds of crimes may aim at hurting the person by not allowing them to enjoy their consciousness fully, such as the way the Nazis made people in concentration camps do useless tasks. In The Ethics of Ambiguity, she describes this experience as cutting transcendence off from its goal (1997, 30–31). Thus the perpetrator may be concerned with the effect of their actions on the victims, but what they actually do is limit the victim’s expression of their freedom. In “An Eye for an Eye,” Beauvoir does not make the complexity of her concept of freedom as explicit as it is in The Ethics of Ambiguity. There she contrasts freedom as a basic or ontological capacity for spontaneity applicable to all with freedom as a capacity or expression that can be limited by oppression or our own failure to assume it, what Beauvoir conceives of as bad faith (1997, 25). In the most extreme cases of brutality, our basic freedom can be damaged, sometimes beyond the possibility of recovery. 16 The discussion of the specific evil of the crimes of the Shoah and the occupation of France is meant to make us see how hate and vengefulness can have appropriate objects. Beauvoir understands hate in this situation as having an immediate connection to a desire for revenge that will strike out the evil that is found in treating someone as a thing in the way that she describes. So far I have reconstructed her account of appropriate hate and desire for revenge. In the next section, I explore the difficulties that Beauvoir finds in the expression of the strong affects of hate and vengefulness. For my purposes here, what is significant is that while Beauvoir defends these affects as essentially human, she also shows how the attempt to act on them leads to a series of paradoxes. PARADOXES OF REVENGE Having clarified why Beauvoir believes we experience hate and vengefulness, we need to understand the implications of these affects. Like Kant, Beauvoir accepts the law of retaliation, or Lex talionis, (hence the title of her essay) an equivalence between the wrong and the punishment, at least in the sense of vengeance, arguing that it reflects a deep human need, as I noted (2004, 248). However, she does not push this analogy too far by suggesting that punishments must be analogous, an idea that leads to numerous inconsistencies in Kant’s work, as I discussed in the previous chapter. For her, revenge aims at getting the perpetrator to understand in a practical, Heideggerian sense “the process by means of which our entire being realizes a situation” (2004, 248). It does not act as a deterrent or make an example of individuals; as Beauvoir says, “It would be absurd to suppose that they shot Mussolini in order to intimidate future dictators” (2004, 247). Her idea is not that the evil can be remedied easily by the torturer feeling what their victim

30

Chapter 2

felt. Rather, what the torturer must understand in a concrete and genuine way is how the victim is also free like themselves. Beauvoir sees this as reestablishing the reciprocity between the perpetrator and victim. She argues that vengeance is justified as a response in the extreme cases of reducing others to a thing because it re-establishes the reciprocity that was destroyed by the crime. Thus such reciprocity should not be seen as simply inflicting a like suffering on the perpetrator. In vengeance the perpetrator is reminded of their thing-like aspect while at the same time the victim’s consciousness is affirmed. Both are restored to ambiguity and recognition of that ambiguity on both sides. Beauvoir sees this kind of vengeance as justice: “The affirmation of the reciprocity of interhuman relations is the metaphysical basis of the idea of justice” (2004, 249). The victim reasserts their subjectivity and forces the perpetrator to face their own materiality. Yet Beauvoir immediately acknowledges a paradoxical problem with this approach to justice. The problem is that it tries to force someone who is free to take up a certain perspective and that is contradictory. There is a fundamental paradox here of the kind Sartre explores in his account of our relations with others, such as desire, hate, and love, in Being and Nothingness (2003). The first part of the paradox Beauvoir outlines is that if the perpetrator feels remorse of their own accord and punishes themselves, then the desire for vengeance is not fulfilled, it is “disarmed” (2004, 249). The second part of the paradox is that if the offender is subjected to violence, they may not come to feel what the punishers think they should feel, as they are free to take up their own attitude to both their crime and their punishment. How could this paradox be resolved? What should happen, according to Beauvoir, is that punishment should work like seduction, so that the perpetrator comes to freely “recognize its [their] past faults, repent, and despair” due to the external force compelling that feeling (2004, 249). This idea of seduction has some resonances with Sartre’s discussion of seduction in Being and Nothingness, the idea that we can aim at “causing to experience” (2003, 395). 17 We try to arouse certain feelings, in one case desire, in the other remorse, in other human beings by presenting ourselves and treating the other in specific ways. Like the failure of seduction to do anything but present oneself as a precious and fascinating object, punishment tries to cause a perpetrator to experience remorse but can only present an authority who condemns their actions. Again, Beauvoir concludes that the inconsistent character of vengeance in this form cannot be satisfied. If the guilty suffer too much, they cannot be properly conscious of their guilt; if they do not suffer, they are free to feel however they like. The perpetrator can refuse to acknowledge the meaning of the punishment, by becoming happy, by having an ironic detachment, resistance, resignation, or arrogance. Like seduction, punishment fails. Life imprisonment may be one way to effect true punishment, Beauvoir implies in The Ethics of Ambiguity, writing that “Life impris-

The Taste of Ashes

31

onment is the most horrible of punishments because it preserves existence in its pure facticity but forbids it all legitimation” (1997, 31). This characterization of life imprisonment is one that suggests it is the appropriate punishment for the worst of crimes, a point I will return to further on. However, in “An Eye for an Eye” Beauvoir claims that even life imprisonment is flawed as we cannot ensure that the wrongdoer will feel what they should feel. She then says “Lacking the power to control the hated enemy indefinitely, one must resolve to kill him” (2004, 250). This death is supposed to represent the realization of what they have done, a realization that will occur in the last moments of life. Her point is that if perpetrators live on in prison they can start to understand their situation in their own way. Instead, a true reciprocity would involve the perpetrator’s acknowledgment of mutual ambiguity. Thus, for Beauvoir, capital punishment is a “last resort” because a punishment that effects this acknowledgment is impossible to achieve. The “privileged case,” as mentioned earlier, is the immediate vengeance taken against the SS concentration camp guards by former inmates (2004, 25–51). Other cases are more problematic and I believe her argument, on this particular point, can be given more support. Beauvoir does not discuss in detail the common distinction between feeling an affect or emotion and expressing that affect, yet that distinction is at work in her essay. One way of understanding her argument is that in spontaneous revenge the two are tied together. The spontaneous acts of revenge in a time of crisis are an immediate expression of the feeling. Thus they are concrete and genuine. As time passes, the affect and its expression are separated and the feeling becomes a dwelling on the past, abstract and less genuine. Hate and vengefulness will try to find an outlet that is less relevant and justified. Another problem concerns the indirectness of some revenge. The paradox here is that the victim should be the one who takes action, but if they are murdered that is impossible and even if they have survived they may be unable to enact vengeance for other reasons. So that may lead to others taking revenge on the victim’s behalf. However, as Beauvoir recognizes, revenge is even more unlikely to reach its metaphysical goal when a third person takes revenge on the victim’s behalf. A third party can only carry out revenge in so far as they are a member of the human community and take punishment to be a right. But, says Beauvoir, that makes them a tyrant and a judge, as they are not in a position to represent justice in this way. Rather, “vengeance is a concrete relation among individuals in the same way that struggle, love, torture, murder or friendship are” (2004, 251). Taking revenge on behalf of someone else is to deny this individual and tangible character of revenge. So Beauvoir does not advocate private vengeance or vigilantism on behalf of another person. This is because people’s motives for taking vengeance are suspect; it could be simple will to power instead of an attempt to restore reciprocity. For example, many collaborators tried to deflect attention

32

Chapter 2

from their own wartime activities by participating in the shaving of women’s heads (Beevor, 2009). Moreover, such actions can easily lead to a cycle of violence as vengeance is not accepted as just by the perpetrators. 18 For these reasons, the state takes over the role of punishment, and revenge becomes sanction instead. In this case, Beauvoir argues, the attempt to establish reciprocity and the passions of hate, anger and vengefulness are given up. 19 Instead the goal is to take the perpetrators out of the community and to recognize community values. Beauvoir believes that the Lex talionis is not the basis for state-sanctioned capital punishment, so the revenge motive cannot be used to justify the execution of Brasillach. Moreover, the Lex talionis does not appear to be applicable here since Brasillach did not actually murder anyone. However, Beauvoir groups him with radio propagandists, the SS who cruelly murdered 642 villagers in Oradour, the guards at Buchenwald, Nazi leaders, and the German people as accomplices (2004, 246). 20 It could be argued that Brasillach’s actions lead to the deaths of Jewish people and members of the resistance because he exposed them to deportation and hence to their deaths. Beauvoir makes that point in The Force of Circumstance, where she says that “There are words as murderous as gas chambers” and that Brasillach’s writing amounted to direct collaboration (1968, 30). In the essay, Beauvoir contends that rather than the death penalty being founded on the Lex talionis, it expresses how strongly society condemns the crimes (2004, 252). Once the state takes over punishment, Beauvoir believes that trials and punishment have primarily a social role. Then, she observes, it is the verdict and sentence that matters more than carrying out the sentence, as occurred for Pétain. Henri Philippe Pétain was chief of the Vichy state; he was sentenced to death for treason, but the sentence was commuted due to his age (eighty-nine in 1945). In contrast, the Vichy Prime Minister, Pierre Laval, was tried and executed—he was sixty-two. So, following the logic of Beauvoir’s argument, extreme punishments such as the death penalty meted out by the state are even more problematic because they do not express a concrete will to re-establish reciprocity, a point I will discuss in the final section of the chapter. A further paradox appears in punishment by the state, through the temporal and situational change of the perpetrators. Put simply, the person on trial is not the person who committed the crime. This difference is because the temporal aspect of society’s justice alters our perception of the criminal. The more time passes, the less they seem like the person who committed the crime and evoke our pity instead. Moreover, their changed situation alters how they seem to us, as does the bureaucracy and pomp surrounding trials, developed to express society’s condemnation (2004, 252). Beauvoir herself was struck by Brasillach’s demeanor during the trial: “Whatever this life had been like, whatever the reasons for his death, the dignity with which he

The Taste of Ashes

33

carried himself in this extreme situation demanded our respect in the moment we most desired to despise him” (2004, 253). This change suggests something about the nature of hate—that it alters with time and situation. While love can also be ephemeral, hate and love differ in their relation to time. The time that passes from the original crisis is one that makes the experience of hate, anger, and vengefulness less and less legitimate. 21 While it could be argued that anger and hate deepen over time just as love and desire do, Beauvoir’s argument suggests that there is something deeply disturbing about such an increase in depth. We would expect that these affects will cool, and that was certainly the case in post-war France, where those who evaded trial for some time, even years, received lighter sentences than those arrested and tried earlier. 22 Conversely, weakness and denial in the wrongdoer also destroy our desire for revenge, according to Beauvoir, because we are disgusted by them. So both respect and disgust drive out hate and revenge. The final paradox appears in the way we wish that force (the perpetrators) will see itself as weakness while still being a force (2004, 254). This was close to being true at Lüneburg, the war crimes trial at the site of the BergenBelsen concentration camp, Beauvoir claims, where the perpetrators came to see their crimes as others saw them and be horrified by them. However, usually the ceremony and spectacle of state trials do not approach the concrete reality of the crimes and so too fail. She claims that “they are nothing but an empty form” (2004, 254). What Beauvoir makes clear is that no matter how understandable these affects are as responses to communal violence, they ultimately either lead nowhere or to more senseless violence. In the next section I examine why Beauvoir rejects forgiveness as an alternative to punishment. This is an issue that is important to my discussion of forgiveness in post-genocide Rwanda in chapter 5. THE PERSPECTIVE OF FORGIVENESS In one section of her essay, Beauvoir adopts the perspective of forgiveness to consider whether her arguments concerning the paradoxes of revenge lead to the conclusion that we should not punish the perpetrators of violent crimes or should punish them lightly. Following the discussion of these issues, Beauvoir suggests “Thus it appears that all punishment is a failure” (2004, 254). So she asks whether justice should be replaced by charity, by which she means forgiveness in the sense of clemency in this case, rather than severe punishment. 23 Here her remarks are directed against what she sees as the Christian view, some of whose representatives tried to urge mercy for collaborators. To do this we try to understand the person from their own point of view. We might find that there is “nobody” really there, in the sense of a distinct character of an evil perpetrator (2004, 255). 24 Examining acts from a

34

Chapter 2

subjective point of view, they can be seen as contingent, mistakes, as aimed at good in some sense, as shaped by temptations and circumstances. It becomes difficult for us to judge them. In this case we may start to understand and so accept what they have done. Beauvoir reminds us that revenge is directed at intentions behind actions, in other words, their deliberate nature, but this is not how the perpetrators see their actions. She notes that “even if we admit that a man is responsible for a misdeed, it does not express him in his entirety” (2004, 255). When we look at the perpetrator’s life as a whole, we often see that they were good in many ways, to their partners, children and friends, for example. Further, she reiterates the point that their deeds are in the past and do not define them in the present: “It does not exist any more as the expression of a freedom, but as something fixed that the guilty party trails behind him in spite of himself” (2004, 256). The perspective of Christian charity demands that we accept that we are all corrupted and that only God can judge and punish people. Human beings should forgive each other. At this point, Beauvoir concedes that there is a great deal of truth in the perspective of charity, in that we rightly do not judge children, or the mentally ill; we take into account influencing factors, judge perpetrators’ acts in the light of their overall character, and allow that they may redeem themselves. However, here is the key to Beauvoir’s claim for such extreme punishment: she argues that sometimes redemption is not possible, in cases of “absolute evil” (2004, 257). These are the cases where the victim is degraded to a thing, as I have discussed. The view that the nature of the crime is what prevents redemption is an odd claim for her to make, as it should be something about the attitude of the perpetrator to their crime, such as lack of remorse, which prevents redemption. Redemption, as I will discuss in later chapters, is something that can come about through remorse and atonement. For whatever they have done, they may be capable of changing for the better. Furthermore, even if it is correct that such perpetrators cannot be forgiven, that they are implacable, or that they must be punished, the nature of the punishment is still an open question. The deep problem with Beauvoir’s argument is that it does not consider differences between perpetrators in relation to the acts. While all may have committed similar acts, they may have done so under different circumstances, and with different responses afterward, some of which suggest that they could be redeemed. Thus the kind and extent of punishment must differ between individuals. It cannot follow that all those who degrade others to a thing should be punished by death. This point is implicitly admitted by Beauvoir in accepting that the death sentence could be commuted for Pétain, and in her discussion of how differently those on trial conducted themselves in court. Furthermore, Beauvoir contends that a secular, human ethics cannot take the approach of Christian charity. Existentialism takes each person to be free

The Taste of Ashes

35

(aside from those exceptions mentioned earlier) and we have to take responsibility for our past in facing the future (2004, 257). This comes back to the paradox Beauvoir described through the effect of time passing and the circumstances of the court presenting the person on trial as different from the one who committed the crime. As Sartre comments in Being and Nothingness: “We are readily astonished and upset when the penalties of the court affect a man who in his new freedom is no longer the guilty person he was. But at the same time we require of this man that he recognize himself as being the guilty one” (2003, 86). This is the problem of bad faith and of our existence—the perpetrator is both guilty and not guilty. Beauvoir argues that because the person who has done wrong is free they must be punished. I will examine this argument in the final section, considering how important the nature of that punishment is, even if we accept this feature of her argument. We need also to consider how assuming responsibility for our past is related to the possibility of our future. Then Beauvoir outlines why she did not sign the petition asking for a pardon for Robert Brasillach, although she felt she understood him, she esteemed him during the trial, and the thought of his death gave her anguish. 25 Her arguments for not opposing the death penalty in this case are, first, that we cannot excuse Brasillach even if we understand him, because he had created his own opinions and tastes through the choices he made, and he could have chosen otherwise (2004, 257). However, not excusing him is not the same as deciding that he should be executed. As Sonia Kruks notes, “that Brasillach acted freely . . . is not in itself an argument for imposing or carrying out the death penalty” (2012, 169). Second, he had also taken responsibility for his life, as we all should. Beauvoir adds that we should take a person’s ideas and actions seriously, just as we take their death seriously. Nevertheless, taking responsibility for one’s past actions does not entail that one deserves the death penalty, as if the more we acknowledge our wrongdoing the less we deserve to live. Gisèle Sapiro, a French sociologist, notes that Brasillach was conspicuous among the writers tried after the liberation for taking responsibility for what he had done (2006, 9). It cannot be the case that he deserved the death penalty in a way that others did not because he accepted responsibility for his actions. Again Beauvoir reasserts the contradiction between vengeance based on hatred, which can be arbitrary but is “prompt and passionate” and brings about a true reversal, but makes mistakes, and institutional justice that is reflective but not a “concrete will” (2004, 258). The ideal would be a will that is both reflective and concrete but that is an impossibility. Every attempt to address the wrong exhibits the ambiguity of the human condition and so all punishment partly fails. 26 Yet she concludes that punishment acknowledges the freedom to commit evil, distinguishes evil from good, and “will[s] the good” (2004, 259). This justification for punishment in general, even if

36

Chapter 2

accepted, can be separated from a justification for capital punishment. In the next, final section of this chapter I will consider Beauvoir’s view of capital punishment in terms of its lack of consistency with the existentialist ethics she develops in The Ethics of Ambiguity and even with the tenets she argues for in the “Eye for Eye” essay itself, as well as its general untenability. From there we will be able to consider the issues surrounding other forms of punishment, and experiences of guilt, shame, and humiliation in the following chapter. BEAUVOIR’S VIEW OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT My examination here considers capital punishment within Beauvoir’s specific existential framework. I argue that we have to allow for the contingency of the perpetrators’ attitude to what they have done, to accept that a criminal is free to take up their own attitude to the crime in defiance, rebellion, or indifference, devastating though that can be. 27 We cannot make them or even seduce them into feeling remorse, although we could try to persuade and convince them. The reason not to try to force offenders to take particular attitudes to their crimes is not just because it is not possible, as Beauvoir concedes, but because this is what it means to respect someone as an ethical agent who is free in that way. We accept that perpetrators form their own attitudes and we can only hope that they will be good ones. This impossibility of getting the perpetrator to have the right response is what Beauvoir feels undermines the efficacy of punishment. It is one of the reasons for its failure. Yet it is also an outcome we have to accept about attempts to control the attitudes and affects of others. Furthermore, Beauvoir’s account of the difficulties in re-establishing reciprocity between the criminal and the victim undermines her own argument for capital punishment in the Brasillach case, or at least her justification for her refusal to sign the petition for clemency. There are a number of reasons for this effect on her argument. The idea of forcing, seducing or persuading the criminal to feel remorse is inconsistent with capital punishment, as the death penalty does not allow the criminal to feel remorse. This is particularly so in the swift punishment that was meted out to Brasillach, after a short trial, deliberation, and execution that all took place within a month. Their response is cut off and made irrelevant by their impending death. Beauvoir concedes this point, in noting that by dying the criminal in some sense escapes punishment, and suggesting that imprisonment is more effective (2004, 250). 28 Imprisonment at least allows the possibility the punished could come to feel the appropriate attitudes to their past actions. So could other forms of punishment, such as “national indignity” (Indignité nationale) imposed during this period, or practices of atonement. National indignity could involve a variety

The Taste of Ashes

37

of penalties, including loss of civil rights or opportunities in the professions (Lottman 1986, 41). 29 Hence capital punishment ensures that reciprocity, for Beauvoir the goal of punishment, cannot be established. Moreover, Beauvoir’s view is that we cannot be fully defined by our actions, as every person “is at the same time a freedom and a thing, both unified and scattered, isolated by his subjectivity and nevertheless coexisting at the heart of the world with other men,” as I quoted her as saying earlier (2004, 258). One might think that of any philosophical movement, existentialism is the one that allows the most for the possibility of change or improvement in a human being. And one might think that Beauvoir in particular, a feminist and opponent to oppression of all kinds, would be opposed to the death penalty, that most extreme of state cruelty. The agent of absolute evil is not what they are; they are not fully defined by their crimes. Of course, they cannot deny their crimes either, they are part of their past and so their facticity and that is why they have to be held responsible for them. Nonetheless, the sense in which our past actions become part of who we are does not mean that our future is closed. As Beauvoir says, “it is true that a freedom, although always bound up with the past, is never held captive by it” (2004, 256). In her attempted justification of her refusal to sign the petition, she retreats from her own perspective by arguing that Brasillach is one with his past and forms a unity (2004, 257). While she says that not to assume the past “is to break human existence into worthless fragments,” on the same page she also writes that every human being is “both unified and scattered” (2004, 258). Similarly, The Ethics of Ambiguity stresses the possibility of surpassing our previous goals: “a creative freedom develops happily without ever congealing into unjustified facticity” (1997, 27–28). We are always becoming and while responsibility may entail accepting punishment, as Beauvoir states, it does not entail punishment as death, the closing off of the future. Her claim in “An Eye for an Eye” is that judges try to take the guilty out of society in order to “restore a human community to its own idea of itself, to uphold the values that the crime has negated” (2004, 252). Her focus here is the future of the community rather than the possible future of the individual, a central aspect of all human ambiguity. Considerations of the future of the individual criminal are over-ridden by the absolute evil of their treating someone as a thing, Beauvoir argues. Society’s justice sees them only as reflecting their evil acts (2004, 252). She claims that capital punishment should be for wrongs committed against actual people, not because of an abstract notion of justice. Beauvoir does not believe capital punishment is appropriate for murder in general, as she takes most such actions, along with theft, as brought about by injustices and inequalities in society and thus excusable (2004, 245). Yet she has a different view concerning war criminals, informers and collaborators, those who commit absolute evil, as I have elaborated.

38

Chapter 2

State punishment, Beauvoir notes, is more of a symbolic acknowledgment of the crime than spontaneous revenge, since it is impossible to avenge the dead. However, in cases of the death penalty for murders the state is executing the perpetrator on the behalf of the victims. Thus, capital punishment appears as an attempt to avenge the dead rather than a symbolic acknowledgment of the crimes, a reason for Beauvoir herself to be against it. The execution of a perpetrator parallels the original killings of victims and raises problems that parallel those of private revenge, that the motivations can be suspect and that it can lead to further violence. Equally, Beauvoir’s own concession that it is the verdict and sentence that matters more than carrying out the sentence—as in Pétain’s case—could well apply to Brasillach and others. In that instance, one could argue that Brasillach’s sentence should also have been commuted in that the sentence itself expresses society’s sanction. Of course, there would be something very odd about having a system where one knowingly always commuted death sentences, and it would hardly be consistently and unconditionally abolitionist in the way that Derrida argued we should strive for. It would be impractical once it was evident to everyone that the sentences worked this way and it would not be abolitionist in a fully genuine sense as it upholds the concept of capital punishment, if not the practice. While Beauvoir’s claim is that the justification for commutation of the death sentence holds only for Pétain, the introduction of an extenuating factor such as age for him means that other extenuating factors should be taken into account (2004, 252). There is also something absurd about executing one person because they are younger than another. Finally, the argument for capital punishment in “An Eye for An Eye” is not compatible with Beauvoir’s views in The Ethics of Ambiguity on the point of how we should regard human life and how we restore justice after brutal conflict. She discusses how, after a period of violence, we need to treat human life as precious, including the lives of perpetrators: Why these hesitations of the courts, those long drawn-out trials, since men died by the million, like animals, since the very ones being judged coldly massacred them? The reason is that once the period of crisis, in which the democracies themselves, whether they liked it or not, had to resort to blind violence, has passed, they aim to re-establish the individual within his rights; more than ever they must restore to their members the sense of their dignity, the sense of the dignity of each man. Taken one by one, the soldier must become a citizen again so that the city may continue to subsist as such, may continue to deserve one’s dedicating oneself to it. (1997, 107)

Beauvoir might say that all this approach of restoring the dignity of each person entails that we take seriously each individual life, weighing it careful-

The Taste of Ashes

39

ly in each individual situation, and so the decision in Brasillach’s case is consistent with that view, in taking his life and situation seriously. Yet Brasillach’s trial was not drawn-out and not particularly fair. The trial took only six hours, the jury’s decision took only twenty minutes, and he was executed less than three weeks later, with the petition for clemency refused. 30 I believe that Beauvoir should have seen that the implication of her view of the dignity of human life is that she should have been against the execution of Robert Brasillach. Her claim that revenge should be taken quickly or that the courts should act quickly to serve justice is not borne out. For from the distance of hindsight, the sentences from the post-war trials look very unprincipled. While Georges Suarez and Jean Luchaire, editors, (Paxton 1972, 345) and Paul Chack, naval officer, writer of children’s books and Vichy propaganda, were also executed, (Watts 1998, 32) Tony Judt notes that other writers who had acted similarly to Brasillach, such as Lucien Combelle, Louis Ferdinand Céline, and Lucien Rebatet, were not (1992, 66–67). More generally, Ian Ousby comments that writers and journalists were treated more punitively than businesspeople or bureaucrats (1999, 307). In his book on the memory of that era, Henry Rousso sums up the three factors involved in gaining a lenient sentence: having a military rather than civilian trial, being a business leader or engineer rather than a journalist, and not appearing in court until after 1945 (1991, 20). Brasillach was a writer, he had a civilian trial, and his trial was held early, as he handed himself in after the resistance arrested his mother and stepfather and held his mother in prison and then in detention with political prisoners (Kaplan 2000, 71–73). Thus he was unlucky on all three counts. Given Beauvoir’s comments about life imprisonment in The Ethics of Ambiguity quoted earlier, that “Life imprisonment is the most horrible of punishments because it preserves existence in its pure facticity but forbids it all legitimation” (1997, 31), she could have argued that this was an appropriate punishment for Brasillach. In his seminar, Derrida describes the death penalty as a scandal: “if there is a scandal in all these penalties, in all these punishments, the unheard-of, unique scandal of the death penalty is precisely this excessiveness, the fact that it cannot be measured, ‘commensured,’ so to speak, with any crime. The death penalty dares to claim to measure the beyond-measure in some way” (2014, 248). Furthermore, Beauvoir herself said in A Very Easy Death that “There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation” (1969, 92). So even a death that is chosen is a violation; how much more is a death imposed by the state? Furthermore, as I suggested in the last chapter, life imprisonment should also be questioned.

40

Chapter 2

For all these reasons, Beauvoir’s position in the essay is indefensible in her own terms. Derrida would doubtless suggest that her essay is self-deconstructing, and this is a useful way of thinking about the essay, although I would argue that she was aware of many of the inconsistencies in her argument. 31 There is a sense in which Beauvoir is highlighting the inconsistencies and paradoxes throughout the essay by showing the gap between our hate, our desires for revenge and both the outcomes and how we feel about them. I would like to conclude with a coda that shows Beauvoir’s deep ambivalence concerning this question and suggests that in the end she should be understood as closer to abolition than to retention of the death penalty. CODA AND CONCLUSION There is an interesting complication concerning Beauvoir’s refusal to sign the pardon petition. Albert Camus was one of the signatories of the petition for clemency for Brasillach, although he stressed it was only because he was against the death penalty, not because he was a Brasillach supporter (Todd 1996, 200; Carroll 2007, 97). However, in an interview with John Gerassi in 1972, Sartre makes the remarkable comment that Beauvoir’s and Camus’s respective positions were in fact the opposite of that expressed by their actions, saying “Camus wanted Brasillach executed, for example. Mauriac did not. Nor did Castor” (Gerassi 2009, 158). 32 (“Castor” [Beaver] was Beauvoir’s nickname.) In articles in Combat in 1944, Camus suggests his support for the death penalty in some cases in veiled language, through his emphasis on human rather than divine justice (Camus 2006, 89). This is similar to Beauvoir’s contrast between the justice of society and that of Christian charity or forgiveness. Later in these articles, Camus changed his mind, mentioning that “They will go on handing out death sentences to journalists who don’t deserve as much” (2006, 165) and he comments that François Mauriac was right, taken to be an allusion to Mauriac’s opposition to the death penalty (Camus 2006, 165). Camus also wrote “Reflections on the Guillotine” in 1957, as I discussed in the previous chapter, arguing for the abolition of the death penalty. In that essay, he specifically mentions Brasillach along with a communist resistant, Gabriel Péri, executed by the Nazi occupiers, saying that if not for capital punishment they would be alive and “We could then judge them according to our opinion and proudly proclaim our judgment, whereas now they judge us and we keep silent” (1960, 228). In Force of Circumstance Beauvoir states more compellingly that she did not sign the petition for clemency due to the solidarity she felt with the victims of Brasillach and his kin, victims she felt could justly spit in her face if she tried to help him. And so there was no agonizing for her and no regrets about the decision not to sign, she says (1968, 29). Her memoir was pub-

The Taste of Ashes

41

lished almost twenty years after her essay, so she had time to reflect on her position. She describes her view as that “vengeance is useless” but some people could not have a place in their new world (1968, 28). Here Beauvoir also traces more explicitly Brasillach’s crimes of denunciation and anti-Semitism, although they were not the crimes he was tried for. Furthermore, she admits that the anger she had felt at the time of experiencing his crimes had turned to resignation. Perhaps the apparent decisiveness and lack of regret is an example of where public record denies the level of ambivalence Beauvoir experienced, evidenced both by Sartre’s comment that “Castor” was against it (Gerassi 2009, 158), her reference to her “abstention” in the Brasillach affair in Force of Circumstance, and the lines of ambivalence that rise up in her essay concerning the impossibility of achieving reciprocity between perpetrators and victims in punishment. After all, she began her account with the taste of ashes. The arbitrariness of the French post-war purge both in its wild and legal aspects suggests that there must be better ways to forge justice and peace after violence has wracked the community. In the next chapter we see how guilt, shame, and humiliation have to be interrogated and reinterpreted so that our responses to atrocities are truly reparative rather than creating another shameful legacy that must be dealt with down the generations. NOTES 1. Duras (1961, 62). This is a quote from Marguerite Duras’s screenplay for Hiroshima Mon Amour, where the character “She” describes her experience of punishment for collaboration horizontale. 2. It was first published in Les Temps Modernes in 1946. 3. While a distinction between negative and positive emotions tends to be accepted in everyday life, and in much psychology and philosophy, Kristjánsson questions this distinction because he believes it conflates (in the case of negative emotions) painful emotions, emotions that involve negative evaluations, and emotions that are judged in a morally negative way (2003, 362). Hate and revenge share all of these features to some extent. 4. Thus far, there have only been a few works published on this essay. See Kruks (2012), Marso (2012), Murphy (2011), O’Flynn (2008), and Seltzer (2007) for discussions of it. Sonia Kruks places Beauvoir’s argument in the context of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, speculating that Beauvoir would have accepted the practical need for amnesty (2012, 180). She makes the point that Beauvoir’s approach allows that we can respond differently in different situations. 5. See Lottman (1986) for a discussion of some of the complexities of the French purge. Worthy of note is that sentences became much more lenient as time passed after the war. This point is relevant to Beauvoir’s claim that revenge ought to be carried out immediately, as I will discuss further on in the chapter. 6. Here Beauvoir is closer to the Kantian tradition of punishment than the utilitarian, although Kant does not link punishment with vengeance. He says that “no punishment . . . may be inflicted out of hatred” (1996, 6: 461) and argues that we could not consistently formulate a universal rule that insults must be avenged (1996, 5: 19). Furthermore, Beauvoir is critical of what she sees as the abstraction and objectivity of Kantian thinking about punishment (2004, 258).

42

Chapter 2

7. Marso argues that Beauvoir’s account of ambiguity allows for a more nuanced understanding than Arendt’s of the conditions under which individuals act in repressive states (2012). 8. Beauvoir’s way of thinking of revenge is counter to the cliché “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” In contrast, Nietzsche is critical of the desire for revenge and reactive attitudes generally as born of ressentiment, unlike what he sees as the active emotions “such as lust for power and possessions and the like,” (2000, I, §11) although he is neutral in his description of the distinction between spontaneous and immediate acts of revenge and those where we have time to devote to thinking about how best to hurt the person (“The Wanderer and his Shadow,” in 1996, §33) . 9. The assassination of Osama Bin Laden and its celebration lead to discussion of the “naturalness” of the urge for revenge and how it can continue over time, yet Beauvoir’s discussion shows how complex revenge and its aims are (Carey 2011). 10. See Thomas Brudholm (2010, 305) for an excellent discussion of the distinction between these two kinds of hate, which he characterizes as retributive-reactive and collectiveprojective. Also, see Sartre’s account of anti-Semitism as a form of projection (1995). 11. The contrast with Sartre’s view of emotions as a “magical” response to frustration is striking here (Sartre, 2001b, 34–61). Brudholm notes that we may hate animals and inanimate objects, but then this would not be moral hatred (2010, 302). 12. In his essay on collaboration, Sartre articulates a similar concept of what is involved in the worst crimes, writing that collaborators try to reduce their society “practically to the state of a machine” (2008, 61). 13. There is similarity to Kant’s view in the Doctrine of Right: “Therefore, if a certain use of freedom is itself a hindrance to freedom in accordance with universal laws (i.e., wrong), coercion that is opposed to this (as a hindering of a hindrance to freedom) is consistent with freedom in accordance with universal laws, that it is right” (1996, 6: 231). Nevertheless, we need to note how Beauvoir is conscious of the loss that always occurs when we punish or take vengeance, and of the significance of our affects. 14. Sartre also discusses the crime of lynching, quoting from Faulkner’s Light in August (1960) to argue that even someone who has been lynched can return the look before they die (2003, 427–28). In the Sade essay, Beauvoir similarly claims that the freedom of the sadist’s victim escapes them (1966, 42). 15. Developing her ideas in the earlier essay “Pyrrhus and Cineas,” (1944) Beauvoir argues that violence is a failure and to oppress a single person is to treat humanity in them as a thing (2004, 138). 16. Beauvoir distinguishes between a basic, ontological freedom and a more concrete political freedom. There are numerous discussions of Beauvoir’s articulation of freedom, in which there is scholarly consensus that she has at least these two ideas of freedom at work. See for example, Susanne Moser (2008), Christine Daigle (2006), and Karen Shelby (2004). 17. Beauvoir also discusses this idea in “Pyrrhus and Cineas” where she says it is absurd to try to gain love or admiration through violence (2004, 136). 18. This is a problem with vengeance also described by Arendt (1998, 240–41). 19. Peter Sloterdijk provides a genealogy of rage and concludes that “under conditions of globalization no politics of balancing suffering on the large scale is possible that is built on holding injustices against someone.” (2010, 228) This argument rules out both revenge and redressing past injustices, a conclusion I would argue goes too far in expecting previous crimes and oppression to be left unaddressed. 20. The Oradour massacre was not apologized for until 2014, by German President Joachim Gauck (Samuel, 2013). 21. Lisa Tessman considers that anger, even extreme anger, may be essential to resisting oppression; nonetheless it may be unhealthy and corrosive for the person experiencing it, a possibility that Beauvoir does not consider here (2005, 116–25). 22. See note 5. 23. François Mauriac represents this perspective in organizing the petition for clemency for Brasillach and in his debate with Camus over the use of the death penalty against collaborators (Lottman 1986, 138–39).

The Taste of Ashes

43

24. Similarly, Arendt argued that “desk murderers” like Eichmann are really nobodies, they have no character (2003, 95). However, Beauvoir goes on to criticize this way of thinking about perpetrators. 25. Charles de Gaulle refused the request for pardon in the petition, which was signed by fifty-nine intellectuals and writers. There were also a few other petitions and almost sixty letters from individuals against the sentence (Alice Kaplan 2000, 205–9). 26. Here Beauvoir must mean that we do not fully affirm the ambiguity of the human condition in the way she argues we ought, but rather oscillate between its different aspects. 27. For example, some of the perpetrators in Claude Lanzman’s The Shoah (1985) are astonishingly matter-of-fact and unconcerned about their crimes. 28. In Force of Circumstance, Beauvoir notes that people have “turned Brasillach into a gentle martyr” (1968, 163). There is still unease about the execution of Brasillach today and he continues to be thought of as a martyr in some circles. 29. Beauvoir mentions “loss of civil rights, loss of citizenship rights” in “An Eye for an Eye” (2004, 251). 30. See Kaplan (2000, 143–88) and Spotts (2008, 256–58). 31. Penelope Deutscher calls this “auto-resistance” in Beauvoir’s work, the “internal dialogue between different variations on a concept” (2008, 93). 32. Beauvoir’s comment in Force of Circumstance that Camus signed the petition for clemency under pressure and was rather “sheepish” about it, provides some support for that description (1965, 29).

Chapter Three

At First Blush Guilt, Shame, and Humiliation

Ready to die—that, I think, we are; ready to be chosen at random for death— no. If the finger designates me, it shall come as a surprise, and my face will become pink. —Robert Antelme 1 (1998, 232)

The two previous chapters outlined the way that opposition to the death penalty is a necessary precondition for a just solution to even the most extreme wrongs. This chapter focuses on the ways in which perceptions and experiences of guilt and shame are shaped by political conceptions of who belongs to the more guilty and shameful parties. Guilt is ambiguous between guilt as the fact of having done something wrong, and guilt as a felt experience. Likewise shame can be felt even when there is nothing to be ashamed of. I will examine guilt and shame and the apparent expectation and need to take these emotions on when one is not directly implicated. This phenomenon is the converse of the refusal to accept guilt when one is actually culpable, a danger with the concept of collective guilt that Hannah Arendt points out (2003). I explain the debate between Karl Jaspers and Arendt over guilt and responsibility, as well as Jean-Paul Sartre’s and Giorgio Agamben’s work on shame, to develop an account of the political aspects of perceived and felt guilt and shame in people who are oppressed. This account is relevant both to victims of political violence and perpetrators in the aftermath of atrocity, as in both situations humiliation and shaming is often used to induce shame. Such humiliating treatment exacerbates other cruel treatment of victims and is both ethically objectionable and ineffective as a feature of punishment, I will argue.

45

46

Chapter 3

First, I articulate the nature of guilt and shame, then discuss how philosophers have, in some cases, argued that the oppressed should accept the burdens of guilt and shame expected of them because of the social nature of our ethical experience; and then show how that view can be questioned. For instance, Cheshire Calhoun argues that it makes ethical sense for members of racially oppressed groups to accept the shaming of the oppressor since we share a moral world with them (2004). One situation Calhoun discusses is Adrian Piper’s male professor insinuating that Piper has presented herself as black when, in his view, she is not. Calhoun writes “I think that vulnerability to feeling ashamed before those with whom one shares a moral practice, even when one disagrees with their moral criticisms, is often a mark of moral maturity” (2004, 129). While experiences of both guilt and shame have a social element, as Calhoun maintains, and social relationships are essential to ethics, I argue that the view that members of oppressed groups should experience the guilt and shame expected of them by dominant groups ought to be challenged. This challenge is particularly relevant in circumstances of systematic oppression and violence against oppressed groups. In discussing shame, I am focusing on moral shame, rather than the kind of shame associated with modesty and desire for privacy, although there are connections between the two. 2 For much of the twentieth century, shame was not considered to be a particularly useful affect morally, but, in recent decades, shame has come to be thought of as more morally important than guilt. 3 Furthermore, either guilt or shame has been thought of as the basic mood or emotion of the human being, for instance, in the work of Martin Heidegger and Giorgio Agamben. 4 Even more recently, the focus on shame to the exclusion of emotions that are not those of self-assessment, such as humiliation, has itself begun to be criticized, for example by Lisa Guenther (2012). In this chapter, I would like to take that development further by showing how the debate concerning guilt and shame in philosophy and everyday life has obscured emotions that are responses to the actions of others, such as humiliating treatment, thus leading to an inappropriate focus in philosophical discourses on the victims of wrongdoing rather than the perpetrators. This focus implicitly supports the dynamics of humiliation, as I will show, and makes it more difficult both to enable victims to recover from past violence and for offenders to redeem themselves in the context of humiliating punishment. This chapter examines three examples of this phenomenon: Calhoun’s analysis of Adrian Piper’s shame at being accused of “passing” as black that I mentioned, Agamben’s reading of a young man’s shame on a death march from the concentration camps at the end of World War II, and contemporary shaming practices in punishment. These examples shed light on how a positive and ethical approach to both punishment and reconciliation can be achieved; that is particularly clear in the responses to the Rwandan

At First Blush

47

genocide, as I discuss in chapter 5. First, allow me to explore two accounts of guilt that focus on guilt as response to wrongs. GUILT AND SHAME IN JASPERS AND ARENDT Two of the most important articulations of the nature of guilt are found in the work of Jaspers and Arendt. Both are strongly centered on perpetrators of offenses, rather than much of the later philosophical work, which focuses on survivor guilt and shame. I discuss their ideas first to highlight how perceptions of guilt and shame have shifted from perpetrators to victims. In The Question of German Guilt (1947/2001), Jaspers considers whether, in the wake of the Second World War and the Shoah, there is a special kind of German guilt (2001, 22). 5 He defines guilt as a feeling of culpability, or in other words, as a felt recognition and concern that we have done something wrong. For him, guilt involves accepting the consequences of our choices to act or not act in relation to an ethically significant event. 6 Jaspers believes it is important that we feel guilt: “The question is in what sense each of us must feel co-responsible” (2001, 55). In addition to acknowledging the affective aspect of guilt, Jaspers argues, contra Beauvoir, that feelings have to be subjected to reflection before we can speak of our true feelings. He states: Though immediacy is the true reality, the presence of our soul and feelings are not simply there like given facts of life. Rather they are communicated by our inner activities, our thoughts, our knowledge. . . . Feeling as such is unreliable. To plead feelings means to evade naively the objectivity of what we can know and think. It is only after we have thought a thing through and visualized it from all sides, constantly surrounded, led and disturbed by feelings, that we arrive at a true feeling that in its time can be trusted to support our life. (2001, 23)

Feelings must be subjected to individual phenomenological reflection. They have to be assessed through that reflection so that they are sincere, authentic, not “raw” feelings, and Jaspers aims at providing the tools for that reflection through his own discussion of the issue. 7 To enable understanding of the nature of guilt Jaspers famously devises a scheme of distinctions. Briefly, there are four kinds or concepts of guilt: criminal guilt, where crimes can be proven and judged in a court of law; political guilt, where leaders and citizens have to be held guilty for the actions of a state, because they are co-responsible for those actions; 8 moral guilt, in that every person has responsibility for all their actions and can be judged morally, including following military commands, even though there may extenuating factors, such as risk of life, extortion, and intimidation; and metaphysical guilt: human beings live in a relation of solidarity that makes

48

Chapter 3

everyone co-responsible for all the wrongs and injustices that occur, especially for crimes witnessed and known about that we do not try to thwart. This last feeling of guilt cannot be conceived legally, politically, or morally. The guilt comes from not extending the capacity to only live if the other is not harmed to a sufficiently wide circle; we do not love others enough. Only God can judge this guilt, he claims (2001, 25–26). 9 Furthermore, there are consequences of each of the kinds of guilt, according to Jaspers: “The consequences of guilt affect real life, whether or not the person affected realizes it, and they affect my self-esteem if I perceive my guilt” (2001, 30). The consequences of each form of guilt has to be addressed through a different range of thought and actions; for example, crime is punished. I will focus primarily on moral and metaphysical guilt here, as they are the most relevant to the issue of the expectation of guilt feelings in victims. Moral guilt can only be discussed between friends and metaphysical guilt is probably not discussed at all, Jaspers argues. Moral failings create the conditions for crime and political guilt, by ignoring events, such as the wrongs of others, by justifying their behavior, and promoting wrong in one’s own case and that of others. Interestingly, Jaspers refers to metaphysical guilt as a kind of shame, writing, “There remains shame for something that is always present, that may be discussed in general terms, if at all, but can never be concretely revealed” (2001, 27). Perhaps what he means is that because this guilt must remain hidden it becomes a kind of shame, something that we live with and that is not attached to a specific action. Jaspers says that “If human beings were able to free themselves from metaphysical guilt, they would be angels, and all the other three concepts of guilt would become immaterial” (2001, 27). 10 To put the point differently, if we really extended our concern for others to everyone, we would not need to be guilty of anything. Yet we are not angels, and so all the kinds of guilt are significant for us. For Jaspers, moral guilt exists for everyone who allows conscience and repentance to function. Guilt may occur due to conforming with an immoral system out of self-interest, showing indifference to the suffering of others, failing to resist, accepting the Nazi regime’s values, giving tacit support (for example, by saluting or signing an oath), trying to see something “good” in the regime, or deceiving oneself that one could change the system from within (2001, 57–64). He says that “Although this always burdens only the individual who must get along with himself, there is still a sort of collective morality contained in the ways of life and feeling, from which no individual can altogether escape and which have political significance as well. Here is the key to self-improvement; its use is up to us” (2001, 73). Through sympathetic identification with others, I can come to feel co-responsible for wrongs I did not commit or support. This identification is precisely what concerns Arendt, as we shall see, who argues that we should judge others rather than

At First Blush

49

feel such sympathy. Nevertheless, to be fair, Jaspers also notes that there are risks in acknowledging guilt: we may make false confessions of guilt feelings that are really a desire to feel superior to others: “His confession of guilt wants to force others to confess. There is a touch of aggressiveness in such confessions. Moralism as a phenomenon of the will to power fosters both sensitivity to blame and confessions of guilt, both reproach and self-reproach, and psychologically it causes each of these to rebound into each other” (2001, 101). This problem implies another sense in which we have to try to ensure that our feelings are pure; we have to be sure that we do not inauthentically profess guilt. Jaspers argues that a feeling of guilt throughout the community helps to purify everyone. People have to realize their guilt in order to transform themselves and to develop morally. He says that “By our feeling of collective guilt we feel the entire task of renewing human existence from its origin— the task which is given to all men on earth but which appears more urgently, more perceptibly, as decisively as all existence, when its own guilt brings a people face to face with nothingness” (2001, 75). Furthermore, the moral change comes through individuals who inspire each other, by “restitution, atonement, by inner renewal and metamorphosis” (2001, 98). 11 Jaspers’s view reflects the idea that moral guilt produces insight and leads to confessions and attempts to make up for the harm caused, or in other words, moral improvement. He argues that penitence and moral renewal can only arise within ourselves, unlike in relation to criminal and political guilt, so cannot be demanded by others (2001, 39). Also in a quite positive vein, Jaspers suggests that metaphysical guilt can end in a transformation of human selfconsciousness before God, and there pride is given up. Jaspers outlines a number of ways of responding to guilt, both by others and by the guilty. First, what he calls “force” decides conflicts, unless people reach an agreement. Once war begins, the right of justice ends and is replaced with force, although international law is an attempt to regulate it. He argues that the victor can decide what to do with the vanquished when the vanquished are in the wrong, as in Germany’s case. However, the victor’s mercy is likely to temper the effect of strict justice and destructive force (2001, 31–32). These are aspects of the problem of trust that I discuss in the next chapter and also concern the need for just punishment, which I consider in the following chapter regarding punishment in the trials of genocidaires in Rwanda. According to Jaspers, the accused may be charged by the world in the case of crimes and political guilt or by their own soul when they are charged with moral failure and metaphysical weakness. He claims that “Morally, man can condemn only himself, not another—or, if another, then only in the solidarity of charitable struggle. No one can morally judge another” (2001, 33) except perhaps when we are very close, say in a friendship where we can

50

Chapter 3

freely communicate. 12 But shouldn’t we judge and discuss the nature of moral wrongs? Aren’t such wrongs connected to the other kinds of guilt? Jaspers’s assertion about moral guilt is one that can be challenged. Thus Arendt is concerned about this aspect of Jaspers’s views, arguing that we must be able to make moral judgments at the same time as searching for understanding of crimes and perpetrators. She criticizes his idea of collective political guilt on several different bases and contends that responsibility is a more appropriate term in the political context. Jaspers was concerned that innocent people would be swept up in guilt, whereas Arendt is apprehensive that guilty people will be overlooked. Both of these are salient problems in the aftermath of genocide, occupation, and war, as we saw in my discussion of Beauvoir’s “An Eye for an Eye” in the previous chapter. In her essay “Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship” (1964/2005) Arendt insists that we can and should judge others morally and opposes Jaspers’s view that there can be collective political guilt on the grounds that it is a way of evading genuine guilt, which is always individual. 13 I agree with Arendt that responsibility is the more appropriate concept for collective liability. 14 It makes sense to hold a collective responsible for past actions in a way it does not to hold that a collective is guilty of past actions. Arendt explains how political responsibility can be collective, in that it is appropriate for governments to assume responsibility for what previous governments have done, and for nations to take responsibility for their past (2003, 27). Communities can take on responsibility for what an individual has done or be held responsible for what has been done in their name (2003, 149). When we are held responsible or assume responsibility for past wrongs, we may not feel personal guilt, but nevertheless we are connected to those wrongs because we are part of the group that committed them. Guilt is strictly personal or individual, on Arendt’s account, since “Guilt, unlike responsibility, always singles out; it is strictly personal. It refers to an act, not intentions or potentialities. It is only in a metaphorical sense that we can say we feel guilty for the sins of our fathers or our people or mankind, in short, for deeds we have not done, although the course of events may well make us pay for them” (2003, 147). Guilt refers personally both to the wrong-doer and the person who is harmed and has to refer to something objective, a particular act that has been committed. Professed guilt for the acts of others is self-indulgent or it can be a kind of sentimentality, Arendt argues: “Those young German men and women who every once in a while . . . treat us to hysterical outbreaks of guilt feelings are not staggering under the burden of the past, their father’s guilt; rather they are trying to escape from the pressure of very present and actual problems into a cheap sentimentality” (1992, 251). The sincerity and authenticity of the professions of guilt are questioned and in addition, sincerity should not have a place in politics, as what matters is action, according to Arendt. Political life concerns

At First Blush

51

speech and actions that convey a meaning to those who experience them, rather than the internal mental states of politicians, for example. 15 Arendt argues that professing guilt feelings for the acts of others, in contrast to recognizing individual criminal guilt, becomes a vice in politics, because felt guilt is only appropriate in the private sphere, is essentially self-regarding, and distorts the public space of the political sphere. 16 It brings people in the public sphere too close together, whereas we should maintain a distance or in-between space. Professed guilt also leads to moral confusion, she claims, as the innocent declare their guilt, whereas “very few of the criminals were prepared to admit even the slightest guilt” (2003, 28). For Arendt, assertions of collective guilt unwittingly “whitewash” true guilt. More importantly for my discussion here, a related phenomenon that is the converse of Arendt’s critique of professed guilt for others’ deeds is that individuals, especially if they are oppressed, are prone to assume guilt when they have not done anything wrong. 17 Survivor guilt or shame after atrocities is one of the most striking examples. So the articulation of guilt—especially as it relates to responsibility—has to take into account that guilt is distributed, so to speak, in differential and unjust ways. In cases of collective responsibility, we may be more likely to feel shame, rather than guilt or remorse, Arendt contends. She writes that “For the idea of humanity, when purged of all sentimentality, has the very serious consequence that in one form or another men must assume responsibility for all crimes committed by men and that all nations share the onus of evil committed by all others. Shame at being a human being is the purely individual and still non-political expression of this insight” (Arendt, 2005, 131). Shame, then, for Arendt, is an acknowledgment of shared responsibility for misconduct, a different concept from Jaspers’s notion of metaphysical guilt or shame due to limiting our love for others. If we take Arendt’s idea seriously, survivor shame does not concern specific acts but is a strong acknowledgment of shared responsibility, a feeling that is relevant to all human beings, not just survivors. Her suggestion is that shame is collective in a way that guilt is not. Thus it is useful to consider how shame is different from guilt and how it may relate to our membership in a specific group before considering how, according to much contemporary philosophical literature, the oppressed and victimized should bear the burdens of guilt and shame. THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SHAME There are two senses of shame that are relevant to thinking about responses to political violence. One is a pervasive sense of shame that feminists and antiracist thinkers have argued that women and others in an oppressive culture are more likely to experience than the nonoppressed. The other sense of

52

Chapter 3

shame, alluded to by Arendt, is the particular moral shame that someone may feel in relation to a wrong they or others have done. Perpetrators of crimes and abuse may feel shame and find that they can no longer respect themselves. Writing on the relation between shame and the self, Dan Zahavi calls this sort of shame “repenting, self-reflective shame,” felt, for example, by a man for committing atrocities in the Rwandan genocide (2010, 219). Such shame correlates to personal guilt for such crimes, as well as a sense of how one must be seen by others, at least those whose judgments one takes to be important. Zahavi stresses the felt need to hide oneself in both types of shame. To some extent these two sorts of moral shame are conflated in many discussions of shame. However, in this chapter I wish to focus on the first type of shame, which we feel in relation to others’ perception of us. Both these kinds of shame undermine our sense of self, confidence, and openness. Shame is generally distinguished from guilt in a number of ways, including through its close connection to the perception of others and sometimes by it concerning the self as a whole, or character overall, rather than a particular action (Bartky 1990, 87; Williams 1993, 89; Ahmed 2004, 105; Nussbaum 2004, 184). 18 What is of interest to me here is how both guilt and shame are differentially attributed and experienced. Perhaps the most famous discussion of shame occurs in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, where he describes shame as a phenomenon that reveals the mode of Being-for-Others, in contrast to Being-in-itself and Being-for-itself (2003). He provides a lively description of a person who is staring through the keyhole of a door and suddenly feels observed by another: “But all of a sudden I hear footsteps in the hall. Someone is looking at me! What does this mean? It means that I am suddenly affected in my being and that essential modifications appear in my structure” (2003, 284). They experience shame through this look or gaze of the other seeing them as a voyeur or jealous spy. Sartre’s argument is that we feel shame and other emotions only in the face of others. While shame is reflexive in that it is “an intimate relation of myself to myself . . . it is in its primary structure shame before somebody” (2003, 245). His elucidation of shame as in its essence relational is widely accepted. 19 Shame is where we experience ourselves as others see us; pride and other emotions have a similarly reflective quality. As Sartre writes “Shame—like pride—is the apprehension of myself as a nature although that very nature escapes me and is unknowable as such” (2003, 286). Shame and pride give us a kind of being, a sense that we really are as we are perceived. 20 That makes it different from guilt felt as a response to our responsibility for a particular wrong. Sartre does not posit either guilt or shame as primordial; they are both experiences of the presence of the Other in our lives. The Other does not actually have to be there; perhaps the footsteps were not human steps. It is enough that they are experienced as being there, that we might have been seen. Sartre’s example shows that it is our

At First Blush

53

internalized sense of the look of other people that matters, not their actual look. Other authors have connected the experience of shame to that of oppression, and I would like to take the ideas in this work further and show that oppression and persecution alters and broadens the experience of shame. Oppression means that the Other’s look is even more important. Feminist phenomenologist Sandra Bartky, for example, accepts that shame “requires if not an actual audience before whom my deficiencies are paraded, then an internalized audience with the capacity to judge me, hence internalized standards of judgment” (1990, 86). She argues that we become or experience ourselves as we are seen by others, even if that judgment is unjust. Perhaps we were not really peeping through the keyhole; we were trying to fix the lock (although in Sartre’s version of the example he says we are “moved by jealousy, curiosity, or vice”) (2003, 282). Shame may involve the recognition that we have failed in some way but it may also be a result of how we are viewed and treated by others, and that is my focus here. Bartky understands a pervasive sense of shame as a mode of attunement for women and even more so for women of color, but not for human beings as such (1990, 85). In the case of the oppressed person who is subject to domestic violence, for instance, their feelings of self-worth would always be experienced in this context. Bartky’s point is that shame in this sense is not an opportunity for assessing oneself and becoming a better person, as moral shame may sometimes be, but is more likely to lead to self-obsession, self-destructive rage and in general disempowerment. It is shame, but not a positive, potentially improving shame. 21 Being and feeling oneself a victim of unjust treatment may be a cause of shame, a shame that one has been so badly dealt with, and that shame can be before the world and before oneself. However, my argument is that the other point that can be drawn from the experiences Bartky refers to is that abusive treatment is shaming and humiliating, yet because the victim of this kind of treatment is unable to feel that they are not at fault, although they may know that quite well, such treatment is transformed into an experience of shame. We may even feel ashamed of feeling ashamed, knowing that there is not a good reason for feeling ashamed. Being subject to abuse makes one feel low and small, it debases and demeans us, but not because of our self, our actions, or our character, but because of the actions of others. This is the fundamental distinction between humiliation and shame. While shame involves an internalized audience that is seen to judge us as deserving to feel ashamed, humiliation involves an actual other acting to make us feel mortification. 22 Oppression and degrading and violent treatment creates a structural context where humiliation is assumed, taken in, and focused on the self and so experienced as shame. I explore this phenomenon to show the danger that humiliation, of either vic-

54

Chapter 3

tims or offenders, brings to any situation where we are attempting to overcome past injustice. One of the characteristics of oppression is that the other’s negative or judgmental view is internalized in a heightened way. Almost everyone is capable of feeling shame, perhaps even undeserved shame, yet the situation of oppression makes that a persistent occurrence. One is always at fault. Simone de Beauvoir argues concerning women in The Second Sex, “the Other has to submit to this foreign point of view” (2010, 7) and in so doing absorbs that view and trains it on the self. For women are the Other not only for men but for themselves. For oppressed people, the injustice of domination and violence is almost always accompanied by an internalized audience judging one as the Other. Humiliation then is experienced in that context. Consistent or regular humiliating treatment often makes us feel that we are somehow deserving of that treatment or responsible for it, as we are denied the respect and esteem that we need to repel that demeaning view of us. Such feelings can coexist with a degree of self-respect and confidence. It is this aspect of shame that is often overlooked in philosophical discussions of shame. The guilt of the abuser identified by Jaspers and Arendt becomes the shame of the victims of abuse and the socially marginal. In the next section, I consider how shame is inappropriately expected of victims of oppression in much philosophical discussion by considering three examples of shame, the first in an everyday academic context, the second in the context of mass atrocity, and the third in the context of punishment. FEELING MORAL SHAME The first example I consider is one discussed by Cheshire Calhoun in her paper “An Apology for Moral Shame.” The paper is a response to earlier work that took shame to be a primitive emotion of limited moral import, and addresses the idea that shame is more centered on how we are perceived by others than on our judgment of wrongdoing. Calhoun argues that feeling ashamed before others’ shaming contempt can be a sign of moral maturity (2004, 129). It is precisely the distinction between properly attributed shame and improperly attributed shame that Calhoun refuses in stressing the social nature of shame and arguing that it at least makes sense for us to feel shame even when we have not done anything wrong. Part of her motivation is that dismissals of the shame of subordinated peoples “encourage us to find fault with ashamed people” and that is incorrect and uncharitable (2004, 137). Rather than suggesting that shame is a result of low self-esteem, Calhoun argues that shame at insults can coexist with confidence and outrage at the demeaning behavior. She cites the philosopher and artist Adrian Piper’s example of ticking the box for “black” when applying for graduate school. 23 At

At First Blush

55

the welcome for graduate students, Piper is greeted by the most well-known and respected professor’s remark: “Miss Piper, you’re about as black as I am”—that is, not black at all (Piper 1996, 234). He is deciding what category she belongs to, in some sense taking away her own power of self-definition. Piper wrote about her groundless shame, stating “Their ridicule and accusations then function to both disown and degrade you from their status, to mark you as not having done wrong but as being wrong” (1996, 235). Although in other ways Piper was very self-confident, Calhoun explains the feeling of shame here as a sign of taking the other seriously (2004, 137–38). In sum, Calhoun argues that the professor’s view and others like it, even though wrong, have a practical weight for us because we share some social moral practices with them. 24 For her, moral practices are fundamentally social and so must involve these anomalous experiences. The grain of truth in Calhoun’s view may be that in feeling shame that is unmerited we respect the other; we take them seriously as moral beings even though they are mistaken and unfair. However, this way of understanding shame implies that shame in an inverted or perverted world like that of the concentration camp, which I will soon discuss, is unintelligible. How can we feel shame when we have no respect for the other and share no social moral practices with them? Furthermore, even in this case, the responsibility and the emphasis are shifted from the unpleasant sarcastic professor, who presumably forgot the remark by his next conversation, to Adrian Piper and what she should or should not feel. Calhoun concludes that we have to take these “deformed identities” seriously and at the same time try to reform and challenge the defective moral practices of contempt (2004, 146). So in that sense we should not dismiss the feelings of shame of the oppressed, as they point to problematic moral perceptions and judgments. There is a significant point in Calhoun’s argument in the sense that these experiences alert us to subtle structural features of oppression that are reflected in theories of shame. It is on this point that I think attention should focus—on the practical and philosophical conceptions that put the onus on the oppressed or abused to feel shame or guilt and not on the behavior of the dominant group. The philosophical concern centering on the feelings of guilt and shame in the oppressed reinforces the dynamics of oppression that lead people to expect those feelings in victims and survivors and ignore the lack of those feelings in the oppressors. The important distinction here is between shame as felt response to others’ perception of one as lacking in moral worth or as having done something unacceptable, and practices of shaming and humiliation. In contrast to Calhoun’s view, David Velleman argues that “The shame induced by racism is a case of utterly inchoate shame, whose subject is successfully shamed without being ashamed of anything in particular. Inchoate shame typically results, as in this case, from deliberate acts of shaming” (2001, 47). He affirms the point

56

Chapter 3

that one can be shamed even if one is not ashamed and does not feel selfhatred. Velleman sees this shame as brought about by feeling vulnerable because exposed as not in control of one’s own self-definition, a good way of describing an aspect of shame in Piper’s experience. And this is part of the complication of shame—that others can force shame on us in a range of ways, even when we repudiate the view they have of us. 25 Deliberate acts of shaming come closer to humiliation because it is the actions of others that induce the shame rather than the subject’s own actions. Furthermore, humiliation itself becomes experienced as shame in cases of oppression. In an article on the ambivalent nature of shame, Lisa Guenther stresses how shame is both used against members of oppressed groups to exclude and control them and has an important ethical function in evoking a moral response to the Other. She articulates shame as not only concerned with particular acts but with our “very existence”—a kind of ontological shame (2011, 24). Yet the concept of ontological shame also obscures shame’s link with humiliation, as I will show here. This concept of shame is associated with the work of Agamben, who draws on Primo Levi’s description of the reaction of the first Russian soldiers to liberate Auschwitz: It was that shame that we knew so well, the shame that drowned us after the selections, and every time we had to watch, or submit to, some outrage: the shame the Germans did not know, that the just man experiences at another man’s crime, at the fact that such a crime should exist, that it should have been introduced irrevocably into the world of things that exist, and that his will for good should prove too weak or null, and should not have availed in defense (Levi, The Reawakening, 1986, 181–82).

Many of the complexities of shame are introduced in this quotation: that shame can be felt not only for oneself but on behalf of others, that some do not, perhaps cannot feel shame, and that we can feel shame at the existence of wrongs and of not being able to prevent them. The just person feels shame at the actions of others, whereas the ones who have committed the crimes are shameless; they are not concerned with justice or how they appear in the eyes of the world. The gap left by their shamelessness is filled by the shame of the victims, survivors, and witnesses. In his discussion of the work of survivors of the Shoah, Giorgio Agamben generally addresses shame rather than guilt as he sees shame as the more fundamental affect. Levi articulates the feeling or at least the suspicion as one of being a traitor, of having taken someone else’s place, the fundamentals of survivor guilt, in a poem “The Survivor” (1984) and in The Drowned and the Saved (1988). In Agamben’s account of survivor guilt, he turns toward dissatisfaction with Levi’s later discussion of shame in these texts. This lack of satisfaction is because Levi links guilt and shame and because Agamben believes Levi cannot “master” his shame since Levi links it to

At First Blush

57

small “excusable” incidents in the camp that he deeply regrets (1999, 88). Yet I contend that the fixation on specific events is a way that a survivor’s distress is experienced as guilt for specific actions, which Agamben does not acknowledge is a common phenomenon in everyday life. Moreover, Agamben himself seems to be linking or fusing guilt and shame when he describes mastering shame as separating innocence and guilt (1999, 94). Other thinkers who survived the camps, such as Bruno Bettelheim, Elie Wiesel, and Ella Lingens, express feelings of guilt for not having helped others, for surviving, and for being glad to be alive. (1999, 89–94) For example, Bettelheim states in an essay in The New Yorker that “Only the ability to feel guilty makes us human, particularly if, objectively seen, one is not guilty” (quoted in Agamben 1999, 93). According to Agamben, Bettelheim’s expectation of the feeling of guilt from the innocent survivor is suspicious. He links his suspicion to Arendt’s criticisms of collective guilt discussed earlier, and claims that such guilt is a sign of an inability to handle an ethical problem. Agamben accepts that the assumption of collective guilt is often used as a way to avoid specific responsibility and punishment. Levi concurs, saying (as Arendt does) that guilt could only be inherited in a metaphorical sense, and that the only collective guilt of Germans at the time of the Shoah is connected with not testifying to what they “could not have seen” (Agamben’s words) but must have known. He also is not sure that the survivor feels guilt for having taken the place of another, for it makes their shame a kind of Hegelian tragic conflict. The Hegelian tragic model concerns the conflict between a seemingly innocent subject such as Oedipus and the objective guilt of their deeds (1999, 96). However, Agamben argues that this model is far from being true of Auschwitz, for example, as the survivors feel the reverse: innocent of any objective guilt, and guilty of subjective guilt. 26 His suggestion is that Primo Levi suffers “a shame that is not only without guilt but even without time” (1999, 103). There is no deed to attach shame to and there is no time when the shame began or when it can end; that is what makes it ontological shame. Agamben also quotes Robert Antelme’s first-hand account in The Human Race (1998) of the flush of a young Italian man when he is picked out to be killed, at random, during a death march between Buchenwald and Dachau. In this case, the shame is not for surviving, but for having to die, Agamben argues (1999, 104). This is clearly a very different kind of shame, and he wishes to link such shame with human existence in general, describing shame as “both subjectification and desubjectification” (1999, 106). He maintains that the desubjectification is the collapse, the disorder, the oblivion, of fleeing, but the subjectification is the realization of our presence to ourselves. Agamben likens shame to the abjection of disgust, and concludes that shame “is nothing less than the fundamental sentiment of being a subject, in the two apparently opposed senses of this phrase: to be subjected and

58

Chapter 3

to be sovereign” (1999, 107). 27 He claims that shame is the hidden structure of consciousness and means “being consigned to a passivity that cannot be assumed” (1999, 110). That is, we cannot assume our identity or express that identity (1999, 130). In saying “I,” the subject does not coincide with their experiences. In concluding his discussion, Agamben finds that subjectification and desubjectification are basic to subjectivity, meaning that subjectivity is really shame: “Flush is the remainder that, in every subjectification, betrays a desubjectification and that in every desubjectification, bears witness to a subject” (1999, 112). The blush shows the paradoxical nature of subjectivity and language, according to Agamben: that when I try to speak I reveal there is no solid subject, but at the same time attempts to prevent speech or to dehumanize a human being reveal the subject. He argues that the subject cannot speak, as they are identified with the event of discourse rather than their subjectivity. Thus shame is articulated by Agamben as the human being’s basic mode of attunement because it reveals our condition in relation to subjectivity and speech. There have been a number of criticisms of Agamben’s interpretation of Antelme’s account, which note his selective quotation and interested reading of the text. In her characterization of shame, Claudia Welz criticizes Agamben’s description of the Italian student’s blush, quoting more of Antelme’s account, and arguing that what the student most likely expresses is surprise. (2011) 28 She cites Antelme, as I did at the beginning of the chapter, as stating: “Ready to die—that, I think, we are, ready to be chosen at random for death—no. If the finger designates me, it shall come as a surprise, and my face will become pink, like the Italian’s” (1998, 232). 29 In addition, Welz notes that Antelme links the pink flush of the student with the pink face of a small child, concluding that we cannot deduce one specific emotion from a flushed face. Ultimately her account is critical of Agamben’s broadening of the concept of shame. Of course, we cannot know what the student felt. Yet I would argue that what most accounts so far have left out is the phenomenon of humiliation, both in this example and more generally. It is the behavior of the Nazi guard that makes the student blush, not his feeling about himself as such. He has been singled out in front of his comrades for a senseless, arbitrary killing. The humiliation is experienced as shame, as if he were at fault or as if someone must feel shame in such a situation. On a more general note, the literature in this field focuses on either guilt or shame and does not consider humiliation as a possibility, with the exception of Lisa Guenther’s paper, “Resisting Agamben,” where she argues that he conflates humiliation and shame in his interpretation of the young student’s blush, ignoring the specific context provided by Antelme’s testimony. She rightly notes that Agamben identifies “subjectivity with the empty individuation of humiliation rather than the ambiguous relationality of shame, as

At First Blush

59

if political oppression were the fundamental human condition” (2012, 67). Guenther’s contextualization of Antelme’s work is a useful corrective to Agamben’s discussion, as is her observation that Agamben’s reduction of shame leaves it as an empty concept. Her view is that shame represents the structure of intersubjectivity, not subjectivity. However, I argue that Agamben has, perhaps unwittingly, revealed an important point about the nature of shame and its experience by members of subordinated groups. While the situation is one of humiliation—it is the behavior of one person demeaning, degrading and menacing another—when the person is a member of an oppressed group, they are likely to transform that experience into one of guilt or shame, to direct the pain that might otherwise be felt as indignation or anger against themselves. 30 The reasons for this are multiple. It can be a result of the internalization of the Other’s view. In contrast, suppressing or redirecting anger could be necessary for survival or a level of flourishing. Another reason could be a more or less deliberate decision not to risk the corrosive effects of unexpressed anger. 31 The survivor guilt or shame felt by Levi and others is neither a proper felt response to wrongs done nor a mark of our shared human situation; it is an expression of a profound experience of oppression, violence, abuse, and humiliation, and must be factored into any understanding of how a more ethical community can be restored after political violence and oppression. I will end with a slightly different set of examples, concerning punishment, to highlight what I mean and show how humiliation needs to be kept out of our responses to communal violence. In his work on the decent society, Avishai Margalit argues that humiliation cannot be part of a decent society, and sees a kind of progression from the elimination of cruelty, to the elimination of humiliation and finally to the creation of justice (1996, 149). So we could see societies in transition from a terrible atrocity or after a history of oppression as needing to get rid of humiliating treatment as a priority after the cessation of hostilities and cruelty, including the death penalty. Some of the recent literature on punishment, such as the work of John Deigh, has shown how shaming practices are used in conservative forms of punishment that aim to make the punished person an object of public contempt and disdain (Deigh 2006, 410). Like The Scarlet Letter “A” of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story that betokens Hester Prynne’s act of “adultery” (1981), the crime is advertised through the newspaper, on TV, or by making the person hold a sign or wear something like a T-shirt signifying the crime. Deigh, commenting on these phenomena, notes that one of the main motivations of these punishments is saving the cost of imprisonment. Nevertheless, shaming punishments are used within the prison system as well. For instance, Queensland in Australia briefly had a law mandating that prisoners designated as from a biker’s gang had to wear hot pink uniforms. It was abandoned after nine months and the garments were sold to charity. Pink

60

Chapter 3

uniforms are also used in several states in the United States (Bavas 2015). The penalties Deigh describes are sometimes known as shaming penalties (Rodogno 2009, 431) and may be (although they may not be) designed to evoke shame, and sometimes guilt, in the offender. These practices also involve shaming more than shame, the practice of humiliations and demeaning behavior to others, and so can shed light on the differences between experiences of humiliation and shame. In her book, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law, Martha Nussbaum argues that shaming practices are used against those who disturb conventional sensibilities or disrupt conventional norms, such as members of minority groups and the homeless (2006, 230–33). She sees this as a kind of social pathology that tries to put others down; it means “a fragile ego that finds affirmation of its own precarious sense of worth in the humiliation and dehumanization of others” (Deigh 2006, 411). 32 Legal sanctions used to publicly humiliate or shame others manifest a similar impulse, Nussbaum claims. (2006, 230–36) 33 These forms of punishment can be criticized for their attempt to humiliate, shame and degrade their objects, even if they may not be successful in getting them to feel shame. Nussbaum distinguishes humiliation from shame on the grounds that humiliation involves something being done to the person who feels it (2006, 203–4). We can talk about acts of humiliation and shaming as well as experiences of humiliation and shame. Deigh argues further that humiliation involves being treated with disrespect but that may not mean one feels unworthy of respect. Shame, in contrast, involves a recognition that one is unworthy in some way (2006, 415). Nussbaum and others note that humiliation leads to anger and bitterness rather than an attempt to rejoin the group and affirm its standards, as shame may occasionally lead to, although as I noted shaming of the oppressed may not have that effect. Likewise, legal philosopher Raffaele Rodogno contends that humiliation is a more likely consequence of humiliating and shaming practices of punishment than a productive shame that makes an offender keen to improve themselves in order to become a respected member of society (Rodogno 2009). He cites psychological studies that suggest shame and humiliation differ in a number of ways, including these: humiliation is more painful, humiliation is more closely linked to public exposure, and humiliation is more likely to lead to anger and vengeful feelings directed against others (2009, 433–34). Shame, in contrast, focuses on the self and directs negative emotions against the self. He argues that shaming penalties closely fit the structure of humiliation (2009, 449). 34 If the psychological research on the likely effects of humiliation is correct, that is at least one reason to be deeply concerned about their use. In addition, the so-called shaming penalties have a different structure from what I argue is the case for many examples of oppressed groups subjected to humiliating treatment. They are likely to lead to an infuriated

At First Blush

61

response. In these cases, humiliation can be rejected; humiliation can make us angry and fail of its end. Of course, some offenders may similarly internalize shaming treatment into guilt or shame, since they will be members of oppressed and marginalized groups. 35 In either case, these punishments are unlikely to be either ethical or productive. Some aspects of the treatment of genocidaires and suspects in post-genocide Rwanda inappropriately used these kind of practices, just as the French post-war purge did with collaborators and suspected collaborators. 36 My point is that an act of humiliation may anger or it may shame. Humiliation is a kind of assault that touches the person but it may touch them in such a way that while it is painful, there is still a kind of rejection of the view that the humiliation is presenting and potentially retaliation against it. However, in shame, that view is somehow experienced as deserved or warranted, due to a feeling of fault in the victim and in that sense internalized. Shame exhibits that feature and transforms humiliation and other acts of domination into self-condemnation. An important aspect of responding to oppression on a personal level is overcoming self-blame for the behavior of others, as we see in many victims of atrocities and abuse. Moreover, there can be cases where direct action to stop humiliation may be taken. As I noted earlier, there can be many good reasons for not becoming enraged by humiliating treatment or not expressing that rage directly. In extreme situations, containing or subduing anger may be necessary. In less extreme situations, other forms of response to oppression may be more productive. We need to see humiliation for what it is, rather than presenting it as the victim’s shame or the shame of all humanity and recognize that it cannot or should not be part of an attempt to restore a peaceful and just society. CONCLUSION The three examples in this chapter show how oppression and subordination make us less resistant to humiliation, and liable to experience humiliation as shame. They also demonstrate not only the wrong in shaming victims, but the dangers in trying to right wrongs by shaming and humiliating perpetrators. To return to Calhoun, perhaps Adrian Piper’s response to her professor’s unpleasant comment is also better described as humiliation, rather than shame or guilt. He has disrespected her and tried to shame her and she feels bad but she may not and I would argue should not, feel unworthy. Calhoun and others connect the experience of shame with the contempt of others (2004, 131; Tomkins 1995, 139) but contempt does not properly delineate the attitude of the murderous Nazi Agamben discusses and may not help us to understand cases of humiliation. Perhaps in general we are too quick to call something an emotion of self-assessment like shame, rather than a re-

62

Chapter 3

sponse to the actions of others. What we can say is that while it may not be wrong to feel shame when shamed or humiliated, that it definitely appears churlish and unkind to criticize survivors of trauma and genocide for their feelings of guilt and shame or not to acknowledge they can have confidence in other ways, what is more important is that it is wrong for members of dominant groups to shame and humiliate others. 37 This will be true in cases of historical oppression or the newly triumphant victors Jaspers refers to. That issue seems to be treated as tangential in many discussions of guilt and shame. Furthermore, one feature of the structure of oppression, in addition to systematic injustice and domination, where the oppressed internalize the negative views of others, implies that members of oppressed groups are likely to experience shaming and humiliation as shame, for they turn the negative view and censure of others onto themselves. This seems true in Adrian Piper’s experience and in the case of the Italian student, although we cannot be sure what they felt. In that sense, Agamben could be right that the student felt shame even though what was going on was a humiliating and murderous act. The examples of punishment could be slightly different, as offenders subject to humiliating and shaming punishments may be able to reject the design of the punishments and find that they become angry. In many cases, in everyday life, in philosophical discussions, and in circumstances after political violence, both victor and victim blame the victim. Our focus needs to shift from the victims to the perpetrators and members of dominant groups, or at least to realize that we should be suspicious of attributions of guilt and shame and sensitive to the structure of humiliation. 38 The oppressors or newly dominant might not feel that what they are doing is humiliation, and so that needs to be exposed and articulated. We need to remember both that we may claim guilt and shame unrealistically and self-indulgently, as Jaspers and Arendt were concerned about, and that guilt and shame may be inappropriately expected of, attributed to, actively brought about through humiliation, and experienced by those in the most vulnerable groups. Victims of atrocities are obviously members of such groups, as are those imprisoned on suspicion of committing atrocities. In the next chapter I turn my attention to more positive concerns about how we can develop and maintain trust after the moral disasters of communal violence, where the grieving and the unrepentant are often thrown together. NOTES 1. This is a quotation from Robert Antelme, The Human Race (1998, 232). 2. See J. David Velleman (2001) for a discussion of this type of shame, and Claudia Welz (2011) for a link between the two. 3. See Roger Lamb (1983) and June Tangney (1995) for examples of the first tendency. Lamb argues that shame is morally different from guilt because it can be brought on us by

At First Blush

63

others (1983, 339). See Ruth Leys (2009) for a historical account of that shift, beginning with Silvan Tomkins in the 1960s, and growing apace from the 1980s onward; Bernard Williams (1993) and Agamben (1999) are proponents of shame and Julien Deonna et al. (2011) argue that shame can improve our moral sensitivity. For a critique of a politics of shame, see Jill Locke (2007). 4. For example, guilt is taken to be basic in Heidegger’s case (2008), and shame in Agamben’s (1999). The problem with this way of viewing both shame and guilt, as occurs with Jaspers’s view of metaphysical guilt, is that it makes it difficult to distinguish where guilt and shame are appropriate. 5. See Lang (2006) for a discussion of the continuing relevance of Jaspers’s analysis. 6. As Angela Smith (2011) notes, we may properly feel guilty about feelings, attitudes, or thoughts that we have not expressed. 7. Christopher Cordner (2007) distinguishes remorse from guilt as involving an authentic concern with others, rather than simply related to an offense against our conscience. Jankélévitch links the two ideas in his description of remorse (2015), as we will see in chapter 6. 8. This is judged by the victor in accordance with prudence and norms of national and international law, since the Germans waged an unjust war. Jaspers clarifies the point that political guilt implies the liability of all citizens for the consequences of actions of their state, but it does not mean that every single citizen has criminal and moral guilt for all crimes committed in the name of the state (2001, 34). 9. This theological concept of guilt has also been taken up in secular discussions of guilt (Bert van Roermund 2001). 10. Another suggestion Jaspers makes is that there may be a guilt that we all suffer from regardless of our involvement in particular forms of wrongdoing, due to the fact that we are all enmeshed in power relations: “This is the inevitable guilt of all, the guilt of human existence” (2001, 28). Here Jaspers seems to be referring to something like original sin, but he does not pursue the point. We can counteract this guilt by supporting moves toward human rights. 11. I discuss the moral transformation needed in chapters 6 and 7 concerning the bad conscience as articulated by Vladimir Jankélévitch and the possibility of atonement and acts of atonement, and, in chapter 8, I consider the question of self-forgiveness. 12. There are also ways to defend against guilt: The accused can insist on differentiation from the guilty in order to avoid feeling guilty, they can compare facts and they can appeal to natural law, human rights, and international law. But if a state has violated natural law and human rights it cannot claim recognition of them in their favor, Jaspers argues (2001, 38). 13. Arendt is writing after the publication of her book on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Eichmann was chief of operations in the deportation of three million Jewish people and tens of thousands of Roma to extermination camps, and was tried, sentenced to death, and executed in Israel in 1962 (see Arendt 1992). 14. See my book Wonder and Generosity (2013, 170–73). 15. Andrew Schaap argues that the Arendtian approach offers a better form of reconciliation as the performance is significant rather than a sincere feeling of an emotion (2001, 762–63). 16. This aspect of Arendt’s thought should be challenged, and I will explain why through my discussion of the perpetrators’ responses of atonement and self-forgiveness in later chapters. 17. Tessman (2005, 37) also observes that for the oppressed there is a tendency to feel guilt rather than anger when one has been wronged because of a kind of psychic or moral harm. 18. For the second point see Agamben (1999), Raffaele Rodogno (2009), and Welz (2011). Kate Abramson questions what she calls the global nature of contempt and shame, arguing that in many cases shame can be localized (2009, 200). Another feature is wanting to hide due to shame rather than compensate because of guilt, as alluded to by Zahavi. Michael Stocker (2007, 146–53) questions Williams’s approach to making the distinction between the two, and suggests that it is often difficult to distinguish between them. 19. See Deonna et al. (2011). However, see Zahavi (2010, 217) for a discussion of philosophers, such as Max Scheler (1987, 37–38) and Gabriele Taylor (1985, 68), who argue that shame is not at base a social emotion. Wollheim argues that guilt is also before others (1999, 153).

64

Chapter 3

20. Sartre examines guilt in a rarely-discussed section of Being and Nothingness, clearly responding to Heidegger’s claims in Being and Time (2008, 325–35) concerning guilt as a mood that is proper to Dasein. 21. Judith Boss (1997) sees this shame as a misdirection of anger and resentment that should be felt toward the abuser. She also mentions that victims of abuse may blame themselves and others may blame them for the abuse. Furthermore, victims of shaming and humiliating violence and abuse often repeat the abuse they have suffered (Wendy Hamblet 2011, 189). 22. As Robert C. Roberts suggests, humiliation flows from “having been shown to be or having been made to appear to be unrespectable (unworthy) by some action or event that puts one’s real or apparent unworthiness on display for others” (Roberts 2003, 233). Zahavi also accepts that “humiliation requires another agent, one with power over you” (2014, 227). 23. Piper is also a conceptual artist; see Alexis Shotwell (Horstkotte and Peeren 2007, 127–36) for a discussion of the way she uses shame in her work for anti-racist purposes. 24. Tomkins (1995) explains the importance of shame in terms of interest, a term which appears too broad to capture what is unique about shame as a response to a perception of lack of worth by others. He connects shame and humiliation very closely, along with shyness and guilt, and claims that they are the one affect (1995, 35). 25. Another example appears in Scheler (1987, 15–16), Taylor (1985, 60–61), and Wollheim (1999, 159–63) of the artist’s model who feels shame when she realizes that the artist is viewing her sexually. This is a good example of humiliating treatment being converted to shame. 26. The executioners used the tragic model, in invoking the “just following orders” defense (Agamben, 1999, 97). 27. See Foucault’s distinction: “There are two meanings of the word subject: [1] subject to someone else by control and dependence, and [2] tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and makes subject to” (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983, 212). 28. Leys argues that the pink flush most likely signifies threatened aliveness or vitality and that Antelme is more concerned with human interconnectedness (2007, 174–79). 29. In contrast, Phil Hutchinson argues that Agamben has conflated shame and embarrassment (2008, 60: 74). 30. For example, Simone de Beauvoir notes in The Ethics of Ambiguity that Nazi humiliation of their victims lead to the victims’ feeling disgust at themselves (1997, 101). Similarly, Frantz Fanon describes a moral splitting in the self due to anti-black racism: “Moral consciousness implies a kind of split, a fracture of consciousness between a dark and a light side. Moral standards require the black, the dark, and the black man to be eliminated from this consciousness. A black man, therefore, is constantly struggling against his own image” (2008, 170). 31. As Tessman notes, tremendous anger may be “ultimately unhealthy or corrosive for its bearer” (2005, 124). 32. Nussbaum sees this as a primitive shame that is not related to ideals, but more to a sense of helplessness (Deigh 2006, 391). 33. Deigh argues it is conservative theories of punishment that are Nussbaum’s true target here (Deigh 2006, 413). 34. “Guilting” punishments are centered on coming to recognize the harm that has been caused to others, rather than publicizing the offence (Rodogno 2009, 453–550). 35. David Statman (2000) argues that humiliation concerns a loss of self-respect rather than dignity. 36. For instance, pale pink and orange uniforms are used for prisoners from the genocide in Rwanda (Bagnetto 2014). 37. Similarly, the focus of moral concern should be the perpetration of the bizarre punishments and torture carried out in Abu Ghraib rather than assuming that there is a “shame culture,” or concern with averting dishonor, among the victims, as Leys notes in her book (2007, 3–4). 38. One difficulty here may be that perpetrators rarely feel guilt or shame, so there is not enough material for thinkers to work with.

II

Positive Conditions of Ethical Restoration

Chapter Four

Pretending Peace Kant, Améry, and Political Trust

We live with a family who killed our relatives. We have to relax and remain confident, and pretend that there is peace. —Rwandan genocide survivor (quoted anonymously in Susanne Buckley-Zistel, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 137)

My focus in this chapter is trust within a state and between individuals and how it can be established and maintained, rather than trust in close and intimate relationships. That is what I mean by political trust. This idea of trust is crucial to rebuilding after civil war or genocide or another calamity has occurred. Nevertheless, re-establishing or building trust may not be straightforward and might have to be developed in stages. Philosophers discussing trust take trust to be an implicit confidence that others have good will or lack ill will toward us. 1 This confidence can be made explicit if we reflect on it. When we trust, we are vulnerable to being harmed by others; however, we tend not to deliberate on that vulnerability. Trust can be distinguished from reliability, as that is based on a conscious prediction of the behavior of others, who may in fact have ill will toward us. 2 I will argue that trust involves respect in the sense of limiting deception of others and care for others, or at least the conditions that will make truthfulness and care more likely. To begin, I consider Immanuel Kant’s contribution to understanding trust, a very different matter from his defense of the death penalty. His work is the first focus as trust is central to his account of establishing and maintaining peace, and his condemnation of lying. The importance of trust to his account of peace and his view of lying has not been properly recognized. 3 Kant links 67

68

Chapter 4

trust and respect for right/law, as we have to respect right to institute a political community where people trust each other (1996a, 8: 380). Trust between members of a community can also enable a rightful condition or civil union by making society one of respect for right, not deception and violence (1996a, 6: 307). My interest in this chapter is in the question of how we can make it possible to enter into what Kant calls a rightful state, where basic rights are respected and so trust is prevalent or how we can enter such a state after it was destroyed. Within states, these basic foundational rights are freedom, equality and independence, which are the principles upon which states should be established. 4 Kant discusses the rightful condition in “The Doctrine of Right” in The Metaphysics of Morals as entering into a state where people can enjoy rights because right action is defined both formally as right conduct and materially, what is covered by law, and a court decides how to apply law. A rightful condition is one that we ought to enter into, so that the rights of all will be respected and enforced (1996a, 6: 306). It can also be understood as a description of one of the central aims in restoration of a community after civil war, genocide, and a history of extreme injustice. There are few publications on this aspect of Kant’s political philosophy; however, Peter Niesen in a recent book chapter argues that Kant’s work is relevant to questions of the restoration of justice involving restitution and redress after “war, conquest, occupation, annexation of territory, and loss of political freedom” (2014, 171). He addresses Kant’s discussion in “Toward Perpetual Peace” in the preliminary articles for perpetual peace as building public trust by articulating the conditions of transition, focusing on relations between states. Here I look at these conditions in relation to Kant’s views concerning lying, concentrating on relations within states. His formulation of these issues provides a compelling case for constraints that ensure that trust is not definitively undermined. Second, I consider the possibility of help as also necessary to trust, through the work of Jean Améry. I explore Améry’s idea of “trust in the world” to give a fuller picture of what is needed for basic trust between human beings. 5 My argument is that both Kant and Améry’s accounts of trust are needed together to provide a full account of trust. Finally, I consider the difficulty of rebuilding lost trust after a calamity and its relation to sincerity in post-genocide Rwanda. Sincerity involves meaning what we say and believing in the way we act, and can be distinct from truthfulness. I contend that sometimes sincerity is not the most important consideration when attempting to restore a just community. Instead, truthfulness and the willingness to act as if we believed in the goodness of others, and thought others and the world worthy of our trust, can be a kind of hopeful trust that has the potential to lead us toward a more robust trust.

Pretending Peace

69

KANT AND TRUST Kant’s discussion of trust between and within states in “The Doctrine of Right” and “Toward Perpetual Peace” needs to be considered in context. His vision is cosmopolitan, and so when he writes about moving from the provisional state or state of nature to a rightful state, he argues that right will be provisional until we share the rightful condition with the whole human race, in accordance with the idea of an original contract as a standard of justice (1996a, 6: 266). Thus, in that sense, we do not genuinely and fully live in a rightful condition now, since there is no world of rightful states and no rightful condition between states. We are still in a provisional phase and we may always be so. 6 Arguably, Kant had a sense of the unlikelihood of a nonprovisional politics evidenced in his work through his stress on the need for principles even in such situations. 7 In “Toward Perpetual Peace,” he allows that some of the articles for perpetual peace concerning the disposing of states as if they were a piece of goods, the abolition of standing armies, and not using national debts as war chests may not be implemented immediately. In that case, Kant states that lawmakers can take “into consideration the circumstances in which they are to be applied” and “postpone putting these into effect, without however losing sight of the end” (1996a, 8: 347). This latitude of postponement is very different from the strict principles that must be observed in order for it to be possible to leave the state of nature. I will discuss these articles in more detail later. His account provides the minimal conditions for leaving the path open to trust after conflict, so we can move from a provisional state to a rightful one. We have to follow principles “that always leave open the possibility of leaving the state of nature among states . . . and entering a rightful condition” (1996a, 6: 347) even in circumstances of conflict. More specifically, Kant sets out conditions for a basic level of trust in times of conflict. His view is that if everyone is, for example, feuding, we do not do each other wrong in engaging in such behavior, but we do wrong “in the highest degree” by subverting right and law (1996a, 6: 308). Kant’s distinction between a formal and material wrong is that formal wrongs involve a principle of action whereas material wrongs do not. A formal wrong is a wrong in general, or a wrong “in the highest degree.” This formal wrong is when we adopt a principle to do wrong, such as to tell lies when it is convenient. In contrast, a material wrong is an actual violation of the categorical imperative, such as a particular lie. So lying is a formal wrong only when I make it my maxim or principle to lie, that is, I tell myself that I have a right and possibly even a duty to lie. In his famous “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy,” Kant states that any lie brings it about that statements are not believed and thus undermine rights based on contract. This is the example where a murderer is looking for my friend in order to kill them and

70

Chapter 4

asks me where they are. It may not be a material wrong in each case I actually lie, as the murderer, for example, has no right to know where my friend is and I do not harm the murderer by lying. In “On a Supposed Right to Lie” Kant also says that a formal wrong is worse than a particular injustice, as that injustice may not be based on “a principle of doing so” (1996a, 8: 340). I could also form the maxim to lie but not lie—so I am formally but not materially wrong. However, in “The Doctrine of Right,” Kant makes it clear that I may wrong others in the sense of right or justice through making false claims about contracts or by defaming them. Thus, not forming a principle to lie is part of what is needed to develop trust. In Kant’s account of war, he does not argue that it is wrong to lie to the enemy; that is a claim that follows from his “On a Supposed right to lie” essay (1996a), where he argues that a lie—“an intentionally untrue declaration to another”—harms humanity in general (1996a, 8: 426). In “The Doctrine of Right,” Kant says people can communicate their thoughts to others, even if what they say is untrue or insincere, as we are free to do so and people may take the statements how they like (1996a, 6: 238). The only lies related to rights are those where we make false claims that we have a contract with someone (1996a, 6: 239). These are cases where I am not wronging a particular other, that is, materially. We are all free to make choices and to be free of the constraints of others as long as that is compatible with their freedom in relation to a universal law (1996a, 6: 237). We have to treat ourselves as an end rather than as a mere means. Hindering others’ freedom can be punished—what Kant calls a hindering of a hindering of freedom (1996a, 6: 331). On this point, Helga Varden argues that we do not have to tell the truth to others because others do not have a right to the information we have (2010, 408). She also notes that the murderer wrongs you by unjustly coercing you to tell him something (1996a, 8: 426). Thus, we might be able to withhold information and possibly even deceive in certain ways in such a situation. Elsewhere, Kant says that lies are a violation of a duty of virtue to myself (1996a, 6: 429). 8 Yet, the idea of a lie being a wrong in the highest degree in the sense that it harms humanity is that a principle of lying may lead to a total breakdown in trust and truth-telling. My reason for examining the question of lying is to show how Kant’s position on lying and the distinction between formal and material wrong is related to trust. J. M. Bernstein makes these ideas explicit by linking trust and what he calls “normative rules,” arguing that “We are normatively invested in practices carried out in trusting conditions because lying beneath them is the presumption that following the rules of the practice is respecting me as one of its participants; and hence breaking the rules of the practice may signal that I no longer count as a person for you” (2011, 415). While Bernstein does not explicitly reference Kant’s work, we can see the link here with the humanity formula of the categorical imperative (always

Pretending Peace

71

treat others as ends in themselves and not as a mere means) and trust. The distinction between formal and material wrongs helps make sense of Kant’s thinking about limits on action even in a provisional state. We should not formulate maxims that harm humanity even then. More specifically, Kant sets out conditions to ensure a basic level of trust in times of conflict. The essay “Toward Perpetual Peace” outlines the conditions needed to reenter a rightful condition after times of war. It contains rightful constraints on politics between states in preliminary and definitive articles. The preliminary articles require the abolition of standing armies and prohibit the acquisition of existing states, the contracting of national debts with regard to external affairs, interference with the governments of other states, and the use of duplicitous means in war, such as assassins, breaching surrender, or incitement to treason. 9 The definitive articles recommend republicanism for all states, a federalism of free states and the cosmopolitan right of hospitality. The first preliminary article states “No treaty of peace shall be held to be such if it is made with a secret reservation of material for a future war” (1996a, 8: 343). Here a secret plan for further conflict is undermining of peace and trust. More importantly, the sixth preliminary article states that: “No nation at war with another shall permit such acts of war as shall make mutual trust impossible during some future time of peace: Such acts include the use of Assassins (percussores) Poisoners (venefici) breach of surrender, instigation of treason (perduellio) in the opposing nation, etc.” (1996a, 8: 346). Hannah Arendt notes that this is “the most important and also the most original” of the preliminary articles because it best expresses the ideal of communication between human beings and the greatest enlargement of our mentality and unites the actor who acts and the spectator of history who judges (1982, 75). Kant also mentions the use of snipers and the spreading of false reports, further practices that corrupt trust (1996a, 6: 348). He is against such “dishonorable stratagems” because “Some level of trust in the enemy’s way of thinking [Denkungsart] must be preserved, even in the midst of war, for otherwise no peace can ever be concluded and the hostilities would become a war of extermination (bellum internecinum)” (1996a, 8: 347). A war of extermination could be a world war, civil war or genocide. 10 Such a war must be completely forbidden, as it would lead to the death of humanity. Kant’s argument is that we need a level of trust in the enemy so we can limit war and achieve peace. In her work on Kant’s political philosophy, Elisabeth Ellis argues that using people as assassins “constitutes unacceptable contradictions to the idea of the rule of law itself” in that misusing human actors undermines the moral integrity of the state (2005, 80). 11 She links Kant’s view to the idea of the “rule of law,” and illuminates the connection with trust, as there must be a degree of order even amid chaos, for trust not to break down completely.

72

Chapter 4

Maintaining a measure of trust is essential to restricting the scope and horrors of war and making peace possible, to leaving the provisional state. Kant further argues that such means lead to total war because “Once they come into use, these intrinsically despicable, infernal acts cannot long be confined to war alone. This applies to the use of spies (uti exploratoribus), where only the dishonorableness of others (which can never be entirely eliminated) is exploited; but such activities will also carry over to peacetime and will thus undermine it” (1996a, 8: 347). This article is strict—Kant argues that it should be implemented immediately. He shows how we must beware of the moral degeneracy of certain practices in war and their destruction of the minimal conditions for restoring peace after war. Another more specific example concerning breach of surrender Kant gives in “The Doctrine of Right” is “An enemy who, instead of honorably carrying out his surrender agreement with the garrison of a besieged fortress, mistreats them as they march out or otherwise breaks the agreement, cannot complain of being wronged if his opponent plays the same trick on him when he can” (1996a, 6: 308). Kant’s argument is that these are formal wrongs “because they take away any validity from the concept of right itself and hand everything over to savage violence, as if by law, and so subvert the right of human beings as such” (1996a, 6: 308). They do not harm the other in a material or concrete sense but Kant believes they undermine the principle of the right of human beings. Maintaining a basic level of trust is essential to limiting war and to making peace possible, to leaving that provisional state. In a way relevant to trust within states, Kant explains the importance of publicity and honesty to trust in political leaders. In a second appendix to “Toward Perpetual Peace,” entitled “On the Agreement of Politics with Morals in Accord with the Transcendental Concept of Public Right” Kant maintains that maxims must be able to be made public. His transcendental formula of public right is “All actions relating to the rights of others are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity” (1996a, 8: 381). The key idea is that actions that affect the rights of others are unacceptable if they need to be kept secret. Kant argues for this principle of public right as follows: “For a maxim that I cannot divulge without thereby defeating my own purpose, one that absolutely must be kept secret if it is to succeed and that I cannot publicly acknowledge without unavoidably arousing everyone’s opposition to my project, can derive this necessary and universal, hence a priori foreseeable, resistance of everyone to me only from the injustice with which it threatens everyone” (1996a, 8: 381). 12 This principle is both ethical (part of the doctrine of virtue) and juridical (related to right), and Kant shows how it is relevant to civil, international and cosmopolitan right. What he means is that it is not only a principle that we should follow insofar as we are virtuous, but that it is enforceable as well.

Pretending Peace

73

Civil right concerns right within a state. Kant upholds the right of human beings to respect by the state, saying that “The right of human beings must be held sacred, however great a sacrifice this may cost the ruling power”(1996a, 8: 380). Nevertheless, with regard to the rights of people against the state, Kant argues that rebellion is shown to be wrong by the fact that publicly revealing a maxim of rebellion would make it impossible, whereas a head of state can publicly declare their willingness to punish rebels. 13 He says that “the maxim of rebellion, if one publicly acknowledged it as one’s maxim, would make one’s own purpose impossible. One would therefore have to keep it secret” (1996a, 8: 382). A state cannot be run on secret principles, like a cabal, and any state keeping secrets in this way cannot be trusted. While Kant does not state explicitly that states or citizens that have to keep their maxims secret in order to avoid everyone’s opposition is untrustworthy, his discussion implies this idea. Keeping secrets of this kind entails widespread and deliberately formulated deception, and is thus undermining of open communication. This kind of secrecy is different from the possibility of, for example, friends keeping information secret from each other to avoid overwhelming them with intimacies (1996a, 6: 470). Nevertheless, the question of diplomacy and its necessity for keeping secrets could be considered here. Arendt suggests that Kant has confused revolution with a coup d’état, as the latter needs to be kept secret, while plans for a revolution can be and are open and public (1982, 60). In any case, the reverse is not held to be true— actions that are consistent with publicity are not necessarily right, or deserving of trust, as Kant observes, since a powerful state can be open about its maxims even when they are immoral (1996a, 8: 385). The power of such a state means it does not have to be concerned about opposition to its maxims, and a powerful leader might not be threatened by the opposition of their people. Thus, Kant needs another principle to solve this problem. The second transcendental principle of public right is that: “All maxims which need publicity (in order not to fail in their end) harmonize with right and politics combined” (1996a, 8: 386). Kant’s argument for this principle is that if maxims can only be successful through publicity, they must correspond to the universal public end, which is happiness, and for him this is what politics must do. He adds “But if this end is to be attainable only through publicity, that is, by the removal of all distrust toward the maxims of politics, such maxims must also be in accord with the right of the public, since only in this is the union of all ends possible” (1996a, 8: 386). 14 He means that these maxims would be decided on by reasonable citizens. A state that adopts such principles can be trusted. What is needed for more complete trust is peace and a federation of states, so individual states would be better able to engender stability and trust since other states are also set in that direction. As long as states are at war or not willing to pursue peace, trust does not prevail and cannot be developed, and

74

Chapter 4

that will affect other countries. Kant allows that practical conditions can make it difficult to institute trust immediately and so it may be gradually developed. For example, individual states may have to wait to introduce reforms until that can be done peacefully (1996a, 8: 373). Thus, it is prudent to wait until the state is secure from invasion before rectifying injustice if that injustice protects the state. A federation of nations, he argues, is needed to protect rightful states from others and to encourage other states to become rightful (1996a, 6: 344). This would be a way to engender trust and to shift from a provisional to a rightful state. Kant appears to believe we should go on doing what is right regardless of what others do. However, sometimes we may need to resist, say, when we are threatened with coercion in transitional situations (1996a, 6: 307), and that resistance is related to trust in that when all trust and rightfulness is destroyed, resistance is necessary. Sometimes we can only bring about trust through defiance, rather than simply by ruling out deceptive actions. This is the case in particular emergencies, such as in totalitarian regimes that Kant unsurprisingly did not foresee, or cases where morality has completely broken down. In this case, only by defying the present “legal” order can trust be restored. However, as I noted, Kant condemns revolutions. This condemnation appears counterintuitive since building trust seems to necessitate the overthrow of leaders that prevent the development of trust. Yet his statement on obedience to the extant powers may permit exceptions, because it has a final caveat. Kant says “there is a categorical imperative, Obey the authority who has power over you (in whatever does not conflict with inner morality)” (1996a, 6: 371). This possibility is supported by a comment in his notes on the “The Doctrine of Right.” There he states “Force, which does not presuppose a judgment having the validity of law is against the law; consequently [the people] cannot rebel except in the cases which cannot at all come forward in a civil union, that is, the enforcement of a religion, compulsion to unnatural sins, assassination, etc., etc.” (Kant AK, XIX, Reflections 8043, 8044, 590–91, quoted in Lewis White Beck 1971, 412). The relevance is that in these situations Kant’s usual strictures do not apply. If murderers at the door were the rule, as under Nazism or the reign of terror, rather than the exception, perhaps he could accept nonobedience. As Helga Varden notes, Nazism tried to destroy rightful relations per se: “It was an attempt to institutionalize a coercive system in which there is no innate right to freedom at all on the land, which is barbarism at its worst” (2010, 416). Trust cannot be developed in these kind of circumstances. Given that tyranny and totalitarian regimes that would compel perverse actions may not be considered “civil unions” for Kant, revolution or at least resistance could be appropriate for it is needed to restore the conditions for trust. 15 As Scott Morrison also argues, both a lawless state and a legally constituted state can “violate not only its

Pretending Peace

75

own citizens’ rights, but also pose a threat to other states and to the citizens of other states” (2013, 72). He quotes Kant on the idea of a lawless state: “a human being (or a nation) in a mere state of nature denies me this assurance [of security] and already wrongs me just by being near me in this condition, even if not actively (facto) yet by the lawlessness of his condition (statu iniusto, by which he constantly threatens” (1996a, 8: 349). Hence, Kant allows that the conditions for trust can vary depending on whether we are considering a lawless state, a transitional state, or a rightful state. This need to resist to preserve right and trust is important under Nazi occupation, and during genocide or attempted genocide as in Rwanda or at times in Australian and other colonial histories. We must not always do what we can to maintain trust or rather trust can only be brought into being through resistance instead of cooperation. The need to resist in extreme situations in order to bring about the basic conditions for trust is an essential addition to the restrictions on underhand behavior even in conflict situations outlined. Nevertheless, Kant’s account needs to be linked to other concerns about trust to become more comprehensive and provide a better model for ethical restoration. AMÉRY AND TRUST IN THE WORLD Although I find Kant’s view of trust a significant starting point for understanding political trust, it is also incomplete. His idea of trust is based on justice and respect; we must have certain limited conditions for trust, which in turn support right. We should develop principles that cannot harm humanity. Otherwise we cannot build a just world based on a certain level of honesty and sincerity. But what is also needed is a caring trust, that takes things further, that means we trust that others will love and care for us. This is what Améry’s idea of “trust in the world” brings and I turn to Améry to help develop a fuller account of conditions for trust. Améry makes an important point about the nature of trust in his book At the Mind’s Limits (1980) that takes the question of trust further than and in a different direction from Kant. He analyzes the experience of torture and demonstrates a specific and extreme experience of the collapse of trust. Améry was a Jewish Austrian working for the resistance in Belgium when he was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo in 1943 and subsequently sent to Auschwitz and other camps (1980, 107). 16 He survived to write a series of searching books and essays before finally committing suicide in 1978. Améry’s view is that torture belonged to the essence of Nazism in a way that it does not belong to any other political system (1980, 30–31). His account of that torture brings out another vital element of trust.

76

Chapter 4

At the moment of what he calls “the first blow,” the first time he is hit by his torturers, Améry realized that he had lost his “trust in the world.” While this trust may involve basic beliefs about a functioning natural world, more significantly for him, it concerns our certainties about our relations with other human beings. He prefers this way of describing the wrong of torture to that of the loss of human dignity, a term he finds rather vague. While many authors focus on trust between individuals and entrusting something to someone, (for example, Annette Baier 1995) or on maintaining trust by not lying to others, as Kant does, Améry centers on a trust in the world that is more general and I believe combines elements of both respect and love. As Colleen Murphy notes in her discussion of trust in the context of political reconciliation, reasonable trusting is a way of expressing respect and reciprocity (2010, 72). Yet I argue that trust, even when it is not full or complete trust, involves more than this element of respect. According to Améry, on the one hand, torture takes away our trust that our bodily integrity will be respected: “more important as an element of trust in the world, and in our context what is solely relevant, is the certainty that by reason of written or unwritten social contracts the other person will spare me—more precisely stated, that he will respect my physical, and with it also my metaphysical, being. The boundaries of my body are also the boundaries of myself. My skin surface shields me against the external world. If I am to have trust, I must feel on it only what I want to feel” (1980, 28). 17 Améry suggests that there are contexts in which retaliation may be a way of restoring trust in our own existence going on, but that is not possible under torture. On the other hand, in suffering torture, oppression, and violence, we lose the minimal care we trust others will give us. In a safe world we have a fundamental, taken for granted, assumption that if we are in trouble, if we have an accident, someone will come to help us: “The expectation of help, the certainty of help, is indeed one of the fundamental experiences of human beings” (1980, 28). At the first blow, Améry felt that trust, that secure feeling that others will come to help us, instantly disintegrated. He knew that he was alone with his torturer and no one would come to help him. The power of the torturer is distinguished by Améry from the sovereignty of a king, who could be both cruel and kind, in that it is simply “the power to inflict suffering and to destroy” (1980, 39). He argues that the lost trust in the world cannot be regained, as the tortured remains forever tortured. He concludes that “Trust in the world, which already collapsed in part at the first blow, but in the end, under torture, fully, will not be regained” (1980, 40). It is almost impossible to recover trust. The tortured person is left with fear and resentments that preclude forgiveness unless there is some sort of dramatic change—in relation to the Nazi past in Améry’s case. Forgiveness is not possible, maintains Améry, until there is a full recognition of the wrongness of the Holocaust and the

Pretending Peace

77

Nazi regime as a whole. 18 Until then, he will have to live with a mistrustful attitude toward all of society. For him, because there was not a proper reckoning after the war, he feels that “Every day anew I lose my trust in the world. The Jew without positive determinants, the Catastrophe Jew, as we will unhesitatingly call him, must get along without trust in the world” (1980, 94–95). Furthermore, he contends, this is not an existential mistrust or distrust; it is society that fails him: “For it and only it caused the disturbance in my existential balance, which I am trying to oppose with an upright gait. It and only it robbed me of my trust in the world” (1980, 100). Jeffrey M. Courtright argues that existential trust is a form of trust that is like an atmosphere: “Generalized, ambient, and diffuse” (2013, 40). 19 In contrast, the lack of trust Améry analyzes is specific and localized. The effect of trust, for Courtright, is that I feel at home in the world, so we can see Améry’s argument as that social and political circumstances are able to undermine trust at a number of levels, both implicit and explicit. Améry declares that until society admits its faults and restores to him that confidence that he will be cared for, he cannot have trust. That is what he seeks: a restoration to trust from the abandonment he suffered under the Nazi regime. His account demonstrates how a more comprehensive picture of political trust than Kant presents is needed to articulate the conditions of ethical restoration. Nonetheless, Améry’s account is limited in its own way, as trust can be lost without one being subjected to torture and rape. Deception is sufficient for the betrayal of trust, as Kant argues. What we need is an account of trust that takes both these features seriously together, and I will look at these features in a situation of breakdown of trust. I also suggest that restoration of trust may not always require complete sincerity. TRUST IN POST-GENOCIDE RWANDA To end this chapter, I briefly discuss how Kant and Améry’s models of trust help us to understand some features of developments in post-genocide Rwanda before I focus more broadly on the distinctive approach to punishment, reconciliation, and forgiveness Rwandans have taken. I consider this situation to show how both Kant and Améry are useful for considering the conditions of trust and how to restore it. There are political conditions of nonbetrayal and the condition of help. In that genocide, 800,000 people were killed, often tortured, and many of the survivors are maimed. The perpetrators were often neighbors, friends, and even family. This was facilitated by a racist ideology that deceived people about their own history, especially the relations between Tutsi and Hutu. The process of rebuilding the country is many-faceted, and one central facet is the rebuilding of the trust in society and the world that Améry shows is lost in these situations and the fundamen-

78

Chapter 4

tal sense of trust as moving toward a rightful condition, of a provisional condition that will lead us to a rightful state. What is needed in these circumstances, Bernstein suggests, is to “find a world by establishing for a second time reassuring relations with others that enable her to build up reflective confidence that in ordinary patterns of encounter and engagement she will be acknowledged as a person—someone with the standing of being a person— in a manner sufficient to not feel imminently threatened” (2011, 399). His comments stress the social dimension of trust as a form of recognition. Bernstein also writes about Améry’s experience of torture and agrees that trust in the world is a central site of ethical life, and that after torture, “even if the victim can regain some sense of his intrinsic self-worth, he can no longer have the confidence that this will matter to others, that his mere standing as a human is sufficient to support the existential proprieties of everyday living” (Zolkos 2011, 39). Survivors in Rwanda have often suffered torture and mutilation, as well as the loss of their loved ones, so Améry’s description speaks to what they have undergone. To some extent, Kant’s basic provisions for trust of “a rightful condition” are satisfied in Rwanda. The government has tried to establish truth-speaking about the genocide through gacaca courts that encouraged both perpetrators and victims to come forward and discuss what had happened, as I will discuss in the following chapter. International and national courts also established justice for past wrongs. In moves to ensure that agitation for genocide is no longer acceptable, racist ideology and racist political parties are banned. Yet it is not clear that trust or even reliability has been widely established in post-genocide Rwanda. As one woman observes who lives close by released prisoners, she says that she can live peacefully with them, “Unless they kill again” (Carlin 2003). Trust has not become that fundamental sense of well-being that it should be. Another survivor says “Reconciliation would be the sharing of trust. The politics of reconciliation, that’s the equitable division of distrust” (Innocent Rwililiza, in Jean Hatzfeld 2009, 212). One way of thinking about trust, as I suggested at the beginning of the chapter, is that we feel trust if there is good will or at least no bad will. Yet statebuilding in Rwanda shows that trust and good will have to be developed together through a wide range of means. The gacaca courts may have played some role in helping to re-establish trust in that issues were brought out into the open and apologies could begin to restore trust, but they also made things worse, stirring up anger and the desire for revenge. 20 Revenge in the form of open murder is mainly suppressed, although it is claimed that other means, such as secret poisoning and intimidation, have been found by both perpetrators and survivors (Steward, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 176). These behind-the-scenes actions must be undermining of trust. Revenge by survivors may not have played as great a role in Rwanda as in other cases, such as France after the liberation, as I

Pretending Peace

79

discussed in chapter 2, because the killers initially fled over the border and there are so few survivors to take revenge. However, there are many grenades left in Rwanda and they are sometimes used to settle scores (David 2011). These are individual actions rather than state actions, but they are of the kind Kant condemns. Paul Kagame has been president of Rwanda since 2000, and many find the sense of trust, or even reliability, to be entirely dependent on Kagame, such that if he were no longer president, they feel genocide could easily erupt again. One survivor says that “If he [Kagame] were not there, we would all be killed” (Gourevitch 2009, 41). 21 His hold on power has been confirmed by the senate accepting he can stay on for a third term, so that could augur a developing problem, and many argue that the regime is repressive (Briefing 2017). In contrast, Gourevitch notes that some people will also say that “we’re terrified of a transition. And that could be very, very explosive” (2014). Many of the steps taken in the wake of the genocide are steps to promote safety in the event of attempts at mass killing so they can be understood as instituting reliability rather than trust. Rwandans have rebuilt villages close to the road so that it is easier to call for help and escape if someone tries to attack them (Gourevitch 2009, 42). This move is not a sign of trust, but a way of creating reliability and safety. People also tend to stay in at night as they are scared of what might happen if they are outside in the dark—that is, both genocide survivors and perpetrators are scared in this way. This fear is due to the existence of revenge killings for murders during the genocide as well as killings or threats against witnesses to cover up participation in the genocide. The latter is more of a problem (Gourevitch 2009, 39; Buckley-Zistel, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 135–37). Genocide survivors were murdered by perpetrators to prevent people from witnessing against them in gacaca, the national court or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania (Kayigamba, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 40). I will discuss these justice processes in detail in the next chapter. A survivor comments on having the perpetrators living in the village “I look at them now when I pass on the street and usually they shy away from me because they know I am a victim” (Carlin 2003). Furthermore, some perpetrators are more afraid of the other killers they testified against, saying “Nobody ever threatens me. . . . But I don’t stay out late. I come home by seven o’clock. I stay in with my wife and children. So if I am killed it will be at home, and if someone else is killed, and they blame the former prisoners, I am here, nobody can blame me” (Gourevitch 2009, 40). Thus, the perpetrators have to take precautions against others rather than trust or even rely on them. Philip Gourevitch notes that people try to maintain the appearance of friendly relations in order to avoid aggravating more violence. Similarly, the victims often have to simply hope that they are safe. This idea of hoping and risking the possibility of being hurt or betrayed is

80

Chapter 4

referred to as “therapeutic trust” or “hopeful trust”; we trust in the hope that others will be worthy of our trust, and a belief that they should do so. 22 This is the kind of trust that many of the measures taken in post-genocide Rwanda seem designed to engender. Another factor that is very significant to understanding relations in Rwanda is that people have to live together in order to survive and victims may even depend on the killers to get by. As Gourevitch says in another article “For Rwandans, existence meant forgiveness, or, at least, a capacity to endure the unforgivable; there was no choice” (2011). They must work out some means of peaceful coexistence for everyday survival. One woman says “we live with a family who killed our relatives. We have to relax and remain confident, and pretend that there is peace” (Buckley-Zistel, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 137). Here we see not the restoration of trust but an attempt to cope in an extremely tense and challenging situation. As recently as 2014, a visiting writer describes the atmosphere in Rwanda as a “quiet . . . edgy calm” (Kulish 2014). What people have to do is coexist; they might not yet trust each other. But trust may be built over time. Bert Ingelaere, who researched the trials in Rwanda, found that fear gradually diminishes and that perpetrators and survivors described their uneasy alliances as “someone hides that he hates you and you hide that you know” (2016, 147). 23 He sees many of the interactions as pragmatic and fragile, but also sometimes heartfelt. Is there trust in the form of the help that Améry says is necessary? For many survivors there is a level of protection and safety, not total. International aid and development help to provide for those in need. 24 There are also limited attempts to provide reparation to the survivors, through the perpetrators, governments, and aid agencies (Buckley-Zistel, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 134). International organizations such as Survivors Fund (SURF) help to support survivors (Parliament UK, 2013). Perpetrators convicted of property crimes have to return stolen goods and restore damaged property, and to contribute to the Compensation fund if they can. (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 315) 25 There are also programs to build trust, such as survivors and perpetrators working together on reconstruction projects in their villages and regular cleaning efforts. The survivors do not have the full confidence that others will come to their aid that Améry argued is necessary for trust in the world. But they have a practical approach to living and working with people they do not really trust but perhaps trying to build trust through that process. They are still in a provisional state and may stay there. The minimal conditions for a rightful state in Kant’s sense are not entirely in place, yet there is a gradual improvement in trust as some of those conditions are in place, there is a degree of help and care in Améry’s sense, and as time passes since the genocide trust could grow. Annette Baier notes that national trust also depends on international justice (2004, 179), and in this way events and the

Pretending Peace

81

political atmosphere in Rwanda are affected by conflict in neighboring countries such as Burundi, and vice-versa. Kant also allowed there can be value in less than total sincerity. Despite his strictures against insincerity, he admitted that outward shows of respect and even affection for others can lead to their reality. In Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, he states that it is good that we are actors, “For when human beings play these roles, eventually the virtues, whose illusion they have merely affected for a considerable length of time, will gradually really be aroused and merge into the disposition” (2006, 7: 151). Perhaps something of this process will take place in Rwanda, as pretending peace acquires an actuality of its own. CONCLUSION Kant’s thinking here of trust between states can provide a model for understanding trust within states and between individuals, in terms of the limits that need to be placed on what we do in situations of conflict and after the conflict has ceased to restore peace and justice. Those limits will restrict deceptive practices that prevent the possibility of regaining peace, providing a basic level of order and respect. There may be a way of moving from the provisional state, or the transitional state even if we never truly reach a rightful one. Political trust is an essential element in the process. However, Kant’s model of limiting deception and promoting respect also needs a consideration of the importance of care and help to trust that Améry identifies. Furthermore, the example of post-genocide Rwanda suggests that the first conditions for trust do not involve sincerity as such, but actions that help to establish basic trust, with sincerity or genuine trust as a hoped-for goal. Our steps toward political trust may always be provisional, but still need to be taken. In the next chapter I discuss in detail how Rwanda has worked to reestablish justice and peace after the genocide, and consider how the death penalty, punishment, shame, forgiveness, and reconciliation have figured in that process. NOTES 1. See Annette Baier, 1995, 99; Baier, 2004, 178; Colleen Murphy, 2010, 78; and J. M. Bernstein, 2011, 400. 2. Katherine Hawley makes the distinction by noting the betrayal I feel about misplaced trust, and disappointment concerning misplaced reliance (2012, 1–4). Interestingly, Margaret Urban Walker ties trust back to reliance (2006, 81). 3. For example, Laurence Thomas claims that the Kantian tradition “has no space at all for the invaluable good of trust” (1990, 236). In opposition to that view, Esther Oluffa Pedersen (2012) develops Kant’s account of personal trust in his thinking about religion and ethics.

82

Chapter 4

4. In “On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, but It Is of No Use in Practice,” Kant defines the principles of a civil state as “1. The freedom of every member of the society as a human being. 2. His equality with every other as a subject. 3. The independence of every member of a commonwealth as a citizen” (1996a, 8: 290). In Perpetual Peace, Kant says that the principles of a Republican state are freedom, equality, and the dependence “of all upon a single common legislation (as subjects)” (1996a, 8: 350). The implications are very similar. 5. Baier also uses a similar term: “trust in the social world,” which in her view is the ground of morality (2004, 180). 6. Lasse Thomassen argues that we must accept this provisionality in a Derridean sense of the “to come,” where politics is always “lacking and perfectible” (2010, 454). 7. See Elisabeth Ellis (2005). 8. See James Edwin Mahon (2003) on this issue. 9. Ellis notes that standing armies slow progress but are not against right as such (2005, 80). 10. Kant does not consider the issue of targeting noncombatants, an issue that vexes just war theorists such as Michael Walzer (2006). Yet his open-ended list of impermissible acts might be extended in that way. 11. Thomassen argues there may be disagreement and uncertainty about which practices undermine the possibility of peace and which do not (2010, 458). 12. This argument is based on a presumption of the reasonableness of “everyone.” If people’s judgment were perverted, perhaps their resistance would not indicate injustice, but their lack of understanding of the maxims. 13. Rebellion is also a wrong (“On the Common Saying,” 1996a, 8: 301). There has been a great deal of interest in Kant’s condemnation of rebellion here, particularly since he is a wellknown supporter of the French revolution. See, for example Kimberley Hutchings (1996, 46) and Arendt (1982, 44–51). See also Kant (1996s, 6: 320–23). Clearly, there are problems with this view, as people can reveal their desire to rebel without making it impossible, as Arendt suggests. In contrast, Derrida believes that a system of law can only be justified by what comes after its institution (1992, 35). 14. My emphasis. 15. Similarly, Carol Hay argues from a Kantian perspective that we have an obligation to resist oppression as it damages and restricts our rational capacities (2011). 16. In his text, there are a few direct and indirect references to Arendt’s work, suggesting that he is critical of her approach to the horrors of the Holocaust and to understanding totalitarianism. For instance, his argument that the Nazi regime is distinct and in no way analogous to Stalinism even at its worst is a clear and large difference between them (1980, 30–31). 17. Améry compares his experience to rape, and Bernstein argues that torture and rape are equivalent in their destruction of trust (2011, 396). 18. Magdalena Zolkos, developing Kelly Oliver’s account of forgiveness (2004, 188), shows how trust in the world and the possibility of forgiveness are related in relying on openness and receptivity to others, and a sense of self-respect (2010, 57). Jill Stauffer argues that Améry’s resentment should not be confused with Nietzschean ressentiment as “resentment is his path out of ethical loneliness,” whereas ressentiment’s “goal is to deaden a secret pain” (2015, 126). 19. Walker calls this kind of trust “default trust,” that is, unreflective and habitual (2006, 85). 20. Walker stresses the need for acknowledgment of the wrongs done through apologies, information, and memorialization (2006, 108). I examine her work more closely in chapter 6, concerning atonement. 21. However, some citizens feel that their trust has been lost because of the authoritarianism of Kagame’s regime. 22. See Murphy (2010, 73), Victoria McGeer (2008, 241), Walker (2006, 82) and Karen Jones (2004, 5–6). However, as Walker notes, if the wrongdoer is not repentant, then both trust and the relationship is without a foundation (2006, 90). I consider that problem in chapters 6 and 7. 23. Gourevitch refers to it as a kind of “civic code” (2014).

Pretending Peace

83

24. Rwanda’s sources of wealth are coffee and tourism, commercial, banking, and communications. Economic growth rate overall is high (although a significant proportion of the budget comes from foreign aid). But many people are still poor in rural areas (Helen M. Hintjens, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 79). 25. There were trust funds associated with the ICTR (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 266) but they have been closed after the ending of the trials in 2012.

Chapter Five

Betrayed by Life Derrida, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Unlike what is suggested in Rwanda, I have never heard survivors of the Holocaust being asked to reconcile with the Nazis. —Jean-Baptiste Kayigamba, genocide survivor (in Phil Clark and Zachary D. Kaufman 2009, 41)

This chapter explores the relationship between forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation and how reconciliation processes, particularly in other, non-Western countries, such as South Africa and Rwanda, are said, from a Western perspective, to provide a different form of forgiveness. 1 As William Schabas notes, there is a tendency to think that “unlike Europeans and Americans, Africans are conciliatory and forgiving and prefer rapid reconciliation to prolonged criminal justice” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 207). I will examine this issue in relation to Rwanda’s reconciliation and reconstruction efforts, particularly the gacaca (pronounced gachacha) courts and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which I argue should not be understood (in general) as forms of forgiveness but as both punishment and reconciliation and focused on justice, peace, and stability. 2 As I discussed in the previous chapter, Hutu militias touting Hutu Power murdered 800,000 people in Rwanda over three months (April 6 to mid-June) in 1994, most of whom were Tutsi, as well as moderate Hutus. It is known as the fastest genocide in history. 3 One percent of the population—the indigenous people (the Twa [Batwa] and Twa)—were also murdered in the genocide. Only 200,000 out of one million Tutsi survived the genocide. In 1993, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the government had agreed to peace accords in Arusha and these were meant to be implemented. The genocide 85

86

Chapter 5

began after the downing of a plane with Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira on board. Hutu extremists immediately took over in a coup and began the murder. Tutsis were also massacred in 1959—20,000 and up to 100,000 people were killed by 1961— and 1963 and others driven into exile. There were many thousands of people involved in the killing, primarily using machetes, and often against victims they knew, sometimes very well. A genocide of this kind raises a specific set of problems and questions, such as the limits of punishment and justice, how to build trust in a political context, as I have explored, the need for reconciliation as well as forgiveness, and appropriate ways of making amends or atoning. Alternative responses to traditional punishment need to be thought through, as in such cases wholesale punishment, as would be carried out if there were fewer perpetrators, is not practical. As Joseph Sebarenzi states “It is impossible to prosecute every single Rwandan perpetrator” (2011, 217). Such punishment, when much of the population are perpetrators, could even lead to the dissolution of the state, as Kant notes in The Metaphysics of Morals (1996a, 6: 334). 4 The genocide in Rwanda presents an example of this situation and the Rwandan response is a creative and courageous example of how people can restore a just, peaceful, and stable state, although there are continuing ethical and political problems. Violence and murder on this scale and of such extremity obviously tend to arouse feelings of hatred and a desire for revenge, responses that are ultimately destructive. Post-genocide Rwanda is an example that can both show us the negative and positive conditions of ethical restoration and some of the pitfalls that arise in the process. These pitfalls have philosophical implications for how we understand the concepts employed in thinking about ethical restoration or transitional justice toward peace. My concern is to attempt to understand the specific approach to peace and reconciliation in Rwanda rather than romanticizing it in the way Schabas diagnoses Westerners as doing. The Rwandan genocide challenges traditional conceptions of genocide as bureaucratic and technological murder and calls for a community response at the same time as holding individuals responsible for their actions. The situation in post-genocide Rwanda is also distinctive in a number of other ways. In an article in The New Yorker, author of the well-known book on the genocide in Rwanda, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, Philip Gourevitch, writes Most of the prisoners accused or convicted of genocide have been released. The death penalty has been abolished. And Rwanda is the only nation where hundreds of thousands of people who took part in mass murder live intermingled at every level of society with the families of their victims. (Gourevitch 2009, 38)

Betrayed by Life

87

The idea of living with murderers is a disturbing one. Hannah Arendt observes that most of us would find it hard to live with ourselves if we were murderers: “since man contains within himself a partner from whom he can never win release, he will be better off not to live in company with a murderer or a liar” (Arendt 1968, 245). So how can people live with others who are murderers? This situation would appear to be even more difficult in some respects than living with our own wrongs, as we have a tendency to excuse and justify those. Often, although not as often as sensational newspaper headlines would have us believe, the killers in Rwanda were very wellknown to the victims—they were relatives, friends, and acquaintances. 5 That circumstance makes the question of forgiveness quite specific and different from that of other genocides or extreme crimes. It may be one reason why forgiveness and reconciliation are expected both within and outside Rwanda. Yet many survivors in Rwanda comment that an accommodation of some kind with the killers is not a matter of choice, but of necessity, as I described in the previous chapter. While it is necessary to make peace, it is also an extraordinarily demanding situation. As the Rwandan survivor, Jean-Baptiste Kayigamba, who I quoted, notes bitterly, “I have never heard survivors of the Holocaust being asked to reconcile with the Nazis” (Kayigamba, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 41). To get some idea of the complexity here, it is not only victims and perpetrators who have to live together, but previous, mainly Tutsi exiles who have returned, so-called “old caseload” refugees, and Hutus returned from camps in Zaire (DRC) the “new caseload” people (John Steward, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 172). 6 Exiles who have spent most of their lives in other countries also have to work to create a new Rwanda. 7 This chapter considers the distinctive ways that post-genocide Rwanda has faced the problems of forgiveness, justice, peace, and reconciliation. Jacques Derrida’s discussion of forgiveness provides a way to understand the nature of forgiveness and thus the extent to which forgiveness is important in the peace and reconciliation processes in Rwanda. First I wish to briefly discuss one of the conditions for peace and reconciliation that has been established in Rwanda—the abolition of capital punishment. ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY As I have argued in previous chapters on Derrida’s and Beauvoir’s work concerning the death penalty, removing the death penalty as a means of punishment is one way that a culture of revenge may be broken and lead to a more just society and open the way to reconciliation. Rwandan President Paul Kagame notes that “there was no mass revenge in the post-genocide period” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, xxiii) although he concedes there were

88

Chapter 5

some rogue RPF elements. 8 One of the impressive aspects of the approach to justice in Rwanda since 1994 is the abolition of the death penalty in all aspects of its law, that is, for both genocidal crimes and for “ordinary murders” in 2007 (Grant 2010). The only executions under the Organic Law concerning the genocide occurred on April 24, 1998, when twenty-two of those found guilty of leading involvement in the genocide were executed in public in Kigali and other towns, by firing squad. (BBC news 1998) 9 The death penalty was initially in place for murder under Rwandan national law, then the Organic Law was introduced in 1996 to enable the prosecution of genocidal offenders. It applied only to Category One perpetrators, who planned, organized, or lead the genocide or who committed acts of sexual torture. The suspects were divided into four categories: (1) “planners, organizers, instigators, supervisors and leaders of the crime of genocide or of a crime against humanity,” “notorious murderers,” and people who committed “acts of sexual torture” (2) “perpetrators, conspirators or accomplices” of deliberate murder or of assault causing death, (3) people who committed “other serious assaults against the person” and (4) people who damaged or destroyed property (Rwanda, Organic law No.08/1996, supra note 4, article 2). 10 All sentences, including the death penalty, could be reduced if the perpetrators confessed prior to being charged or named by someone else. Such confessions were counted as mitigation (Boctor 2009, 105–6). The law was eventually changed in 2007, partly as a response to the contradictions that emerged between the International Criminal Court’s prohibition of the death penalty and contradictions in Rwanda’s own law involving its approach to punishment for the genocide. The inconsistency meant that a genocidal killer might get a sentence of a life in prison whereas an “ordinary murderer” might be subject to capital punishment (Boctor 2009). 11 Thus people in Rwanda had to work out ways to both punish and live with the killers without the use of the death penalty. This rejection of capital punishment may be in part responsible for the perception that a primary focus of recovery from the genocide is forgiveness of the perpetrators, and I will center on that perception in the next section. THE GACACA COURTS The idea of forgiveness is popular and in academic circles associated with recovery from the genocide in Rwanda, especially the gacaca trials. 12 Furthermore, the twentieth anniversary of the genocide in 2014 saw a clutch of articles extolling the healing powers of forgiveness. 13 For example, an article entitled “Blood Ties” was published in The Weekend Australian magazine, detailing an exemplary case of forgiveness for genocidal crimes in Rwanda.

Betrayed by Life

89

Alice Mukarurinda is described as forgiving Emmanuel Ndayisaba, the man who chopped off her right hand and stabbed her, leaving her for dead. The author states that healing “means forgiving the unforgivable. In Rwanda, twenty years after the genocide, it is the only way forward.” For Mukarurinda, it would be a sin not to forgive Ndayisaba once he confessed and sincerely repented (Walker 2014, 16). In this account, Ndayisaba confessed of his own accord and without seeking a reduced sentence, a circumstance that makes him different from many other perpetrators, as we shall see. The article urges us to see this example as typical, stating that they “speak[s] to our better angels. It’s no miracle story. . . . Best of all, Alice and Emmanuel are far from alone” (Walker 2014, 21). The appeal is to us to believe in the possibility of this generous forgiveness, and I argue that we want to believe and that is why these accounts are so compelling. International interest in post-genocide Rwanda has focused on the traditional courts, the gacaca, as the expression and embodiment of a forgiving approach to the atrocities of the genocide. Gacaca trials were used in Rwanda as a distinctive national way of approaching the aftermath of genocide. The courts were established in 2000, used throughout Rwanda by 2004 (Karekezi et al. 2004, 72), and the trials were completed in 2012. 14 Gacaca, which means grass or lawn, courts are a traditional, informal Rwandan way of responding to small-scale disputes, usually concerning property, within the community. In this modified form, adults in communities of two hundred or more gathered together with a group of elected judges to get to the truth of acts of genocide and other crimes against humanity in their local area. Most authors see the gacaca courts as involving both reconciliation and forgiveness, as well as some form of justice, although some see it as mob rule or likely to lead to mob rule (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 299). The question of whether forgiveness should have been an aspect of the trials is a separate one that needs to be considered. Others have criticized the courts for not giving the suspects enough protection, (Gourevitch 2009, 43) not providing a fair trial, and not acting as a deterrent (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 308). The first point to note is that these courts were only one of a plural approach to justice and reconciliation after the genocide, involving three levels of courts. The gacaca courts focused on “lesser” crimes related to property, injury and killing. The crimes of arranging the genocide, murdering with excessive zeal, and raping were dealt with by conventional courts, the second level of court or Rwandan national court, which tried around 20,000 cases. Both it and the post-genocide Gacaca trials are based on the Organic Law that was set up to found governance of the new Rwanda. The role of the Rwandan national court to some extent overlapped with that of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha (Tanzania), which was supposed to try the worst cases. 15 Some of the cases, including most of those of the remaining fugitives, were transferred back to Rwanda. 16

90

Chapter 5

The gacaca courts were developed for a number of reasons. One was to speed up the justice process, with 100,000 to 120,000 suspected of genocidal crimes in jails, and thousands more needing to be tried. 17 It was calculated that it would take decades to try the suspects in the national court. Another reason was to hold individuals responsible for the killing. The third was to promote reconciliation, including developing trust through finding out the truth about what happened (Karekezi et al. 2004, 72). 18 There were around 11,000 gacaca jurisdictions throughout Rwanda (Boctor 2009, 106). They retained some of the features of traditional gacaca trials in stressing the regaining of harmony in the community, and the punishments were often commuted to periods of community service if the perpetrators confessed before what they had done came to light. Community service could involve some form of reparation for the survivors, such as rebuilding their homes. (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 315; Bornkamm 2012, 157) Time served in prison was also taken into account to reduce sentences. However, evidence could emerge in the gacaca that an individual was guilty of more serious crimes, and so they could be tried in one of the other courts. 19 The judges (inyangamugayo) had to be honest or a person of integrity and fulfill certain criteria to play a role and be eligible for election. They could not have participated in the genocide or be a genocide suspect, although those who had committed a crime against property during the genocide could be eligible. (Rwanda, Organic Law No. 16/ 2004 of 17/6/2004 arts. 14 and 15; and Rwanda, Organic Law No.28/2006 of 27/06/2006, art. 4) 20 What was expected from the suspects in the trials was confession of what they had done, information conveying the location/s of the bodies of their victims, and information and witnessing about other perpetrators. Then their sentence might only be “time served” (Gourevitch 2009, 40) although further time in prison could also be added. As I noted, the trials were developed for a number of reasons, and these evolved over time. The preamble to the gacaca law stresses both punishment and reconciliation: “Considering the necessity to eradicate for ever the culture of impunity in order to achieve justice and reconciliation in Rwanda, and thus to adopt provisions enabling rapid prosecutions and trials of perpetrators and accomplices of genocide, not only with the aim of providing punishment, but also reconstituting the Rwandan society that had been destroyed by bad leaders who incited the population into exterminating part of the society” (Rwanda, Organic Law No. 16/2004 of 19/6/2004). 21 It also states that “Considering that it is important to provide for penalties allowing convicted persons to amend themselves and to favour their reintegration into the Rwandan society without jeopardizing the people’s normal life.” At the same time forgiveness of the perpetrators is considered as related to reconciliation in the court proceedings, in religious interpretations of reconciliation, and in much academic discussion. So we need to consider what is meant by forgiveness.

Betrayed by Life

91

FORGIVENESS There are many different accounts of forgiveness, both personal and public or political. 22 For example, Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition argues that forgiveness has a distinctive capacity to release us from the irreversibility of human action (1998, 236–43). 23 It has that capacity, she contends, because instead of being a reaction that simply continues the cycle of mistakes and wrongdoing, forgiveness initiates something new that changes our relationship to the past or responds to the irreversibility of action. Her view is that forgiveness concerns wrongs that are mistakes and done unknowingly, whereas the worst, willed crimes, are radical evil and cannot be forgiven. Commenting on Arendt’s view of forgiveness, Margaret Urban Walker suggests that what we need to do is consider the implications and the risks of forgiveness itself in its irreversibility and unpredictability. She sees forgiveness as a process of moral reconstruction that can take a range of forms that “achieves a morally reparative decision to release himself or herself from the position of grievance and reproach, and to release the wrongdoer from openended (but not necessarily all other) demands for satisfaction” (2006, 153). Forgiveness has a vital role to play in morally repairing relationships that have been torn asunder by violence and atrocities. Walker’s focus is on what we find morally valuable and admirable in forgiveness. Her account suggests why people want to believe that others are capable of forgiving a crime like genocide, and so why understanding the gacaca trials as enactments of forgiveness is so appealing. What many accounts of forgiveness share in common is that there must be some kind of positive change in the attitude of the victim toward the perpetrator and/or their action, a kind of ethical transformation in their relation to them. I understand forgiveness as a personal change of heart, both affective and cognitive, where the victim feels that they can see the perpetrator differently even though they still acknowledge the wrong the perpetrator has done. 24 Forgiveness cannot be accomplished at once but is a commitment to beginning a process and working at trying to forgive. In that case the victim or survivor gives up the grievance they are holding against the perpetrator (Narayan 1997, 171) and forswears revenge (Arendt 1998, 240–41) without necessarily trusting them again or wishing to have a relationship with them. As Walker notes, we could forgive someone without overcoming all difficult and uncomfortable feelings toward them (2006, 155). In Rwanda, the possibility of forgiveness or reconciliation is connected with relationships where people live and work in the same area, or small, isolated villages, as is true in many cases. So the question of what kind of relationship to have with the perpetrators has to be faced. We need to understand what is specific to discussions of forgiveness in post-genocide Rwanda. The idea of forgiveness tends to be associated with

92

Chapter 5

the churches in Rwanda and international religious groups as they have encouraged forgiveness as the most important response to the problems faced there (Steward, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 175). This encouragement is both in the context of gacaca and in separate organizations of meetings between perpetrators and victims. 25 Thus we need to understand the kind of forgiveness proposed and recommended through Derrida’s deconstruction of forgiveness, as it addresses the types of forgiveness that are at issue. In his work on the logic of forgiveness, Derrida distinguishes between conditional forgiveness, which is based on a kind of calculation or exchange, in the sense of being a response to remorse, repentance, or restitution, and unconditional forgiveness. Unconditional forgiveness is forgiveness of the unforgivable, such as the kind of horrifying violence of genocidal murder, and requires nothing in return. As Derrida notes, forgiveness is associated with the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (Derrida 2001, 28). While his view can be taken to imply that there is an injunction on victims to forgive, if they aspire to true forgiveness, his analysis of the logic of forgiveness also enables us to see the kinds of forgiveness that are operative in post-genocide Rwanda. Prefiguring discussions of forgiveness after the Rwandan genocide, Derrida states that “forgiveness only acquir[es] its meaning and its possibility of forgiveness where it is called on to do the impossible and to forgive the un-forgivable” (Derrida, Caputo et al. 2001, 29). Such forgiveness is genuine, pure, true, unconditional forgiveness, according to him. In his book on forgiveness, Vladimir Jankélévitch also suggests a logic of unconditional forgiveness in the face of the unforgivable, writing that “the wicked person is a poor person just like each one of us, a poor person sworn to death like all of us, a solitary person like all of us, and infinitely more alone still, a poor, guilty person who has much need of our help. This is what the marvellous gentleness of forgiveness implies” (2005, 161). This is a very different view from that he expresses in his essay “Should we pardon them?” where he advocates rejecting forgiveness in the face of unrepentant perpetrators, and I will discuss that essay and his account of remorse in The Bad Conscience (2015) in the following chapters on atonement. To understand forgiveness in the context of gacaca and other aspects of the Rwandan response to the genocide in more depth, the religious ideas of forgiveness deconstructed by Derrida are crucial. 26 According to the 2012 census, Rwanda has more Catholics than any other religious group (44 percent), then Protestant (38 percent), Adventist (12 percent), Muslim (2 percent), Jehovah’s witnesses (7 percent), with traditional animist Rwandan religion and “other,” including no religion, making up the rest. (NSIR 2012, 16) People have turned away, to some extent, from Catholicism, in some cases to Protestantism because of the association between the Catholic church and the genocide, where priests and nuns were responsible for multi-

Betrayed by Life

93

ple murders. Nevertheless, Christian thinking about forgiveness, which stresses the unconditional feature or “pole” of forgiveness, has been influential in conceptualizing forgiveness in post-genocide Rwanda. The influence of these concepts has to be examined in the light of the specific context. The context for forgiveness in Rwanda is unusual in a number of ways. First, it is extraordinary in that requests for forgiveness of the most terrible crimes are actually made. Examples of requests for forgiveness of the unforgivable, such as that of crimes of the Shoah, tend to be rare, for example, the Nazi’s request detailed by Simon Wiesenthal in The Sunflower (1998), or fictional (Thomas 2003). A recent case is that of Oskar Gröning, a bookkeeper at Auschwitz, who asked for forgiveness for his moral complicity but contested his criminal guilt (Smale 2015). Examples of forgiveness of the unforgivable are quite rare too. 27 Yet in Rwanda the gacaca courts, in law from 2008, as well as the churches and missionaries, encouraged requests for forgiveness and made them quite common. As I mentioned, the circumstances for reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda are also unusual in that the victims and perpetrators quite often had a preexisting good relationship— friendship, familial, or collegial—and are able to (or must) interact after the crimes committed because they live closely together. So the question of forgiveness has some meaning and relevance beyond a personal letting go for psychological reasons. 28 In that case, even if there is no forgiveness, a modus vivendi for cooperation such as reconciliation may be necessary. Interestingly, because forgiveness is a personal decision of individuals, it may be thought to be both harder and easier than reconciliation. 29 Forgiveness is harder as we cannot necessarily control our feelings and easier since forgiveness does not necessarily mean that we interact with the person forgiven. We might be able to forgive only as long as we are able to avoid the person’s company. As Clark notes, “Forgiveness requires only that a victim should forego feelings of resentment and a desire for direct revenge against the perpetrator” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 202). And forgiveness might not seem to have anything to do with the Rwandan gacaca courts. Yet justice, reconciliation and forgiveness tend to be intertwined in this context by the actors involved. The law did not say anything about requests for forgiveness until it was modified in 2008, as I noted, in addition to the requirement that perpetrators have to confess and provide a replacement for the apology for what they have done. The original law referred to “Confessions, guilt plea, repentance and apologies,” (Rwanda, Organic Law No. 16, 2004, Chap. II), whereas the modified law reads: “The bench, The Judicial Officer or the Public Prosecutor in charge of investigating the case shall inform the accused of his or her rights and benefits that emanate from a confession, guilty plea, repentance and request for forgiveness” (Rwanda, Organic Law No. 13, 2008, Art. 12).

94

Chapter 5

Religious ideas of forgiveness, unconditional and conditional, were subsumed into gacaca and perpetrators asked for forgiveness and victims tried to forgive (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 306). 30 One understanding is that preparedness to forgive will encourage truth-telling about the genocide and truth-telling will encourage forgiveness in a mutual and reciprocal process. 31 Conversely, it was thought that apologies and admitting responsibility for killings can prepare for the possibility of forgiveness. In a way that is surprising if one thinks of forgiveness as a personal relation between perpetrator and victim, genocide suspects did not necessarily even have to address their requests to victims or survivors (Clark 2010, 297). It could simply be part of their written statement for the court. However, personal requests for forgiveness to individuals were made, and seemingly, given, in some cases (Gourevitch 2009, 41). Personal forgiveness is also linked to an expectation by the government that the victims or survivors will forgive. These ideas of forgiveness can create unrealistic and unreasonable demands of survivors that themselves can lead to difficulties in the reconciliation process, in the sense that they aggravate the trauma and increase the grief of survivors. There is also evidence contrary to the view that forgiveness is integral to justice, peace, and reconciliation processes such as the gacaca courts, whereby they are not considered to constitute or involve either remorse on the part of the perpetrators or forgiveness by the survivors. As Derrida suggests, forgiveness concerns two face to face, so that: “This solitude of two, in the scene of forgiveness, would seem to deprive any forgiveness of sense or authenticity that was asked for collectively, in the name of a community, a Church, an institution, a profession, a group of anonymous victims, sometimes dead, or their representatives, descendants, or survivors” (Derrida, in Caputo et al. 2001, 25). The notion of forgiveness is often confused with other legal and political notions. Forgiveness is often conflated with amnesty, for example the prisoner release of 36,000 genocide suspects in 2003 (Hintjens, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 78). Likewise, clemency is offered in the form of shorter sentences or acceptance of time spent waiting for trial as sufficient punishment and agreement to that, sometimes under pressure, by the survivors. 32 The perpetrators were supposed to confess and show repentance and had to have already been in detention for the amount of time they would have received if convicted, as I noted (Carlin 2003; Boctor 2009, 108). This process is distinct from the amnesty offered in exchange for truth-telling in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The question of the ethical appropriateness of forgiveness is one that can be raised as well, and I agree with the view that in many cases forgiveness is not appropriate as a response to hasty, formulaic apologies for brutal murders, a problem that Thomas Brudholm and Valerie Rosoux examine in their work (2009a; 2009b). 33 First, survivors can feel pressured to forgive or at least to say that they forgive the perpetrators and to mask the complexity of

Betrayed by Life

95

their feelings publicly, by the gacaca system and by community and religious groups. Second, confessions and apologies can be primarily motivated by the possibility of a reduced sentence rather than from feelings of remorse, as was noted from the beginning of the trials (Lambourne 2007, 398–99). The confessions made in the courts or in statements were often thought to be formulaic, incomplete, and insincere (Brudholm and Rosoux 2009a, 45–46). They tended to consist of a bland listing of some of the murders committed, with names, dates, and places included. Furthermore, as Klaas de Jonge, who monitored gacaca trials, noted, the “accused think because they ask for forgiveness, they are entitled to forgiveness. You hear these people confessing as if they are describing a movie. There’s absolutely no compassion” (quoted in Sosnov 2008). In terms of the motivation, they are thought to be done to avoid prosecution or reduce sentences rather than out of a feeling of distress over what they have done or concern about the victims or survivors. Karekezi et al. also note that prisoner confessions tended to go like this: “First, they recognized that the genocide had taken place and expressed their regret. Then they continued by revealing their own implication in great detail. Finally, they concluded with asking forgiveness” (Karakezi et al. 2004, 79). The formulaic confessions and apologies tend not to take genuine responsibility for what they have done nor acknowledge the depth of the wrong to the victim. 34 Many feel that the whole question of forgiveness is theater, with formulaic confessions and protestations of forgiveness publicly performed, a danger of conditional forgiveness Derrida points out (Derrida 2001, 29). Third, an apology is not sufficient to obligate forgiveness, particularly one that is evidently insincere, although it is an important step toward forgiveness. Nick Smith notes that an apology and remedial efforts offered early after a crime, before arrest, for example, will have some effect in reducing the punishment (2010, 57). Such was certainly the case in Rwanda, where those who apologized before their trials tended to receive lighter sentences. An expectation of forgiveness in that situation appears to be an appeal to unconditional forgiveness, even though an apology can be considered as providing an attempt to make amends. Such a notion of forgiveness can place an unfair weight on victims and survivors attempting to recover from trauma, and conditional forgiveness can also be weighted against the survivors and victims. The genocide has an impact on relationships at a very personal level so the possibility of state-mandated forgiveness cannot be ensured by trials, even local, traditional ones. One survivor says “All this reconciliation and the confessions—that’s the program of the state. And when a killer comes and asks your pardon you can’t do anything else. You pardon him, but you don’t really know if it comes from your heart, because you don’t really know about the killer—if he is asking forgiveness from his heart” (Gourevitch, 2009, 41). 35 Forcing the question of forgiveness in trials tends to obscure

96

Chapter 5

their purpose and to place another burden on survivors. Forgiveness is seen as government-mandated and as following an order. As Jean-Marie Kamatali, a law professor who defended alleged perpetrators, explains, a gacaca judge would ask a survivor if she really forgave the murderer of her children and she would say: “The government forgave them. What can I do? I also forgave him” (Kamatali 2014). He sees this as part of a deeper problem of not allowing individuals to decide for themselves what is right or wrong that has a long history in Rwanda, and these accounts suggest that the meaning of forgiveness as a personal response is restricted here. There is a way of thinking about forgiveness in Rwanda that comes closer to Derrida’s conception of unconditional forgiveness. One writer, who works on peace-building for World Vision, Solomon Nsabiyera Gasana, speaks of forgiveness in relation to local languages as “feeling the pain” [kubabara]— forgiveness [kubabarira]. This involved giving up a demand for an apology “as a precondition of forgiveness” and trying to feel the pain of the perpetrators and understand why they had done what they had (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 154). Nevertheless, in practice there are apologies and attempts to feel the others’ pain on both sides so it also becomes more of an exchange. This is understood as part of a personal psychological journey of healing and of becoming a better, more ethical person. On this way of thinking, forgiveness leads to reconciliation. One has to have a change of heart and then begin to work and interact with the people one has forgiven. Similarly, another World Vision worker, John Steward, says that forgiveness is primarily of benefit to the forgiver or survivor, a view held by some philosophers and psychologists (Steward, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 176). He understands reconciliation here as a two-way process, involving apology and restitution on one side and forgiveness on the other, in other words, conditional forgiveness (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 177). But this may to some extent be a romanticization of what went on in the courts. The question as to how individuals actually feel about this process must be extremely complex and multifarious. The important point is that there should not be an expectation that people will forgive in these kinds of circumstances. It is too much to ask of someone who has been through the murders of their loved ones and often only barely survived themselves that they give up feelings of grievance and be expected to extend a hand in friendship or even to drink from the same cup as the man who murdered your husband, as can happen (Aghion, 2002–2009). Living and working side by side with killers is more than enough. Ethical restoration can come about through that painstaking work over years, rather than the demand for an instant forgiveness. It is something that may come over time but it should not be the focus of reconstruction and reconciliation efforts. In the next section I consider what is more properly the unique nature of justice and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda in relation to gacaca.

Betrayed by Life

97

THE GACACA COURTS AND RECONCILIATION Reconciliation in the context of the gacaca courts should not be interpreted as a substitute for justice or punishment, but as working alongside and through justice. Like forgiveness, reconciliation has a range of interpretations, yet what is central to these interpretations is reconciliation as a pragmatic coming together after some kind of rupture or existing disharmony. In a political community that could be genocide, civil war, or colonization, for instance. 36 Reconciliation is an ongoing process, rather than one particular act and can be between individuals or occur in a more collective way, or in a way that coordinates reconciliation between individuals. The need for reconciliation does not necessarily imply that both sides are at fault, or that there was an earlier harmonious relationship, although they are both common misconceptions. 37 Political scientist Ernesto Verdeja defines reconciliation as “a condition of mutual respect among former enemies” (2009, 3), a condition that needs to be developed through political, institutional, civil society, and interpersonal levels. Phil Clark, also a political scientist, defines reconciliation as “the rebuilding of fractured individual and communal relationships after conflict, with a view to encouraging meaningful interaction and cooperation between former antagonists” (Clark and Kaufman, 2009, 194). Susanne Buckley-Zistel, a specialist in peace and conflict studies, argues that Rwandans avoid discussion of the earlier pogroms and “the past [is] portrayed as harmonious” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 125). She contends that ethnic tensions are dealt with by “chosen amnesia, silencing prevailing tensions and leading many external observers to conclude that there has been significant improvement regarding local reconciliation processes” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 142). This “forgetting” of the past may be an attempt to think of reconciliation as a return to a more peaceful time, to have a promise of what is possible, what is sometimes known as the “prelapsarian” conception of reconciliation (Moon 2004). Such amnesia is a very different concept from the practical approach to reconciliation that is part of a program of reconstruction, justice, and peace. Reconciliation in these circumstances is the commitment to actually living and working with others, rather than the specific mental state of survivors or perpetrators. It could involve treating others with respect, as Verdeja suggests, with a view to developing a deeper response. There may be tensions between punishment and reconciliation, or between reconciliation and forgiveness, but also between different conceptions of reconciliation, all tensions that post-genocide Rwanda has to negotiate in its attempt to honor these distinct concepts. The gacaca courts may be seen, in part, as an attempt to reach reconciliation through some kind of agreement about the events during the genocide, where the survivors can describe what happened to them and the perpetrators can confess what they did, and the two

98

Chapter 5

accounts can be compared. This is in addition to acting as a form of justice and punishment. So, to what extent does gacaca promote reconciliation? Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein, both professors of public health who investigate trauma and reconstruction after atrocities, concluded that there is not a direct link between reconciliation and criminal trials in these kinds of circumstances. They write: “In fact, we found criminal trials—and especially those of local perpetrators—often divided small multiethnic communities by causing further suspicion and fear” (2004, 323). 38 They found that people usually thought about reconciliation as a personal affair between individuals, rather than relations mediated by court proceedings or the government. Furthermore, those who suffered the most might not be able to face attending trial or might not have known about them. Clark notes that gacaca specifically could make conflict in the community worse, “leading to acrimony during hearings that has spilled over into daily life outside gacaca” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 317). This risk is due to the locally-based nature of gacaca. One Rwandan survivor says “They talk about reconciliation. It’s the reverse. Every time I come to gacaca with an open mind, I just get more upset” (Gourevitch 2009, 42). Other survivors viewed the trials with skepticism, saying “Of course, for our [local] officials, they do very well anyway because very few of them experienced genocide. They can be very cold to our experiences of surviving genocide, which makes gacaca more difficult to experience because they have no feelings for our pain. Reconciliation means respecting officials, not making amends in your heart” (Vianney, quoted in Susan Thomson, 2013, 177). There are strong views that the government imposed obligations to attend and participate in gacaca (Bornkamm 2012, 160–61). The mix of retributive and restorative justice in gacaca courts means that they can be criticized from both directions—both for not punishing the perpetrators enough or in the right way, and for not sufficiently forwarding reconciliation (Karekezi et al. 2004, 74). Buckley-Zistel lists a range of problems with the courts: corruption of the judges, intimidation of witnesses, abuse, and skepticism about truth-telling by both survivors and perpetrators (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 141). Survivors and judges were murdered, notes a lawyer who worked in the prosecutor’s office at the ICTR (Le Mon, 2007). Another problem was low attendance as the requirement to spend time at gacaca was onerous for people who needed to work (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 318). In the trials portrayed in Anne Aghion’s film, My Neighbor, My Killer (2009), the perpetrators stonewall, collude with each other, and call witnesses liars. There were no trained lawyers to interrogate them and break down their statements. Conversely, the perpetrators did not have their own defense lawyers. The concept of impunity is one of the strongest concerns of the survivors, who feel that the history of impunity for murder after decades of massacres

Betrayed by Life

99

was one of the primary factors contributing to the genocide. A survivor, Jean-Baptiste Kayigamba (quoted earlier), believes that the discourse of reconciliation and forgiveness is a cover for impunity (Kayigamba, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 34–35). Furthermore, he argues that true reconciliation is not possible if the perpetrators are not properly punished, but offered plea bargains to get reduced sentences or community service, or amnesty instead, as they were in gacaca (Kayigamba, in Clark and Kaufman, 2009, 40). This criticism concerns the need for proper punishment and deterrence against further crimes. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the majority of those tried were found guilty (Hola and Brehm 2016, 73). In contrast, the dressing of prisoners in pale pink and orange uniforms that make them stand out wherever they go can be seen as a form of humiliating punishment that makes it difficult for them to re-integrate into society (Bagnetto 2014), and so weakening ethical restoration in the Rwandan community. Similarly, the aim of reconciliation can violate the aim of overcoming impunity, when perpetrators are given privileges not accorded to survivors. Another aspect of the government’s plan for peace is that it focused on repatriating rebels who planned to attack Rwanda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Members of the FDLR [Forces Démocratique de Libération du Rwanda], around 3,000 of them, were given several hundred dollars and community monitoring to help them integrate (Gourevitch 2009, 46). 39 However, they had to go through gacaca trials if they were suspected of involvement in the genocide. Thus, the aim of reconciliation seems to undermine justice and punishment, in some cases. In a different vein, Clark argues that the gacaca courts both punish the perpetrators and promote reconciliation. He stresses the appalling conditions in which the suspects were housed and the financial cost for the country and government in having 120,000 young Hutu men in detention (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 297). 40 In addition to the pragmatic reasons for gacaca, he claims truth, reconciliation, and reconstruction were all goals of the courts. 41 In his view, restorative justice of this kind can both punish and lead to reconciliation through engagement between perpetrators and victims. In spite of this positive view of the aims of gacaca, Clark admits that in practice the results are very mixed. What he argues contributed to a genuine improvement in survivors’ and perpetrators’ attitudes to each other were the community participation and discussion of the issues in a General Assembly gathered for the trial. These discussions could go beyond the legal issues and the elected judges intervened only when the conflict became or was in danger of becoming excessive (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 312). Arguably, then, gacaca trials provided a space and opportunity for a dialogue about the past and concerns for the future as well as punishment. Andrew Schaap, for example, defends the concept of reconciliation in general as a political as well as ideological process. The gacaca trials can be seen as one form of construc-

100

Chapter 5

tion of political space, even though they are unsatisfactory in many ways. Schaap suggests that when there is a willingness to reconcile “justice can be staged” in that political context (2008, 257). Justice, but not retribution, was sought through the trials, which needed to be accompanied by a range of other responses to past violence. Furthermore, Clark argues that community service itself is a form of reconciliation as it can involve survivors and perpetrators working together to reconstruct Rwanda. As I observed, the hybrid nature of gacaca makes it vulnerable to a wider range of criticisms, yet their achievement in trying and sentencing so many perpetrators needs to be acknowledged. The International Criminal Tribunal Rwanda (ICTR) is also considered by some to have a role to play in reconciliation as well as punishment. The ICTR prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow argues, as well he might, that these trials are part of reconciliation and of deterrence against repetition of the crimes. Unlike Stover and Weinstein, Jallow claims that a catharsis arises from the trial process itself. In the case of gacaca, the idea was that catharsis came from “establishing a collective accounting of the truth of the crimes in each place where they were committed” (Gourevitch 2009, 39). Yet this is not the case with the tribunal in Tanzania, given its location away from Rwanda. Jallow finds the recognition of the wrong done to victims, the prosecution of individuals and the act of testifying allowed survivors to find “inner peace” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 264). Like the claims about the restorative value of gacaca, it makes sense that some witnesses and survivors will feel this way, not that all will. Linda Melvern, an investigative journalist who has researched the planning of the genocide, observes that the defendants at the ICTR, like many of those tried through gacaca, generally fail “to express guilt or regret of any kind about their deeds” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 31). 42 As in the case of the French post-war purge, those who were tried early, primarily in the national court, tended to receive the severest sentences, whereas those tried in the ICTR received lighter sentences (Hola and Brehm 2016, 78). The ICTR has also been criticized for being too slow, not trying enough cases, and for corruption. This includes nepotism, harassment of witnesses and even the hiring of genocide suspects to act as defense investigators (Martin Ngoga, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 330). All these problems lessen the possibility of emotional or pragmatic reconciliation, and suggest that such reconciliation cannot be a central purpose of such international trials. The problem of the lack of expression of guilt by perpetrators and the experience of guilt and shame by survivors I discussed in chapter 3 is exemplified in post-genocide Rwanda. As Hatzfeld describes the members of both groups he spoke to, “Most of them [perpetrators] claim not to have nightmares—unlike their victims, who are tormented at night by haunting, distressing, appalling dreams from which they awaken in an agony of guilt”

Betrayed by Life

101

(2005, 200). However, there are exceptions, where perpetrators experience the remorse and desire to atone that I examine in the following chapter. Another factor that is very significant to understanding the nature of reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda is that people have to live together in order to build a new life, as I have discussed, and survivors might even depend on the killers to get by, as I explained in the previous chapter. They must work out some means of peaceful coexistence for everyday survival. The survivors have often lost spouses, children, and other relatives and need help whereas the former genocidaires can often return to their families and so have that strength and support. Here we see reconciliation only in the most minimalist sense, as an attempt to cope in an extremely tense and challenging situation. What people have to do is coexist; they might not fully reconcile or trust, as I argued. Reconciliation may be too much to expect, and forgiveness an even more remote possibility in this situation. CONCLUSION Nonetheless, in spite of the difficulties in relation to forgiveness and reconciliation that I have focused on in this chapter, the progress post-genocide Rwanda has made in restoring justice and peace after such extreme violence is remarkable. As Clark argues, gacaca is one factor that can contribute to long-lasting peace by providing an instance of and model for conflict resolution by addressing basic causes of conflict (2010, 235–37). One of the extraordinary aspects of these processes of justice, peace, and reconciliation in Rwanda is that they are carried out at the same time as struggling with poverty, corruption, violence, 43 and attempting to improve gender relations. 44 There are signs of hope in a new generation that have grown up after the genocide, who can say “‘It’s the older generation who made that whole story, and we’re turning the page to make a new Rwanda’” (Gasore Hategeka, quoted in Gourevitch 2014). The way Rwandans approached reconciliation is significant, and the gacaca courts were a distinctive form of trial for such serious crimes that provided punishment as well as forms of reparation that can at least open up the possibility of reconciliation. The concept of forgiveness at work was primarily a Western religious form of conditional forgiveness, based on putting aside grievances in exchange for information and expressions of contrition, although that information was not comprehensive. In terms of Derrida’s account of the logic of forgiveness, insofar as forgiveness occurred, it was generally conditional forgiveness in response to an apology and one that was expected and demanded by the state, rather than the spontaneous forgiveness so many want to believe in. Nevertheless, the paucity of many of the apologies, and the often extreme nature of the crimes, also suggests that an unconditional forgiveness of the

102

Chapter 5

unforgivable is an underlying expectation. The need for reconciliation is to a great extent imposed by the circumstance that the survivors have to live and work closely with the perpetrators. Moreover, political conditions in Rwanda are such that freedom has been sacrificed for the goals of peace and reconciliation with deleterious effects. For example, the law against genocidal ideology has been used to prevent people from freely talking about ethnic groups in Rwanda or to criticize the government. Dissent is stifled by an authoritarian government that controls the details of people’s lives, and improvements in prosperity are unevenly distributed. 45 So questions concerning how to restore an ethical political situation there remain. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not that easy, and ethical restoration in Rwanda is one that has placed heavy demands on the victims and survivors, still grieving from their losses, and may not contribute to communal atonement, the subject of the next chapter. NOTES 1. The phrase “betrayed by life” is a quote from Claudine Kayitesi, in Hatzfeld (2009, 7). 2. The Gacaca courts ended their work in June 2012 and the ICTR tried around eighty accused and closed at the end of 2015. A number of genocidaires (eight as of May 2018) are still at large or “fugitives.” http://www.unmict.org/en/cases/searching-fugitives 3. Rwanda has a population of over 12 million people, a significant increase since 1994, partly due to the return of exiles, and the official language is Kinyarwanda, along with French and English. 4. Scott Straus estimates there were approximately 200,000 perpetrators (2004, 95). 5. Although much of the killing was done by police, military and Interahamwe, trained militia, many thousands of civilians participated as well. See Straus (2004, 95). 6. Estimates are one million people for “old caseload” and two million people for “new caseload.” 7. Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda since 2000, for instance, grew up in Uganda. He was the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which liberated Rwanda and stopped the genocide. The prime minister since 2014 is Anastase Murekezi. 8. This assertion may be misleading, as there are claims that the RPF killed thousands of civilians in taking over Rwanda. See Amnesty International, October 20, 1994, Gérard Prunier, 1997, 356–89, and Alison Des Forges, 1999, 692–735. That these claims were not investigated in gacaca is considered by many to have restricted the usefulness of the trials (Bornkamm 2012, 157; Burnet 2012, 195). 9. As Martha Minow notes, these executions were themselves revenge (1998, 124). In addition, the sentences of six hundred prisoners on death row were commuted. 10. Categories two and three were put together in 2004 and acts of torture and “dehumanizing acts on the dead body” were put into category two in 2007 (Boctor, 2009, 107). 11. Death sentences could be reduced to life imprisonment, life imprisonment reduced to seven to eleven years in both cases if they confessed early. A category two offender would get twelve to fifteen years if they did not confess before being charged or denounced by someone else (Boctor 2009, 106). 12. See Carlin (2003), Staub et al. (2005), Hinson (2009), and Rutayisire (2010). 13. In Rwanda, the anniversary was marked by a reenactment of the genocide (Associated Press, 2014). 14. Rwanda had an official period of transition after the genocide that ended in 2003.The gacaca courts were established through Organic Law No. 40/ 2000. Prior to this point, over

Betrayed by Life

103

100,000 people suspected of genocide were imprisoned, then 36,000 were let into solidarity camps (ingando) and then sent home for the trials (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 13). The government says that 1,500,000 suspects were tried through gacaca (Burnet 2012, 211). 15. This was established by UN resolution 955 (1994) and was opposed by the Rwandan government, initially due to its exclusion of the death penalty from sentencing (Boctor 2009, 100). There have also been trials in Switzerland and Belgium, for violating the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of civilians during wars and genocide, respectively (Alison Des Forges and Timothy Longman, in Stover and Weinstein 2004, 57–58). 16. Many believe that some of the worst offenders are living in the United States and Europe. (Kayigamba, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 38). 17. The gacaca courts were also cheaper than ordinary courts; the judges were not paid. 18. Philpott states that the gacaca trials were much more successful in determining punishment than in discovering truth (2009, 178, 199). 19. For example, Major General Laurent Munyakazi went from a gacaca to a military tribunal where he was sentenced to life in prison (Kayigamba, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 38). A person found guilty could also lose civil rights, be given more time in prison, and have their names posted at local administrative offices and on the internet (Sebarenzi 2011, 218). 20. However, many are suspected of having participated in the genocide (Le Mon, 2007, 20). 21. Perpetrators could be sentenced to up to thirty years imprisonment. 22. See Derrida (2001), Caputo et al. (2001), Govier (2002), Jankélévitch (2005), Griswold (2007), Kristeva (2010), Pettigrove (2012), and Holmgren (2012), for example. 23. I will consider Arendt’s view of forgiveness in relation to self-forgiveness in the final chapter. 24. There are exceptions to this view of forgiveness. Verbin, for example, believes that forgiveness is primarily a relationship to the self because the original resentment is seen as primarily involving a feeling that the self is unworthy. Forgiveness then becomes an attempt to gain more self-esteem and respect (2010, 608). However, this account assumes an implausible focus on the self in response to the wrongdoing of others. 25. The film As We Forgive shows several of these meetings, most of which are arranged by religious authorities (Hinson 2009). 26. See Tutu (1999) for a development of the concept of forgiveness in relation to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 27. Walker gives one example each from Uruguay, South Africa, Cambodia, and Tibet (2006, 175–77). Often these examples are well-known precisely because they are unusual. 28. In the film As We Forgive (Hinson 2009) one of the victims feels she is unable to return to her house until she forgives her father’s killer. 29. It should be noted that forgiveness and reconciliation are often used interchangeably in everyday discussion of these issues; yet I argue it is important to distinguish them. 30. Clark argues in more detail in (2010, 257–307) that Christian beliefs inform most Rwandans’ understanding of forgiveness in this context. 31. There was also a Christian gacaca, (gacaca nkristu) in which people confessed and were forgiven for everyday wrongdoing (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 307). 32. Kobil argues that clemency tends to be based on desert or justice, whereas mercy is related to compassion (2007). 33. I argue that forgiveness, especially for these extreme crimes, is not an ethical requirement or duty (2013). Walker also argues that in the case of unforgivable crimes “There are no obligations to forgive, and there are weighty reasons not to, in these cases” (2006, 190). 34. Clark (2010, 225) found that only a small minority of perpetrators showed real remorse for what they had done. 35. Brudholm and Rosoux note that for many genocide survivors forgiveness is seen as a temptation and something they are under pressure to do (2009, 43). This kind of pressure is one that even, for example, Glen Pettigrove, who argues that forgiveness is appropriate in a wide range of cases, concedes: “Very rarely would it be appropriate for a perfect stranger to try to encourage someone to forgive” (2012, 157).

104

Chapter 5

36. As Lambourne notes, the very term reconciliation after such extreme violence is offensive for many, so some welfare groups used the term peacebuilding instead (2007, 408–9). 37. For example, World Vision workers who did counseling with Hutu and Tutsi note approvingly that members of both ethnic groups apologize to each other (Gasana and Steward, in Clark and Kaufman 2009). Meierhenrich notes that reconciliation can be taken to mean anything from coexistence to restoration of relations (2008, 204). 38. Steward also notes that gacaca could induce “shock and retraumatization” (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 181). 39. Bornkamm notes that the government recognizes a right of reparation in principle, although in practice few people have been compensated, and even medical and counseling services are limited (2012, 132–45). Thus there are at least small gestures of making amends to survivors. 40. Some of the killers, perhaps hundreds, were children as young as seven or eight (IRIN 2000; Mamdani 2011, 225). 41. Clark sees gacaca as a mix of truth commissions and war crimes tribunals (Clark and Kaufman 2009, 303). 42. Sebarenzi (2011, 215) also notes that most of those tried denied their past actions. 43. Rwanda is now (relatively) safe, except for the possibility of violence from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Burundi spilling over into Rwanda (Warren 2017). 44. During the genocide women were raped and deliberately infected with HIV by rapists (Kayigamba, in Clark and Kaufman 2009, 42, 133). Perpetrators were prosecuted for sexual crimes by the ICTR (Haffajee 2006). In post-genocide Rwanda women are in the majority, a majority of seats in parliament are held by women and a Matrimonial Regimes Law (1999) was passed to ensure women’s ownership of property is protected (Mageza-Barthel 2011). 45. See, for instance, reports from Waldorf (2011, 59–60) Gettleman (2013), and Seay (2016).

Chapter Six

A Dreadful Solitude Jankélévitch, Remorse, and the Demand for Atonement

One of the essential elements of the bad conscience is this dreadful solitude of a soul that has had to renounce every diversion and that suffers a type of panicked horror {or moral agoraphobia}in feeling exposed in the presence of the only witness from whom it cannot hide anything, since this witness is myself. —Vladimir Jankélévitch (2015, 25–26)

My discussion of responses to the genocide in Rwanda in the previous chapter centered on questions of trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation, approaches that place much of the onus of ethical restoration on victims and survivors. This chapter focuses on how we can understand a positive response to wrongdoing: how perpetrators and bystanders can begin the process of making up or atoning for political violence and oppression. What is atonement? Atonement involves ideas of healing, compensation, and moral transformation through making up for wrongs that have been done in some way. 1 While there are a number of religious traditions that include the idea of atonement, such as the Jewish tradition of Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, my concern is with secular atonement. Nevertheless, there may be aspects of these traditions that are relevant to understanding such secular atonement. Atonement is sometimes referred to in the literature as “making amends.” Margaret Urban Walker, whose book Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing is a work significant for my discussion, defines amends as “intentionally reparative actions by parties who acknowledge responsibility for wrong, and whose reparative actions are intended to redress that wrong” (2006, 191). Significantly, she adds that amends must be 105

106

Chapter 6

thought of as something owed to the victim. There is a puzzle Walker alludes to concerning our practices of what she calls “moral repair,” which is that if the offense is slight, amends and acceptance of the gestures of amends are readily accomplished, whereas “it is often in the most egregious cases of harm that significant reparative actions are resisted and seem shallow, meagre, and incomplete where attempted” (2006, 198). The former difficulty is no doubt due to the painful consequences of acknowledging guilt. The latter problem is due to the inevitable gap between the serious nature of the wrongdoing and any form of atonement. This chapter, and the following one, focuses on the possibility of community or collective atonement for violence and injustices. Atonement is necessarily connected to impossible ethical demands and is linked to a number of difficulties, in that many of the victims are dead, and so cannot receive the atonement, commonly survivors do not wish to receive it, atonement cannot ever fully make up for what happened in the past, and often the perpetrators have no concern to atone. This chapter will examine each of these problems in turn, drawing on the work of Jean Améry and Vladimir Jankélévitch and then consider how they might be addressed through a critical discussion of Walker’s concept of “making amends.” VICTIMS’ GRIEF AND THE QUESTION OF ATONEMENT The problem of who can receive atonement is addressed in Ian McEwan’s wonderful novel Atonement (2002) through the idea of fictional atonement when real atonement is impossible. Briony, the narrator, falsely accused her sister Cecelia’s great love, Robbie, of raping a cousin. She says that atonement “was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all” (2002, 371). They were separated by Robbie’s imprisonment for the rape, and both killed in World War II before they could reunite. Because Cecelia and Robbie, the people who Briony harmed are dead, she tries to atone through creating a novel in which they experience some happiness together, the happiness they never had. The writing attempt is described by Briony as “a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end. I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me. Not quite, not yet” (2002, 372). 2 Yet Briony writes of Robbie that “He would never forgive her. That was the lasting damage” (2002, 234). This comment implies that Robbie’s lack of forgiveness is more significant than Briony’s incapacity to atone. “It was almost conciliatory, that ‘just,’ but not quite, not yet.” After their (imagined) discussion, Robbie says “Just do all the things we’ve asked.” But Briony does not do those things, which she could have done; instead she writes a novel. She makes a fictional atonement when she

A Dreadful Solitude

107

could have made a real atonement by admitting her lie and having Robbie exonerated, even though Robbie and Cecelia are dead. In the last section of the book we see that the actual rapist is unaffected and the victim is still married to her rapist. Briony herself is surrounded by family and happy. 3 The novel, while called Atonement, arguably demonstrates several of the difficulties of atonement: the absence of the victims in many cases, and as I shall discuss further on, the reluctance of the wrongdoers to atone. In real life, the very worst atrocities and political violence always involve the loss of victims, who cannot be atoned to. Then the survivors may have no wish to receive atonement from perpetrators they despise. Jean Améry, in his essay “Resentments” describes this view and experience well. He refers to himself as one of “the victims of Nazism” (1980, 63) and argues for the holding of resentment. He rejects the jus talionis (an eye for an eye) Beauvoir advocates and claims “It can be a matter neither of revenge on the one side nor of a problematic atonement, which has only theological meaning and therefore is not relevant for me, on the other” (1980, 77). 4 His resentment should be met with self-mistrust by those guilty of taking part in or turning a blind eye to Nazi atrocities. Likewise, Vladimir Jankélévitch, who in “Pardonner?” (“Should We Pardon Them?”) argues that the Shoah is inexpiable, also advocates a refusal of reparations: “We say to the Germans, keep your indemnities, crime doesn’t pay. There are no damages that can compensate us for the execution of six million; there are no reparations for the irreparable. We don’t want your money. Your marks horrify us” (1996, 571). He has a great deal more to say on this issue. What is significant for us here is the coherence and vehemence that is opposed to material atonement on the grounds that it is incommensurable with the wrong and that there is an insult in even offering it. 5 A principled rejection of what might appear to be an essential part of atonement presents another obstacle, at least, to the possibility of atonement. There is also an argument that we cannot ever atone for wrongs that we have done, whether they are extreme or not, and regardless of the attitudes of the victims. That is the problem of atonement I explore in the next section. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF ATONEMENT In The Bad Conscience (2015), Jankélévitch explores the experience of remorse for a wrong done. 6 He provides an intense phenomenological description of the pain of remorse, a description implying that this is the proper response to extreme wrongs. His account of remorse ties it very closely to morality and the conscience and so provides a more fine-grained interpretation of moral experience than guilt and shame, connected to recognition of wrongdoing and responses to perceptions of others, as I discussed in chapter

108

Chapter 6

3. The other important contribution of his account of remorse is that he explains the genuineness of a remorse that is concerned with genuinely making up for what we have done wrong, rather than having our wrong set aside by others. Jankélévitch’s description allows us to understand how difficult atonement is, even for those who acknowledge their offenses. For him, we can undo the consequences of an act or deed, but we cannot undo the action we have committed. The only way to overcome remorse is through a conversion of the will, as Kant recommended, which is expressed in remorse. 7 As is well-known, the French term conscience is ambiguous between conscience and consciousness. On Jankélévitch’s view, the “I” is split into a two-in-one in reflexive consciousness, with one aspect as the subject or spectator and the other as object or spectacle (2015, 1, 25). 8 Generally we are split or detached from a part of the mind, but in moral conscience the mind is “fully engaged with both sides at once” (2015, 25). The splitting in the “I” and the concern with the self means that there is a risk of egoism, even when our aim is an ethically worthy one such as attempting to be humble. For Jankélévitch, knowledge is not only discursive; there are other kinds of knowledge, a direct or immediate apprehension of the self, or intuition. In intuitive instants, consciousness becomes one, in examples such as love, humility, heroism, and self-sacrifice (2015, xi, 21). It is the focus on the desires of the self that is the problem in consciously held or cultivated virtues. Andrew Kelley, Jankélévitch’s translator, explains his view thus: “An intentional humility, an intentional courage, or an intentional charity, moments in which a person knows herself as humble and courageous, are no longer pure humility or pure courage because the person is— literally—concerned with or about herself, how she is, and how she looks; all of these entail an element of self-interestedness” (2015, xiii). 9 Jankélévitch also contends that moral theories of merit see morality as transactional, as they do not understand the person as a whole. 10 He notes that attempts to make amends often calculate in this way. For him it is impossible to buy back (rachat) (2015, 120). Jankélévitch’s account of morality is one that links it with emotion, going beyond reason; he writes “Morality . . . is not irrational but rather suprarational; it is more than reason” (2015, 9). Our temporal experience is characterized by irreversibility, and this is at the basis of remorse, he argues. We cannot reverse, and nor can we repeat or redo what we have done (2015, 49, 54). 11 When we say we are doing something again, such as returning on a journey, we are really doing something new. Our action is like the notes of a melody that have a completely different effect if reversed (2015, 50). The impossibility of undoing what we have done is irrevocability, and the “having-been” is irreparable, just as Camus and Derrida argue that the death penalty is irreparable (2015, 51, 54). Irreversibility torments us with anguish,

A Dreadful Solitude

109

while irrevocability torments us with obsession, corresponding to the horrors of death and hell respectively (2015, 55). Even if we can make up for the consequences the action still has been done. Even the Nazis could not bring it about that the crime had never been committed. 12 This reference is interesting as this text, and Forgiveness (2005) generally do not discuss the Shoah or the privations Jankélévitch himself suffered in occupied France, where he spent the war years banned from teaching in Toulouse, lecturing on philosophy in cafés (2005, ix). The bad conscience is this all-encompassing remorse (remords), whereas the good conscience is complacency. 13 It is like the poisonous shirt of the centaur Nessus from which Hercules died, Jankélévitch suggests. The bad conscience has “in it two opposite and simultaneous movements: an effort to move away, and a tendency to adhere. This repulsion, thwarted by this belonging; here is all the anxiety of the bad conscience” (2015, 11). For Jankélévitch, the bad conscience is “an exaltation of consciousness in general” (2015, 1), and is bound to a tragic tension, such as for Shakespeare’s Macbeth or Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. But the bad conscience is the occasion of moral pain, “which is an inefficient reflection of the conscience on an event that is too close to our lives” (2015, 14). Jankélévitch sees this suffering as taking over the whole of our consciousness. He stresses the extreme pain of moral suffering, claiming “There is, thus, no consciousness that is absolutely painful but the moral conscience. Every other consciousness is more or less happy or indifferent or consolable” (2015, 20). Jankélévitch describes this bad conscience in haunting language: it is a “condemnation,” it “accuses itself,” “loathes itself,” it suffers from a “dreadful solitude,” a “panicked horror,” “in feeling exposed in the presence of the only witness from whom it cannot hide anything, since this witness is myself” (2015, 25–26). The moral conscience, for Jankélévitch, involves a kind of withdrawal into oneself. His claim is that “moral pain is part of lived experience” (2015, 27). His description can make us wonder to what extent perpetrators of communal violence experience this pain. Some of the Rwandan killers express their feelings in similar ways, for example, Ignace says of his memories of his role in a gruesome massacre: “I had not foreseen that this memory would work at me so viciously” (Hatzfeld 2005, 158). The wrongdoing may be deliberate or an irresponsible, oblivious act, according to Jankélévitch (2015, 30). He distinguishes between action and act: the action is located in the self, the act is the deed or what is done. The act can be made up for, but the action cannot be undone. What matters is the intention, or the “intentional disposition” and whether it is good or bad (2015, 20). This formulation of Jankélévitch’s is too strong, as it cannot just be the intention that matters. Moral luck and the effect of our actions on others must play some role in that a bad intention may not harm others, and a good intention could lead to terrible injury. 14 However, Jankélévitch does not

110

Chapter 6

consider the idea of moral luck per se, although he accepts there are risks in our attempts to be virtuous, or to forgive (2005, 148). The distinctiveness of moral consciousness is shown by the way even neglect or unknowing are felt as irresponsible: “I am not wrong for harming, but I am wrong for being unaware, wrong for being myself” (2015, 30). Jankélévitch calls the consciousness between speculative consciousness and the moral conscience the professional consciousness. Even it has some moral elements, for instance, “a secret honesty that is pleased by remaining anonymous” is like absurd charity or grace (2015, 30). The moral conscience is utterly distinct from intellectual consciousness; it is “‘partial,’ imperative, and painful” (2015, 31). The moral conscience has scruples and is sensitive to features of experience many are oblivious to. “The conscience,” for Jankélévitch, “is the invincible aversion that certain ways of living inspire us to feel or act; it is an imprescriptible repugnance, a type of sacred horror” (2015, 33). He identifies remorse and the bad conscience, which is not a response to an external law: “It is the crime itself that is our torture” (2015, 37). 15 Furthermore, the crime affects moral law, undermining its purity and evidentness, reducing hope among human beings, and making life less valuable. Jankélévitch’s account goes to the heart of our comprehension of the legacy of political violence, describing how everyone and their perception of the solidity of moral law are affected. Conscience is a kind of latent sanction that reveals itself after an unjust action, telling us “what should have been done” (2015, 40). 16 Jankélévitch distinguishes conscience from a “moral sense” by this post-facto feature. Conscience appears to resemble a moral sense when we anticipate and contemplate the bad deed. Remorse has to be distinguished from nostalgia and regret, as they involve a desire to relive something from the past, whereas remorse means the painful sensation of not being able to undo what we have done. 17 For him, regret is a form of desire, for something past, although that aspect makes them dissymmetrical; regret is “but a timid remorse” (2015, 45). The pain of remorse is all-enveloping and consuming, taking over our lives. 18 In his minute description of remorse, Jankélévitch isolates its phenomenological character of gnawing, burning, haunting, as the feeling of “sinning continually” and reliving the past (2015, 44). Some of the perpetrators of violence can feel this remorse, but not all do. Jankélévitch notes that Nietzsche is “brutal and superficial” in referring to the bad conscience as “reactive” (2015, 27). He refers to “reductionist genealogies” of morality and contends that bad conscience brings something completely new to regret, in that “bad conscience itself spontaneously blames itself” (2015, 46). 19 Equally, Jankélévitch maintains that naturalist and evolutionist accounts of morality fail to see how original and positive the bad conscience is. In relation to time, while remorse concerns a past action, the experience of pain is fully present (2015, 47). The person haunted by the

A Dreadful Solitude

111

irrevocable action has the unsolvable problem to “erase the unerasable, to repair the irreparable, to remedy the irremediable, and by means of this impossible exploit, to unfreeze the slowing-down of becoming” (2015, 55). Jankélévitch argues that we can undo the consequences of our act, but we cannot undo the action itself: “if the misdeed itself is repressed into what is non-actual, even if this would only be because all the consequences are reparable and all its traces are erasable, the fact of having committed it, itself, is incurable, unforgettable, and dependent on a free initiative of our responsibility; the act is bygone, but the action which is to the act like the intention is to the work . . . the action is the imperishable and incurable element of remorse” (2015, 56). The action is inexpiable, whereas the act is expiable. However, this aspect of Jankélévitch’s view is questionable, as I will argue. Remorse is linked to two pasts of lost innocence, one of a drive to the future that makes the present into the having passed (the time that everyone experiences) and a “supplemental time,” the effects of an action that ruins our past innocence (2015, 57). As he says, “There is nothing in the world that scares us as much as the inexpiable: this panic is a type of metaphysical terror” (2015, 89). The irreversibility of time passing is inevitable, but it takes an “egotistical or wicked” action to add the irrevocable. The irreversible is the condition of the irrevocable. This view is in contrast to that of Hannah Arendt, who in The Human Condition contends that we cannot undo our actions, or their consequences, we can only stop the endless chain of consequences continuing on (1998, 237). This is a way to see ethical restoration as an arrest of these endless consequences. Like Arendt’s view of forgiveness, however, Jankélévitch speaks in terms of a “supernatural miracle” needed to undo the irreversible (2015, 57). 20 Nevertheless, he is concerned with repair, and asks whether a gesture of grace may have some effect on the irrevocable (2015, 62). This possibility of repair is linked to the significance of atonement. In his consideration of repair, Jankélévitch notes the irreplaceability of lost innocence, and the strength of the desire to replace and to relive a life without the irrevocable action. Likewise, in relation to forgiveness, he discusses the death of the irreplaceable and the Hapax of the event of having done wrong (2005, 43). 21 Full overcoming of the deed cannot occur, he contends: “For if so as to annul the factum, that is, the thing done, to repair the harm, to pay back the damages, an energetic washing, meticulous lustrations, and a well-conducted expiation suffice, then a miracle is necessary to nihilize the ‘fecisse,’ [the deed done] which is the indelible instant of the intention; at the heart and at the origin of the ‘fecisse,’ is there not a fugitive but unerasable fiat, the decision announced by a freedom, the lightning-likeinitiative forever inscribed in our temporal and unintelligible definition of a moral agent?” (2015, 61). Only a miracle can atone or expiate the wrong action. It is this impossibility that for him creates a “mad desire” (2015, 63).

112

Chapter 6

However, the irrevocability and punishment of remorse itself seems unjust, Andrew Kelley contends, which Jankélévitch also accepts (Kelley, in Jankélévitch, 2015, xv, 94). This is the point that I have stressed in my examination of the death penalty and humiliating punishments. Remorse is purposeless and cruel, and disproportionate to the action (2015, 94, 98). Jankélévitch faults many moral theories and religions for trying to console us for remorse, through repenting, for example, when the wrong cannot be undone and it is part of who we are (2015, 66–84). 22 For this reason, he spurns easy repenting as an attempt to render irreparability solvable and solved. 23 Instead, Jankélévitch provides us in language both poetic and stark the impossibility of atonement and the pain of remorse. One of the problems that lies in our responses to our wrongdoing is not feeling this remorse enough or at all, the problem of the unrepentant. Yet what he is doing is describing what it is like to experience genuine remorse. In that case, because we have caused the remorse, we are in a tragic situation: “for the essence of tragedy is contradiction, the insoluble and irreconcilable coincidence of an impossibility and a necessity” (2015, 100). Remorse is a despairing focus on an act that cannot be undone, as Jankélévitch insists: “What is tragic in remorse resides in the fact that I myself am the artisan of this impossibility” (2015, 43). Yet even his gloomy prognosis may be too optimistic, in that he believes we can overcome and atone for the consequences of our deeds or acts, but not the action. 24 Yet surely many consequences of acts, particularly those extreme acts I am concerned with here, cannot fully be made up for or compensated for? The consequences of acts of occupation, genocide, and historical injustice have legacies that go down the generations, and are extremely difficult to arrest or even ameliorate. A further problem arises with situations where offenders are unrepentant or lack remorse. UNREPENTANT OFFENDERS What if those responsible for the large-scale and extreme wrongs of communal violence—institutions, groups or individuals, do not care and are not sorry? Relying on offenders to feel repentant can mean that the wrong goes unatoned for, so the community has an obligation to atone and to change the climate in such a way that the wrongdoers may come to acknowledge their wrong. One example is the pressure different governments have put on Turkey to recognize the genocide of Armenians in 1915. Another is Russia’s belated recognition of its massacre of Polish officers in World War II in 1940, known as the Katyn massacre. The truth was denied until 1990, when Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged the crime, although the Soviet government refused to categorize it as a war crime, an act of genocide, or an act of Stalinist repression, so claimed no further accountability was

A Dreadful Solitude

113

required. Vladimir Putin, Russian president, has commemorated Katyn, and expressed regret and contrition, but did not apologize or offer compensation or full disclosure. The film, Katyn (Wajda 2007), dramatizes the full horror of the massacre. Likewise, history offers many examples of unrepentant offenders. Many of the perpetrators of the worst crimes of the Shoah committed suicide or fled rather than face punishment, let alone considering atoning. Many were indifferent to their deeds, as Claude Lanzman’s film Shoah (1985) shows. In Rwanda, numerous killers signed pro forma confessions and apologies without exhibiting remorse, as I described in the preceding chapter. In Australia, acts of atonement for the oppression of indigenous people, or proper acknowledgment of that history, are relatively rare, although the 2008 federal Government apology to the Stolen Generations is an important one, and I examine other steps that have been taken to atone in the next chapter. A notable demonstration of the effects of impunity on perpetrators is depicted in the film The Act of Killing (Oppenheimer 2012). It concerns the murder of hundreds of thousands of communists or suspected communists in Indonesia in 1965–1966. The torturers and killers of the communists are largely unrepentant, and are hailed as heroes in Indonesia. In the film, the perpetrators are encouraged to reenact their crimes in the film genre of their choice. The Act of Killing (2012) shows one of the perpetrators having some experience of remorse: he asks, “Have I sinned?” and says “I know I have done wrong,” but he immediately adds that he “had to do it.” This lack of repentance or remorse makes atonement especially difficult, and as another offender says in the film, “There is no reconciliation, there can be no reconciliation.” The film itself can be understood as an attempt at atonement in spite of the attitudes of the perpetrators, and may even lead to real steps to atone, since millions of Indonesians have seen it, and responded with concern to the killings (Bjerregaard 2014). Furthermore, the film has raised international awareness both of the killings and of the lack of redress after fifty years. 25 The follow-up film, The Look of Silence (2014), takes this process further by considering how the survivors might confront the killers and build relationships with the next generation, the children of the killers. It may be that an outsider like the director of the films, Joshua Oppenheimer, has a better chance to raise these concerns about impunity, especially considering the real danger and threat to life of raising them within Indonesia. The Indonesian crew had to remain anonymous on both films’ credits, and the Indonesian survivor who interviewed the perpetrators in The Look of Silence (2014) Adi Rukun, risked his life to participate in the film. Atonement can often, and often must, be undertaken by someone who is not guilty, as I will explain in the following chapter. The fundamental point here is that the impossibility of (full) atonement does not reduce our responsibility to atone. Jankélévitch’s description of remorse is one of the strongest

114

Chapter 6

tests for a complacent view of atonement. The lack of someone to receive atonement, the incommensurability of many crimes with atonement, the lack of repentance by perpetrators, all speak against the plausibility of atonement. In addition to Jankélévitch’s view of the problem of undoing an action, are the consequences of the deed or act. Yet taking these challenges seriously is the key to undertaking, or beginning to undertake, genuine atonement. Lisa Tessman maintains that there are many situations where it is impossible for us to fulfill our obligations but nevertheless we still have these moral demands. One of the ways we can understand the possibility of this impossibility is that morality is not always action-guiding (2015, 8). The situations where we are faced with impossible moral demands means that “unavoidable moral failure” occurs (2015, 14). In the case of atonement, we can see that wrongdoing and harm demands that we make up for wrongs that are irreparable, and so we will often, if not always, fail even when we try to atone. CONVERSION OF THE WILL Before considering concepts and acts of atonement in the next chapter I discuss Jankélévitch’s view of how we can undergo an ethical conversion in remorse. As I observed, many perpetrators do not feel remorse for their acts or their intentions, in Jankélévitch’s sense. However, some do, so I wish to consider the experience of moral recovery for the perpetrator. From Bergson, Jankélévitch takes the idea of an “organ-obstacle,” where something can be both a tool and a hindrance, like a constraint or a spring that enables movement (2015, 101). Genuine remorse is like this in being a kind of virtue, since it is a pure felt response to one’s wrongdoing, not calculating on redemption. Jankélévitch calls remorse a prelude to conversion of the will at one point and remorse and shame as proof of that conversion elsewhere; that change makes possible a new future (2015, 47, 115–16). Remorse, regret and shame are all tokens of what Jankélévitch calls “relative success” in life, as it is better to despair than to be cynical. 26 Thus there is hope if we evolve and change ethically, which is necessary for human beings to do. Jankélévitch searches for a third way between “the forgetting that is immoral and the reparation that is impossible” (2015, 110). He maintains that we need a “supernatural power” or conversion of the will to undo the irreversible (2015, 103). Repentance is gradual, while a conversion of the will is radical, or rather the conversion of the will should be prior to repentance, rather than a false penitence that tries to wipe out the past by empty rituals, in his view. 27 Because Jankélévitch does not believe that we are virtuous once and for all, we are not condemned forever by our misdeeds (2015, 111). For him, that is to ascribe to a quantitative logic similar to that of predestination. Similarly,

A Dreadful Solitude

115

the concept of merit suggests notions of credit and payment, and he is attempting to articulate an ethical response to wrong action that is not transactional. In contrast, Jankélévitch asserts, if we have a good will, we may do something miraculous: “Fidelity to oneself is a beautiful thing: but there is a virtue that is perhaps still more rare: it is the consent to evolve, the courage to recant, in short, that type of humility of which true renegades have such need in order to break themselves from the force of irrevocable decisions” (2015, 113). To be truly faithful to ourselves, we have to be willing to change our minds, to act according to the spirit rather than the letter of morality, and to be heroic and generous. In converting, we must avoid the focus on ridding ourselves of the pain of remorse. Drawing on analogies from biology, Jankélévitch argues for the importance of pain as a key to healing and transformation, referring to a dialectic between suffering and cure (2015, 114–15). The pain of regret, remorse, and shame all testify to our moral conscience. Nevertheless, there must be something more than pain for it to be meaningful and not to become despair; there must be hope of renewal. To explain this possibility, Jankélévitch distinguishes three stages of conversion: remorse, repenting, and penitence (2015, 119). Remorse is the moral pain of the bad conscience and is a sign of conversion, as I have described, and the proper repenting and penitence follows the conversion of the person. The idea of conversion has to be distinct from a making up, or redemption. As he puts it: “It is thus necessary that our sickness heals, but otherwise than via buying back, wages, or magical exchange and compensation; from what would arise reparative, good works, if we were not converted beforehand? and what renders redemption efficacious, if not the very Conversion that initiates it?” (2015, 120). In other words, the processes that make up atonement must be predicated on a change of heart of the perpetrators. That is a problem for forms of atonement undertaken by others concerned, as I will consider. Jankélévitch argues that a grace or contingent change of the will is needed and this grace is painful remorse itself. He further suggests that the change is sudden and inexplicable, and can in a fell swoop overcome the wrong (2015, 123). 28 For this conversion to be possible, we must despair in our remorse so that it is not a kind of calculated play for redemption. Jankélévitch does not mean that we can “sit on the couch without working,” as he says, waiting for grace, but that we cannot have a right to it as something that is owed, like a salary (2015, 128). Then there is the second phase of “return,” the repenting, which has two perspectives or moments. The first is a provisional cynicism: “the courageous acceptance of the misdeed, in the frankness of a conscience that does not fear professing its responsibility” (2015, 129). This moment of repenting is linked to expiation, which focuses on the future, where we acknowledge the wrong and consider works and reparation of that wrong. The acknowl-

116

Chapter 6

edgment has to be a sincere one, rather than simply telling everyone about what we have done to get some relief. As one of the Rwandan prisoners told Hatzfeld: “In prison I told my whole truth. It came out freely. Since then, whenever someone asks for it, it flows the same way. Aside from this vile prison life, I have felt calm since I spoke up” (Hatzfeld, 2005, 164). Likewise, repenting is different from a false penitence that relies on such tactics as fasts, donations, or charity work to buy back innocence; rather “repenting is the integration of our misdeed into a totality that is perpetually enlarged, transformed, and deepened” (2015, 133). Here we can see the crux of Jankélévitch’s account of the personal and unique character of our experience of repentance and conversion, a character that is lacking in state-mandated apologies and confessions like those in Rwanda. One of the problems Jankélévitch considers is whether remorse is dangerous in making us feel pain for trivial or inappropriate acts. He addresses this issue by distinguishing between a true and a false remorse, whereby: “True remorse serves to heal sins, and not to magnify peccadillos” (2015, 135). He suggests that a false remorse for a minor transgression may be a form of deception hiding some much more serious misdeed. Another problem he confronts is the idea that we feel remorse in a too general or vague way. Jankélévitch’s response is to note that true remorse is based in having moral concerns that are directed at particular actions (2015, 140). There is some role for forgetting, after we have repented, so that we can enjoy new experiences. Forgiveness may also play a role in the conversion, for him a gratuitous forgiveness of what others have done wrong, and moral forgetting, to forgive something of ourselves, “a most difficult art” (2015, 145). 29 It is an example of grace and graciousness that Jankélévitch is much concerned with. Love “is . . . the soul of virtuous inspiration,” he claims (2015, 7). 30 The two types of forgiveness he discusses in The Bad Conscience are negative forgiveness, which is to excuse evil, and positive forgiveness, which “comes from the heart,” acknowledges the wrong, and is a form of charity or love for the individual. The person suffering from remorse experiencing a “relative purity of the impure is to remain a sincere and suffering bad conscience of the bad impulse and thus to merit a forgiveness for which it would not have sought” (2015, 165). This idea of forgiveness is very different from the coerced or pressured forgiveness of political reconciliation processes. Nevertheless, Jankélévitch’s articulation of these moral experiences suggest what can be aimed for in a truly ethical restoration following periods of injustice and serious harms in communities. In contrast to our focus on the past in remorse and on the future in duty, he sees intention as fully in the present (2015, 155). The intention is seen in the act of giving of generosity or love. This giving is spontaneous and originary. Furthermore, the person of good conscience is one who is confident, and willing to take risks (2015, 160). According to Jankélévitch, a person can become of good conscience

A Dreadful Solitude

117

after going through remorse, and experience a spontaneous joy (2015, 171). He ends his book on an optimistic note, saying that “there is room for true consolation, which, like sacrifice, finds a solution in the very assumption of that which is irreparable” (2015, 172). It is that assumption of true remorse that will make atonement possible. Jankélévitch’s account provides us with an understanding of the phenomenological experience of remorse and its overcoming, a way of thinking about a possible first-person experience of perpetrators. A possibility that he does not discuss is that of a remorse that cannot and should not be overcome, a wound that never heals. 31 What I will focus on now is one account of what Jankélévitch would call the acts of atonement, or how it is possible to make amends, in particular for extreme and large-scale violence and oppression. One of the few works focusing on this specific issue is by Margaret Urban Walker. MAKING AMENDS Walker has a chapter of her book Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing (2006) devoted to atonement called “Making Amends.” She describes moral repair itself as “creating or restoring confidence in shared moral standards, trust in our responsiveness to them and responsibility under them, and hope that our confidence and trust are not misplaced” (2006, 191–92). I am taking her concept of “making amends” as roughly equivalent to a secular notion of atonement, attempting to make up or respond to having done wrong by the perpetrator or as we will see, the wider community. Clearly, the stated goals of developing hope, trust, and confidence in shared moral standards are worthy ethical ones. What I find is neglected in Walker’s approach, however, as I will describe, is a realization of the deep difficulty of atonement, the specificity of distinct circumstances of atonement, and of the asymmetrical noncalculative features of atonement. An understanding of all these features are essential to understanding and undertaking genuine atonement. Making amends is defined by Walker as “intentionally reparative actions by parties who acknowledge responsibility for wrong, and whose reparative actions are intended to redress that wrong” (2006, 191). The minimal conditions for settings things right, she argues, is to accept responsibility for actions and their consequences, to acknowledge the wrong, harm, or offense (2006, 191). She also adds that this kind of amends must be recognized as something that is owed. In relation to this characterization, while it seems reasonable to consider atonement as owed to the victim, it sets up the idea of debt and owing that both Jankélévitch (2015, 120) and Linda Radzik, whose theory of atonement I discuss in the following chapter, 32 are critical of, and so raises a problem. The problem is that this approach makes ethical atone-

118

Chapter 6

ment a kind of transaction between the perpetrator and victim or survivor. Walker’s understanding of the difficulties of atonement is in some ways realistic, as she notes the commonness of denial of responsibility, and the gap between many extreme and large-scale injustices and the everyday way that we tend to go about moral repair. The examples of large-scale violence she considers are entirely apposite: the Srebrenica massacre, the Rwandan genocide, and Pinochet’s regime of torture and killing in Chile between 1973 and 1990. Walker observes, as is well-known, that “Those involved typically deny responsibility. They say that it didn’t happen, or that they knew nothing about it. Or they say that it happened, but that they were not involved or that they were involved but someone else was responsible for it. Or they explain that what happened was really something other than that of which they are accused. Or they say that they did what is claimed, but that it was justified, not wrong” (2006, 194). She considers whether this denial is typical in less serious cases, where perpetrators and victims meet, and finds some empirical research suggesting that it is not as common, and also that some kinds of excuses are often accepted. These findings suggest that there are important differences between minor and large-scale cases that need to be faced, and I argue that confronting the distinctiveness of large-scale political violence is crucial to constructing any conceptual or practical solutions. In conceiving the conditions that are more likely to lead to the making of amends, Walker understands the perpetrator as needing incentives to pursue that route: “Favorable circumstances for seeking to make amends are ones in which a path is visible to the wrongdoer that leads through amends to renewed good standing, and in which there is some incentive to take that path, especially the incentive of regaining a valued relationship or being released from the bad opinion or punitive responses of others” (2006, 195). This way of putting the matter is probably correct, in that in practical situations, perpetrators will not be interested in participating in atonement processes unless there is something in it for them, such as reduced prison sentences for genocidaires, 33 and some of the incentives Walker refers to are themselves ethical, such as wanting to regain a valued relationship. My concern is that conceiving atonement in these terms is to focus only on outward behavior and to see the experience as transactional and calculative, thus missing the idea of an ethical transformation or the wish to atone because one has done wrong, out of the kind of remorse Jankélévitch describes, or concern for the victims and survivors, not in order to receive some benefit. Walker’s hypothesis is that people are more likely to act in reparative ways such as to apologize or make amends when they believe such actions will be effective (2006, 195). She also uses the language of commerce, of settling accounts, and of transactions to describe making amends (2006, 196). Again, the problem with this view is that it appears to accept that the point of atonement is to receive something in return for acts of atonement,

A Dreadful Solitude

119

rather than understanding atonement as an acknowledgment of the wrong and attentiveness to the victim. In contrast, one of the virtues of Walker’s view of atonement is her focus on the performative aspect, or gestures of apology and recognition that are central to atonement (2006, 197). She points to the gap between our ordinary acts of repair that occur in relatively stable contexts and aim at restoring the status quo in situations where extreme violence has occurred; then repair will be “arduous, uncertain, puzzling and ineffective.” Nevertheless, these difficulties in no way diminish our obligations, as “We most need to attempt and succeed at repair where avoidable harm is severe, the suffering caused by wrongdoing is great, and the actions that cause harm are inexcusable” (2006, 198). On this point, I am in agreement as serious examples are those of the greatest need for atonement. Yet we need to take greater care in theorizing atonement so that it is relevant to extreme cases, as I explain in the next section. ATONEMENT: ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY How should we understand the relation between “ordinary” atonement and extraordinary atonement, in the most extreme cases? Walker suggests we look at the basic cases and build up from them to the more extreme cases. However, if we look at forgiveness, for example, in ordinary cases we see it is relatively easy to fully atone for wrongs done and to be forgiven. Yet in the most extreme cases, atonement is impossible and is often not attempted, or some other political approach needs to be taken or combined with atonement. So the relation between the two cannot be seen as a simple bottom-up approach from the minor to the major—there is a serious ethical gap between them. The key to repair, Walker contends, is accountability, or “to be required to give an account of yourself and to have to settle accounts with others through admission, elaboration, explanation, justification, excuse, amends, and assurances concerning what you have done” (2006, 199). This issue of accountability is certainly a reasonable place to begin, although, as she notes, in the most extreme cases, admission of wrongs by the perpetrators is the first hurdle to atonement. Likewise, Walker’s characterization of amends or atonement as something “that will be recognized as well-intentioned and proportionate even if it is symbolic” is suggestive, although the question of proportion is challenged in the case of political violence and atrocities (2006, 200). Often, any form of atonement, whether that is seen as the need for punishment, apology or amends, is necessarily not proportionate to the worst kind of harms. Yet her conception of the process of making amends is explicitly transactional, as I noted, in arguing that making amends is strengthened

120

Chapter 6

by an expectation or hope that acceptance of accountability “will be rewarded ” (Walker’s italics) (2006, 201). It is this search for reward that is questioned by Jankélévitch and Derrida, for instance, and it is this search for reward that seems so askew as a response after committing an act of genocide, raping someone, or a history of historical injustice. And it is more askew in these extreme cases than in minor cases such as in mediation after a theft. Walker does not go so far as to say victims must reward perpetrators with amnesty or forgiveness, but the problem I see is in the very focus on rewards and returns, as it does not acknowledge the significance of harms. 34 A range of disincentives to making amends is noted by Walker, such as the risk of failure or fear of exposure. Likewise, there is the problem of wrongdoers who feel contempt, indifference, and even hostility toward their former victims or the oppressed, all too common in cases of political violence and historical injustice. She also observes that trying to make amends is difficult in the extreme cases, since it could be a sign of self-interest, and the needed trust and hopefulness may be lacking (2006, 203–4). So Walker is aware of the moral difficulty of attempting atonement in “hard cases” and even implies that the meaningfulness of amends in irreparable cases is questionable (2006, 206). However, I argue that a framework such as hers that tries to build up our response in extreme and large-scale cases from the trivial ones leads her astray in spite of her insights into the challenges of atonement for the worst of crimes. This issue becomes clearer in Walker’s discussion of specific examples of restorative and transitional justice. RESTORATIVE AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE To highlight the difficulties of “hard cases” Walker examines what she calls “restorative justice,” a concept that is often used more narrowly for criminal and civil law processes of mediation, but she expands to include transitional justice, such as that of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Again, this approach illustrates a tendency not to recognize the distinctiveness of historical injustice and mass atrocities from individual criminal and civil cases, and the need for a distinctive response. Often that is also true of particular cases—responses in Rwanda differ and should do so from those in South Africa, and so they should for each country after conflict and violence. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, for instance, have to be adapted when they are held in East Timor or the Solomon Islands, and some countries may reasonably reject such an approach altogether. Some of the main ideas of restorative justice broadly speaking involve reparation and healing for the victim, and reintegration of the offenders into the community (2006, 207–9). Walker accepts that such restoration is sometimes neither possible nor desirable and also that sometimes the most that can be hoped for

A Dreadful Solitude

121

is a skeptical coexistence, such as is the case for many in contemporary Rwanda. Nevertheless, Walker allows that the least that is expected from perpetrators is acknowledgment of the harm to the victims and of the warrantedness of their understanding of the wrong. Further, she also concedes that there may be no previous ethical state to restore, and that what is aimed at is a movement of “becoming morally adequate” (2006, 209). What is needed for that moral adequacy is a level of trust, confidence in shared ethical standards and thus hope for the future. Restorative justice adds symbolic and gestural amends to compensatory justice, and concern with victims to retributive justice, and can work with both of these other kinds of justice, according to Walker (2006, 2010–2011). Distinctive of restorative justice is the performative aspect, where respectful relations between victims, perpetrators, and the community are enacted in the context of the proceedings. Both the perpetrators and the wider community have obligations to make amends, a central point in Walker’s argument that I strongly support. And sometimes restorative justice of some kind is necessary for practical reasons, when there are many thousands of perpetrators, as in the case of the Rwandan genocide. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is accurately described by Walker as involving revealing of information, and at times making apologies and expressing remorse in exchange for amnesties for crimes committed under the apartheid regime. While the TRC model reflects the notion of exchange central to Walker’s conception of making amends, she observes that expressions of remorse and apologies were not a demanded feature of that exchange. The concept of forgiveness is also understood by her on this model: “While forgiveness is never obligatory, and no victim should feel pressured to forgive, restorative justice creates a space where the familiar transaction of apology and forgiveness may be attempted and sometimes completed, even in cases where wrongs are deeply serious” (2006, 217). The idea of apology and forgiveness as a transaction is one that plays an important role in transitional justice, especially in Rwanda, as we saw with state-mandated apologies and forgiveness, so the strains of conceiving it in this manner should be heeded. Rhetoric surrounding the South African TRC also made many survivors feel pressured to offer forgiveness, even if this was not an explicit demand. 35 A further problem with a transactional conception of atonement is the refusal of perpetrators to make even the minimal acknowledgment of the wrong. Communities often have to take up the responsibility of atonement when the “responsible individuals are unrepentant or contemptuous,” as Walker notes (2006, 218), a serious difficulty in many cases of atrocities. She also makes the stronger point that “The community has the role of reiterating standards and demanding a reparative response whether or not those who wrongfully harm are present, able, responsive, or responsible” (2006, 222).

122

Chapter 6

What she means is that community always has a basic role to uphold and enforce ethical norms, and then when the perpetrators do not or cannot atone, the community has to step in. So let’s look at the case of black redress that Walker examines. REDRESS IN THE UNITED STATES The principal historical example Walker focuses on is the issue of “black redress” for the history and legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination against African Americans in the United States. As she points out, the past harms of slavery and segregation shape the present, including people’s perspectives and emotions, and are often perpetuated and renewed. Police shootings of unarmed African American men, or the death of Black Lives Matter activist Sandra Bland in police custody after a traffic ticket in 2015 are obvious examples. 36 For Walker, communities can be both the victims of harm or responsible in some way for making amends. When the community takes responsibility it can make up to some extent for the absence or indifference of individual offenders (2006, 222). In the case of historical injustice, many different communities at different levels can work to atone and to encourage others to do so. Attempts to provide redress include those of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project (North Carolina), and prosecution of racially motivated murders from the civil rights period (2006, 224). An important feature of Walker’s view is the scope for practices of restoration to change attitudes; for instance, in the case of white American attitudes to the idea of black redress, she argues that the prevailing attitude is one of “normative contempt” (2006, 226). Here she sees this attitude as typical of the group, and consisting of a mixture of or ambivalence between indifference and hostility. However, this kind of contempt can easily become hostile and aggressive when people with these attitudes have their responsibility for oppression drawn to their attention. Rather pessimistically, Walker believes that a state of minimal mutual trust between black and white Americans is still a “remote possibility” (2006, 227). What kinds of things constitute making amends? Walker notes that perpetrators of serious wrongs have obligations to make amends through “explanation, apology, amends, and reassurance” (2006, 207). When she turns to the question of making amends for historical and large scale injustices, she adds documentation, memorialization, legislation and education (2006, 219). These additions point to an important feature of atonement in relation to political violence that may have occurred in the past: often conventional, practical, forms of restitution for the victims and survivors are not possible and we must turn to more symbolic alternatives. Another possibility is for

A Dreadful Solitude

123

companies and governments to make compensation payments. Walker’s argument is that restorative practices of truth-telling, education, and apology, for example, are necessary to both make possible and provide an appropriate context for monetary compensation (2006, 228). In 2005, the United States Senate passed an apology for not legislating against lynching much earlier (2006, 226) and Congress apologized for slavery and the Jim Crow era in 2008. 37 Congress also apologized for the treatment of Native Americans, but it was attached to a defense appropriations spending bill and not widely publicized, thus undermining its value as an apology (Capriciosso 2010). The kind of restorative actions that need to be carried out, Walker suggests, “include attempts to uncover and preserve the truth, to enunciate wrongs and the obligations they create, to educate about the past and its role in our present and future, to acknowledge the terrible suffering, humiliation, and grinding loss of an enslaved and then subjected minority, to affirm the dignity, creativity, and resiliency of people under severe and unjust conditions, to apologize where apology is due, to celebrate our moral growth as individuals and citizens who are competent at the business of justice” (2006, 228). These ideas give the basic form of restorative practices that can be carried out in a range of ways. More recently, the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, has taken on the task of documenting and memorializing slave markets and the almost four thousand lynchings that were carried out in a dozen southern US states between 1877 and 1950 (Robertson 2015). A variety of practices of these kinds would be needed to develop trust between black and white Americans and hope in the future. In Elizabeth Spelman’s review of Moral Repair, she argues that more detail is needed to see how confidence, hope, and trust could be developed, and an account of restorative justice in this case should also examine basic structural conditions of the lives of African Americans, for instance the institutions that sustain racism, such as “the police, the criminal justice system, or uneven access to decent health care and education” (2008, 233). Spelman also notes that while Walker commends Representative John Conyers’s introduction of a bill, H.R. 40, to establish a truth commission to study slavery and discrimination against African Americans and recommend reparations every year since 1989, Walker does not also discuss the resistance to it. And he has now retired without the bill being adopted. There is also a problem in considering the distinction between perpetrators and victims as clear-cut. This issue is said to arise in two ways: either in cases where victims are coerced to take part in the crimes, as in the gray zones of the Sonderkommando and the ghettoes in the Shoah, for example, or where there is no agreement as to who are victims and who are perpetrators in situations of civil war, such as in Northern Ireland, or between Israel and Palestine. The first idea was introduced by Primo Levi in his discussion of

124

Chapter 6

his experiences in Auschwitz (1989, 36–69) and explored by Claudia Card in her account of evils (2010, 56; 2002, 211–34). Johan Brännmark brings up both kinds of examples in his review of Walker’s book. (2008, 171–2) However, I find it confusing to refer to such different kind of cases as both “gray zones” and would prefer to use a term like “co-implicated” instead for the second kind of case. In The Atrocity Paradigm, Card contends that diabolical evil is best understood as corrupting others morally. She defines gray zones more specifically as “to result from choices that are neither gratuitously nor willfully evil but that nevertheless implicate choosers who are themselves victims in perpetrating evils against others who are already also victims, paradigmatically victims of the same evils as the choosers” (2002, 232). Most prisoners in the gray zones of the concentration and extermination camps achieved little more for themselves than the postponement of their own deaths. One of the implications of the concept of gray zones is that the question of responsibility is itself “problematic”—agents seem in some ways responsible, in other ways not (2002, 216). Each situation will have its own nuances. Oppressed people are often subject to pressure, coercion and threats, yet may also make choices to be complicit, not always under threat of death. Furthermore, children are sometimes drawn into conflicts and forced to be soldiers, for example, before they have time to develop their moral sense. Card argues that in addition to themselves being victims of evil, and committing similar acts of evil themselves, those in the gray zones “act under extraordinary stress” (2002, 224). The stress of these situations means that determining accountability is difficult. Moreover, as Brännmark suggests, moral repair and atonement in gray zone or co-implicated cases is likely to be different from that in the more clear-cut cases. For instance, the first step of acknowledging wrongs will itself be fraught with difficulty, and the experiences of being both victim and perpetrator at once will be complex and mutually affecting (2008, 172). Walker’s passionate description of the difficulties in the particular case of black redress that she knows well, and her use of the contrast between “putting on a patch” in ordinary cases of wrongs and “reweaving a moral fabric” belies the structural conceptualization of extreme cases of political violence and atrocities as fundamentally similar to simple, minor cases, when she says: “We must learn to do in the hard cases what we know how to do in the more ordinary instances of human inattention, callousness, anger, or bad judgment” (2006, 229). Where I differ is in my view that we cannot extrapolate from the simple cases but must think afresh how to atone for extreme oppression and violence and I would like to develop that idea further in the next chapter.

A Dreadful Solitude

125

CONCLUSION Along with Derrida, a number of authors have begun to argue that the impossibility of fulfilling an ethical obligation does not reduce its force as an obligation at all. For example, Janna Thompson argues that this is true of apologies for historical injustice, (2010) and Lisa Tessman argues it applies to excessively demanding and conflicting ethical duties (2015). Thus, the impossibility of successful atonement is no reason not to pursue it. Jankélévitch’s description of the pain of remorse poses difficulties for any account of atonement. Nevertheless, the experience of remorse is an indication of the possibility of radical ethical improvement. Considering the problem of unremorseful perpetrators creates another challenge, as does the issues of victims and survivors reluctant to receive or respond to atonement. Yet taking these challenges seriously is the key to undertaking, or beginning to undertake, genuine atonement. All we can do is try to make up for past wrongdoing in a range of crucial ways. While there is much of value in Walker’s view concerning the role of the community in practices of ethical restoration, and the particular practices she recommends, her account, in my judgment, suffers from her commitment to a closed or symmetrical justice, wherein every attempt at making amends is reduced to an exchange that both victim and perpetrator find acceptable. This view is in contrast to Jankélévitch’s: that true remorse does not involve seeking any reward. The other problem I find with Walker’s approach is the idea that our response in the case of irreparable harms is simply an extension of our response in trivial cases, rather than a distinctive set of responses that takes the unique features of these wrongs into account. In the following chapter, I will consider further how we should conceptualize that process of atonement, taking into account the conclusions I drew from the analysis of Walker’s view of how to “make amends,” exploring Linda Radzik’s view of atonement as reconciliation, and examining forms of atonement for injustices committed against indigenous Australians. NOTES 1. Some form of sacrifice, pain, loss, or suffering is also often considered important for atonement. For example, see Linda Radzik (2009, 4, 6, 8, 20, 99, 101) for references to this view. For her, the experience of guilt and remorse are painful and so relevant to that feature of atonement. Furthermore, the sacrifices made in reparations could foster appropriate feelings. 2. The novel implies that Briony never retracted her false statement and told her parents the truth. 3. The film Atonement (2007) alters this idea by idealizing the fictional atonement as if it were sufficient. 4. See Thomas Brudholm (2008) for a detailed discussion and defense of Améry’s position.

126

Chapter 6

5. Andrea Erkenbrecher details how the survivors of the 1944 massacre of Oradour in France Beauvoir refers to did not begin to accept gestures of atonement until 1976, and suggests that “a right to irreconcilability” should be accepted. (2012, 175–77; 197). 6. The Bad Conscience was first published in 1933 and revised for republication in 1951 and 1966. 7. Aaron Looney also notes this Kantian connection in the idea of a rebirth and radical change, although he considers they differ in that Jankélévitch believes conversion is a miracle, whereas Kant accepts only the moral law as a miracle, apart from the starry heavens (2014, 245–46). See Kant (1996b, 6: 46–48). 8. This idea is very similar to Arendt’s view of the two-in-one dialogue of the self, discussed in relation to self-forgiveness in chapter 8 (2003, 184). 9. Jankélévitch’s view here sounds like Bernard Williams’s “one thought too many” criticism of impartial morality (1981, 18) which is not entirely convincing, as we can focus on acting virtuously, without thinking about our own desires to appear virtuous. 10. This transactional view of ethics is a problem with many views of atonement, especially Walker’s (2006), as I discuss further on. 11. Arendt similarly notes the problem of irreversibility in her discussion of forgiveness in The Human Condition (1998, 237). 12. Jankélévitch compares remorse to hate as an attempt to make a metaphysical change in the world. Remorse tries that make it that the act was never done, while hate tries to make it that the person never existed (2015, 62). Sartre argues similarly concerning the structure of hate (2003, 432–34) whereas Beauvoir does not argue for such an extreme view, as we saw. 13. Likewise, Derrida says that we must avoid good conscience (2005, 139). 14. See Bernard Williams for the classic discussion of the role of moral luck (1981), where he argues that morality is not free from luck in that how we see a person’s actions will partly depend on how they “turn out” (1981, 39). 15. In French as in English, remorse is something we have rather than do, different from “to repent” (2015, 85). 16. The pain of remorse, according to Jankélévitch is a kind of “half-adhesion: something that does not succeed at becoming wholly objective nevertheless has stopped belonging to the unconscious of the pure subject” (2015, 64). See Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion, for the idea of conscience as judging both before and after actions (1878, 335, n1), and Kierkegaard on the conscience (1941, 4). 17. Jankélévitch concedes that he may have made the distinction between regret and remorse too sharp, but he then reiterates his view that regret is more dreamlike in comparison (2015, 56.) As Looney notes, Jankélévitch uses Kierkegaard’s categories of the aesthetic for regret, and the ethical for remorse (2014, 240). 18. Lord Jim is a good example of someone suffering such remorse, and I discuss his character in relation to the possibility of self-forgiveness in the final chapter (Conrad 1957). 19. See also (2015, 135, 137, 141, 154, 157–58) for further references to Nietzschean ressentiment and forgetting. 20. The other important aspect of remorse for Jankélévitch is that we could have done otherwise (2015, 107). 21. For references to the Hapax or singular event, or individuality of the person wronged or killed in The Bad Conscience see (2015, 64, 77–80). 22. Repentance and remorse also concern different concepts of time, as one of instants and of continuity, actions and the person (2015, 93). 23. Jankélévitch draws on Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1956), and his distinction between closed justice as a justice of exchange and measuring, and open justice that concerns the incommensurable value of the human (2015, 90–2). An example of closed justice is in codes of honor (2015, 91). 24. Jankélévitch compares this being able to undo what one has done, but not the fact of having done, with the sorcerer’s apprentice who cannot remember the spell that will stop the brooms from collecting water (2015, 102, 104). Arendt uses the poem to express the miracle of forgiveness (1998, 237). He poses the problem of remorse and she presents the solution of forgiveness, as I explain in chapter 8.

A Dreadful Solitude

127

25. The fifty-year anniversary in 2015 drew more international attention to the atrocities. 26. Shame, for Jankélévitch, is concerned with negating being itself (2015, 55). 27. Jankélévitch refers to the change of heart as “resipiscence” (2015, 85) and to Léon Brunschvicg’s discussion of Kantian “Übergang” (conversion) (2015, 120, n. 40). 28. In Forgiveness, Jankélévitch says that grace may redeem remorse, as long as it is not expected and the remorse is not feigned (2005, 120–21). 29. Jankélévitch observes that the “monstrosity” of remorse is matched by the “immensity” of forgiveness (2015, 126). 30. Love of the other is not the love of “an other myself,” Jankélévitch points out (2015, 8). 31. I will discuss that possibility in the last chapter on self-forgiveness. 32. Radzik argues that the suffering or self-punishment of retribution should not be considered a good for the victim, and restitution theories incorrectly assume that the goods harmed by wrongdoing are transferable (2009, 26–54). 33. See Hatzfeld, (2005, 199) for a description of this “bargaining for forgiveness” approach. 34. Christopher Bennett makes a related point in characterizing much of Walker’s view as an instrumental approach to reparation, contrasted with an expressive approach concerned with the moral aspects of reparation and the appropriate expression of the recognition of wrongdoing (2009, 219). This appropriate expression may be distinct from what is expected or demanded by victims. 35. See Brudholm and Cushman, ed. (2009, chap. 6). 36. Five times as many young black men as white men of the same age are killed by police, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/counted-us-police-killings. Accessed April 10, 2017. 37. Roy L. Brooks recommends “a museum of slavery and an atonement trust fund” to focus on the harm done to African Americans as a group (2004, 157–63).

Chapter Seven

This Hole in My Heart Acts of Atonement and Post-Colonial Australia

There has always been this hole in my heart with regards to being Australian. And today the speech by the Prime Minister was just so spot-on that it filled that little hole. —Warren Mundine 1 (2008)

What kind of atonement or forms of atonement can contribute to restoring an ethical political community after political violence or oppression? This chapter builds on the accounts of remorse and making amends investigated in the previous chapter and considers how a community can atone for past violence and oppression, in spite of its apparently impossible ethical demands, as discussed in the previous chapter and seen in the contexts examined in this book. I have argued that the fundamental point here is that the impossibility of (full) atonement does not absolve us of responsibility to atone. In the case of atonement, we can see that wrongdoing and harm demands that we make up for wrongs that are irreparable, and so we will often, if not always, fail even when we try to atone. Jankélévitch’s account of the radical conversion of the will and remorse is one of the strongest challenges to any view of atonement as easy or simple (2015). Through a critical discussion of Margaret Urban Walker’s account of making amends in the previous chapter, I argued that we need to recognize the distinctiveness of the specific violence and crimes, the geographical and historical context in which they occurred, and the need for a recognition of the ethical asymmetry between the perpetrators and the victims and survivors. Otherwise we risk imposing practices of atonement that do not consider the unique experience of the victims, burdening them with expectations of or demands for forgiveness of and reconciliation with the offenders, and there129

130

Chapter 7

by compounding the previous harms, as I contended occurred to some extent in post-genocide Rwanda. Let’s consider whether Linda Radzik’s reconciliation account of atonement enables us to overcome the tensions in atonement in relation to communal violence. There are important philosophical contributions in Radzik’s account, including the idea that much harm has a social character and that atonement can and sometimes must be collective, particularly when perpetrators cannot or will not atone. Nevertheless, I argue, in contrast to Radzik, that we need to retain the distinctiveness of the concept of atonement without reducing it to other related concepts such as reconciliation, that ethical transformation must be a central feature of atonement, and that atonement should be primarily concerned with harm to the victims and survivors rather than relationships. Finally, I consider how atonement is conceived and enacted in the Australian context. ATONEMENT AND RECONCILIATION Radzik argues for a reconciliation theory of atonement. Her book, Making Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law, and Politics (2009) is perhaps the first to develop a secular theory of atonement, although atonement is referred to in the context of many discussions of forgiveness, reconciliation, and punishment, sometimes using other related terms such as making amends, expiation, recompense, and restitution. 2 Her book title echoes the title of Walker’s chapter on “Making Amends,” although there are scant references to Walker’s work in the book. 3 Radzik’s aim is “to present a systematic examination and defense of the claims that wrongs can be righted and that amends must be made” (2009, 3). This aim does not acknowledge the problems of the impossibility of righting some wrongs, yet I agree that there is an obligation to make amends, or try to. Her concern is to focus on the response of the wrongdoers, an aspect of responses to crimes that is often neglected in favor of the responses of the victims or the justice system. Radzik does not claim that we can undo the past, but that we can put it behind us, “through apologies, gestures of respect, and acts of self-sacrifice” (2009, 4). 4 The most significant point is that in perpetrating a wrong, we bring upon ourselves a moral obligation that needs to be addressed through voluntary actions, including voluntarily submitting to punishment. What Radzik means is that while authorities can have a right to punish, the acceptance of punishment is another way of making amends, although it could be difficult to determine a person’s motivation for submitting to punishment (2009, 103). Radzik allows that others who did not commit the wrongs themselves can contribute to atonement, and that is one of the ways that impossible atonement can be attempted.

This Hole in My Heart

131

A danger in relation to atonement is that the suffering involved may be too harsh. However, like Jankélévitch and using similar terms, Radzik sees the pain of remorse particularly as central to moral transformation, arguing: “If we are to escape the hell of the irrevocable while remaining morally alive, we must find a way to put the past behind us while also accepting the reality and significance of that past” (2009, 20). There are three conceptions of atonement she lists: “atonement as the repayment of a moral debt, atonement as moral transformation, and atonement as the reconciliation of a relationship” (2009, 21). For Radzik, the reconciliation concept of atonement is the most compelling, a concept that she believes can be understood aside from an exclusively religious context. 5 Similarly to Walker’s view in relation to making amends, she criticizes both these other kinds of theories. 6 Her objection to the moral transformation view is that it does not address the social nature of wrongs (2009, 22). Then debt theories that are retributive ignore the needs of the victim, and restitutive debt theories treat goods and harms as transferable (2009, chapters 2 and 3). One reason for being attracted to a reconciliation theory of atonement in the case of collective atonement is that reconciliation appears a more appropriate conception than moral transformation for thinking about how groups, rather than individuals, could respond to a wrong. Radzik’s understanding of atonement is as reconciliation, so it appears that she has replaced the concept of atonement with the concept of reconciliation. She contends that “A wrongful act distances people from one another. It tears apart social bonds. When past wrongs persist as present threats, people are separated from one another by fear and distrust. If this is the case, then to right the wrong is to repair this rupture. Successful atonement would be a matter of bringing people together again—or reconciliation” (2009, 80). So how does Radzik defend the reconciliation approach to atonement? She intends her theory to capture and combine the useful ideas in theories of atonement concerning retributive self-punishment, compensation and reparation payments, reform of character, and changing the meaning of the past (2009, 76). To articulate her theory, Radzik delineates the nature of wrongs and harms that express a sense of the victims as having lesser value than the wrongdoers, and that damage the “victim’s life, health, property, rights, reputation, or well-being” (2009, 76). These harms are compounded by impunity for the wrongs, as we see in the case of the 1965–1966 Indonesian genocide, and the continuing sense of threat and trauma likely when the wrong is not atoned for. For this reason, “The obligation to atone, then, amounts to an obligation to cease wronging the victim” (2009, 77). Another important step in Radzik’s argument is to focus on how relationships are damaged by wrongdoing: the victims’ self-relationship, relations between others and both victims and perpetrators, and the perpetrators’ relation with themselves. 7 Thinking about wrongdoing in this way implies that

132

Chapter 7

what needs fixing is relationships, and so reconciliation is needed. However, it would not follow that atonement must be understood as reconciliation. Radzik has defined wrongdoing as damaged relationships, and so atonement in the form of reconciliation is posited. Yet, if wrongdoing is not primarily a harm or damage to relationships, as I will argue, then a different form of atonement is needed. Atonement and reconciliation can be understood as two separate, although in some ways overlapping, processes. For instance, a perpetrator could atone directly to a victim, yet that does not mean that a relationship between them is restored or begun and nor should it, necessarily. My concern here is that when the focus is purely on relationships, then both the wrongdoer and victim are not being taken seriously enough. We need to acknowledge their intrinsic value and the harm to victims as mattering independently of harms to relationships. 8 At one point, in Radzik’s criticisms of Margaret Holmgren’s views that offenders should forgive themselves before the victim forgives them, she admits as much: “To wrong another person is to insult, threaten, and harm that particular person.” Radzik then adds “Such wrongs are events that take place in relationships among persons” (2009, 148). These statements imply Radzik knows that wrongs are primarily to people and secondarily to relationships, in spite of her theory. The question of what is fundamental to atonement also arises when there is no preexisting relationship between victim and perpetrator, so the term “relationship” has to be understood in a very broad sense, to include citizens, within individuals, and perhaps even between countries. For the cases I am discussing, there are large differences between the kinds of relationships and sometimes questionable whether there was a relationship at all. 9 In the case of the French post-war purge, people generally would not have had a personal relationship, whereas in Rwanda many people were neighbors, friends, and even family, although not all, and in Australia there were often not preexisting relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous people, or at least not good ones. It could be that the reconciliation model cannot apply to such serious harms, as Radzik acknowledges that in cases of “the most extreme harm” victims and the community might not be responsive to the ways in which wrongdoers change or try to atone (2009, 84). In these cases “the wrongdoer’s ability to make reparation is seriously limited” (2009, 125). In the main, Radzik does not consider serious examples, except for her analysis of the Magdalene Laundries, which I will discuss in the following section. However, she makes the very good point that, for instance, contemporary Germany is considered trustworthy because its response to its Nazi past is a feature of their policy decisions today (2009, 115). Furthermore, Radzik allows that atonement that would harm, such as a child abuser contacting a child they have abused, is not morally permitted (2009, 84). While this caveat makes sense, it is a difficult point to uphold in

This Hole in My Heart

133

post-genocide Rwanda, where victims often have to live and work side-byside with the killers of their loved ones. She concedes that full atonement is not always possible, and so we may have to settle for partial atonement, and this is a significant point—atonement is not an all or nothing act. Nevertheless, thinking of atonement as reconciliation sets up a specific ideal that inspires and guides our action (2009, 84). My argument is that reconciliation is important but distinct from atonement, and that becomes clear as we examine Radzik’s arguments for thinking of atonement as reconciliation more closely. In her account, Radzik accepts that there may not have been a former good relationship to repair, so what is needed as a goal is instead restoring a moral relationship where all the parties see “one another and themselves as equally valuable moral persons” (2009, 81). She distinguishes between moral status, or the autonomous capacity to choose and act morally, and moral standing, or being a person motivated to act rightly. Radzik writes “In order to atone, the wrongdoer must regain the standing he lost through his misdeeds and thereby re-establish a proper relationship to the moral community” (2009, 82). The relationship has to become a civil one, and if the wrongdoer fully atones then the victim has “good reason” to forgive them. There is a difficulty here with the idea of full atoning, as in many of the cases I am concerned with, full atonement is not possible, for a range of reasons. Moreover, Radzik argues that the perpetrator should restore the relationship with the community and between the victim and the community by showing their respect for them. Self-reconciliation for the perpetrator is (rightly) coming to view themselves as someone to be trusted. 10 Looking more closely at the reconciliation theory of atonement, it absorbs the aspects of the moral transformation and the debt views of atonement, as Radzik articulates three subgoals of atonement. They are: the perpetrators morally improving themselves and becoming worthy of trust, communicating a withdrawal of the insult and threat expressed by their crimes(s), and making reparations for the harms they caused (2009, 85). As Radzik notes, while these subgoals mutually support each other, there may be cases where moral improvement is enough (2009, 86–87). Interestingly, she does not suggest that there are cases where communication is enough or reparation is enough. There might be such cases, but they are likely to be trivial ones. Also, none of the subgoals link directly to the idea of reconciliation. Thus, Radzik’s claims here imply that moral transformation or improvement is in fact the most central feature of atonement. Like Jankélévitch, she holds that remorse is an important response to wrongdoing, arguing that remorse “adds a wish to change the past” to guilt as an acknowledgment of a wrong done that is not fully justified or excused (2009, 87). She understands repentance as an emotion as remorse “held specifically with respect to either moral wrongdoing or sin and joined with a commitment to change” (2009,

134

Chapter 7

87). 11 The account of emotions Radzik elaborates is one where emotions of guilt, remorse, and repentance are an aspect of forming the appropriate ethical judgments concerning one’s own behavior, and of the right motivation to reform and change. She also endorses an experience of shame for the perpetrator as an acknowledgment of the community’s moral standards. Generally speaking, this is a perfectly reasonable claim to make; however, given the complications I have explained in chapter 3 concerning shame and humiliation, we need to bear in mind how victims can be afflicted by shame, especially those in the gray zones or witnesses to terrible crimes. 12 The kinds of emotions that are not conducive to atonement, Radzik observes, are self-contempt and hatred, as they may make wrongdoers feel unmotivated to improve. I discuss the difficulties with these emotions for perpetrators in the following chapter on self-forgiveness. One implication of Radzik’s reconciliation theory of atonement is that the victim is expected to be involved with the perpetrator for atonement to be possible: to share their view, to engage with the wrongdoer’s atonement, and so on (2009, 111). The worry about this approach is that it excludes the positions of those like Jankélévitch in “Pardonner?” (1996) and Améry (1980, 62–81) in his discussion of resentment that resists forgiveness, reparations, and engagement with the offenders, discussed in the last chapter. Radzik does concede at one point that resentment can be maintained if it helps the victim to preserve her sense of self-respect, sense of morality and resolve, but must remain private, if the wrongdoer has atoned (2009, 118–19). 13 The other worry Radzik has is that victims could unfairly or unwisely refuse to trust or forgive the culprit (2009, 112). These issues can be concerning, although in the extreme cases I am considering, they are not the first or primary problem. In his review of Radzik’s book, Christopher Bennett suggests that another moral notion, such as redemption, may make it morally appropriate to reconcile with someone after wrongdoing, and notes that “Indeed Radzik herself seems to show some sympathy with this idea, and in Chapter Five declares that redemption is the key notion of her theory” (2011, 166). Strangely, at the beginning of this chapter, Radzik writes “While wrongdoers should pursue forgiveness and reconciliation in atonement, these are no substitutes for atonement” (2009, 112). This comment is particularly odd in a book arguing that atonement is reconciliation, so reconciliation is supposed to be more than a substitute for atonement, it is supposed to be identical with it. Thus, the importance of moral redemption is both explicitly stated and implied. Furthermore, the reason given by Radzik here is that preemptive forgiveness and reconciliation do not redeem the offender. However, reconciliation is supposed to be more important than redemption, which would be an extra outcome after reconciliation–atonement, on her account. Nonetheless, Radzik here claims that “Redemption is the term I have chosen for the proper end

This Hole in My Heart

135

state of responses to wrongdoing” (2009, 113). Redemption is defined at the beginning of the book as involving “some significant kind of improvement in the deserved evaluation of the wrongdoer” (2009, 7). Hence she suggests that the moral transformation view is much closer to her own than previously implied, and that redemption is more significant than reconciliation for her account. Here Radzik also concedes that there are many good reasons why a victim would not want to reconcile with the offender. What the perpetrator might be able to do is redeem themselves so that the community trusts them to some extent. Radzik calls this “moral reconciliation” (2009, 114). Here one can say that then moral reconciliation is redemption, not reconciliation, and it is puzzling to use reconciliation, a term for people coming together, to describe situations where they must be kept apart. Again, Radzik admits here that full moral redemption might not be possible in cases of terrible wrongs where moral reconciliation, trust and esteem cannot be justified (2009, 116). Moreover, she states that “actual reconciliation and forgiveness are not sufficient for redemption” (2009, 119). So reconciliation is not sufficient for redemption, which is the central component of atonement, and thus reconciliation cannot constitute atonement, further suggesting that Radzik is more committed to the redemption view of atonement than the reconciliation view. Another important issue that comes up here is whether victims have a duty to forgive. Radzik argues that in extreme cases, atonement is difficult; in more minor cases, the injured party should be willing to accept that wrongs can be repaired (2009, 125). Or to put the point another way, she believes that victims have duties too. Specifically, her view is that “For a victim to fail to morally reconcile in response to a thoroughgoing atonement, I believe would be to fail to show proper respect for the wrongdoer” (2009, 131). In her review, Cheshire Calhoun considers that such an expectation can overburden victims, and that they should not have to trust wrongdoers, at least on the matter concerning which the wrong was done (2009). Calhoun’s point is well-taken, yet since Radzik restricts her view of forgiveness to “the normal range of moral wrongs that affect most of our lives” (2009, 131) and claims that “moral reconciliation” can involve keeping apart from the wrongdoer, (2009, 114) that might allow for a degree of mistrust even after proper atonement. And they could even fail to forgive, which would be a vice on their part but would not wrong the wrongdoer, according to Radzik (2009, 132). Much of her argument concerning victims’ duties can only be relevant to minor cases. In extreme cases, the victim’s choice whether to forgive would be the most important consideration, as I have argued in chapter 5. At the end of her discussion of forgiveness and redemption, Radzik briefly considers extreme examples of harm. On this subject, she says of atonement: “it could be that the wrong was so severe or so horrifying that the very idea of reparation makes no sense, and no fitting apology could be expressed, yet the wrongdoer has undergone such a dramatic internal transformation that

136

Chapter 7

we are tempted to say that she is a new person” (2009, 150). So in these extreme cases moral transformation is thought to be the best way to understand atonement as other forms of atonement are not possible. Furthermore, Radzik grants that sometimes it is not enough for the offender to do their best, and they cannot be trusted, when relationships are wrecked “beyond repair” (2009, 151). She concludes that each case should be examined in detail, a view that I support, and that is borne out by her discussion of the Magdalene Laundries at the end of her book. Atonement, and all its components can come in degrees, she contends. This point is important, yet the idea of a degree of atonement or partial atonement then needs to be linked to symbolic forms of atonement so we can get a fuller picture of atonement beyond reconciliation, and more of a sense of the process of atonement. So we should look at her examination of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, which frames her book, as it begins with a discussion of the false “atonement” imposed on women in Ireland and ends with the question of collective atonement for that treatment. THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES Radzik concludes her book with a focus on collective responsibility and collective compensation for victims of past injustices. 14 She is not focused on political violence or oppression specifically. However, her discussion of the Magdalene Laundries, also known as “asylums” run by the Catholic church in Ireland, where thousands of women were deprived of liberty, abused, exploited, and humiliated over two hundred years, as an example where collective atonement is needed, touches on some of the crucial issues of historical injustice (2009, 176, 178). 15 Women considered to have sexually transgressed had their children taken from them and were subjected to hard unpaid labor in the church’s laundries, sometimes for life, with the collusion of the church, their families, and the state. What was done was a form of slavery. The collective in this case is the group held responsible for those injustices, which may be the state, or in the case of the “asylums,” the Catholic church. Radzik argues that “an ethic of atonement need not be oppressive” (2009, 177). One of the odd things about the book is the extremity of this main case and the triviality of most of the examples she discusses throughout the book to develop her analysis, including the example of someone being splashed by mud by a passing car, used to try and establish the crucial point that atonement always involves relationships (2009, 79–80). 16 The question Radzik is asking is “not what corrective responses might be compelled from wrongdoers but what they ought voluntarily to do in response to wrongs” (2009, 177). Her idea is that the conception of atonement she is using is not oppressive, like that imposed on the Magdalene women by

This Hole in My Heart

137

the church. Since this conception concerns voluntary actions only, it is difficult to see how it could be, unless any ethical expectations of offenders toward victims of past injustices are considered oppressive. As Radzik observes, one practical problem in speaking of atonement here is that the church has been defensive, and some orders have refused to apologize for their cruel treatment of the women. Another problem that a reconciliation theory of atonement, with its goal of “the moral reconciliation of victims, wrongdoers, and involved communities,” (2009, 183) confronts is that the victims may not desire gestures of atonement from the perpetrators. This is the problem that Jankélévitch and Améry alert us to. One way that Radzik approaches that issue is by focusing on atonement as the rebuilding of trust and attempting to repair the damage done. There is an interesting question here concerning whether atonement is rebuilding trust, whether trust is needed before atonement can be accepted, or whether atonement is necessary for trust to begin. I contend that, following my discussion of trust in chapter 4, the last is the most compelling conception of the relationship between atonement and trust, and argue that atonement will often have to start from a place where there is profound distrust by the victims and survivors of both the perpetrators and the wider community. One of the points that Radzik’s analysis draws out is that often atonement will have to be carried out by the next generation, in this case, of nuns, brothers, and priests. First, many of the nuns who abused the women are dead, elderly, or infirm, or maintain a defensive posture. Second, current members of the church materially benefit from the exploitation of the women in the Magdalene Laundries. Equally, as she notes, there can be a range of reasons for communities to respond to atonement, when the victims are dead, or not there, or when they unreasonably refuse to reconcile (2009, 138–39). So it falls to the new, younger members of the church and the state to make up for the gross injustices of the past. This is not to say that the true wrongdoers or bystanders should do nothing, but to argue that membership in a community entails ethical responsibilities. Furthermore, membership in a community or an institution such as the Catholic church entails an ethical demand to feel emotions of guilt, repentance, remorse, regret, grief, shame, and empathy for the victims. Radzik focuses on the nonperpetrating members of the church as it is the “hard case” in arguing for atonement, and she discusses what is owed by offenders in other chapters (2009, 186). As she observes, representatives of institutions can express remorse and responsibility through their actions, including a formal public apology and reparations (2009, 186). 17 An important part of the process of atonement is enabling an investigation and discussion of what occurred (2009, 189). Moreover, material reparations, for instance in the form of financial compensation, can be included in atonement. As Radzik points out, the victims, the institutions that wrong them, and the level of

138

Chapter 7

exploitation are calculable in this case (2009, 190). In addition, care work and service, rituals, memorials, punishment for individual violations of the institutions’ rules and individual crimes, all need to be fulfilled for atonement. 18 Her suggestions for practical atonement are apposite, and there have been a number of acts of atonement since Radzik published her book in 2009. In 2013, the Irish state agreed to compensate the survivors, and Justice for Magdalenes established a Restorative Justice and Reparations scheme for the survivors (Conor Humphries 2013). Ex gratia payments were made and tied to a renunciation of further legal redress. However, some women have been excluded from compensation due to the narrowness of the terms of the scheme (“Compensation for Women” 2018). I discuss the implications of these kinds of schemes as a form of atonement below. There are a number of difficulties with Radzik’s account of atonement, the most important of which is that it should not be conflated with reconciliation, as it is in much of her account, although not when she acknowledges the central role of moral redemption. Nevertheless, I believe Radzik is right to argue that any account of atonement needs to consider the social character of much harm, and the role of the community in aiding atonement, and that is especially true in the cases of extreme harms in communities. Even though communal atonement by bystanders and subsequent generations is valuable, it still matters that those responsible atone when that is possible. 19 Finally, taking the conceptual approach to atonement that I have advocated through my interpretation of Jankélévitch’s work on remorse and my criticisms of Walker’s and Radzik’s approaches to making amends and atonement, and considering the principles I have argued for throughout this book, let’s examine practices of atonement in Australia. APOLOGY AS ATONEMENT: AUSTRALIA While I have stressed the morally transformative aspects of atonement, determining whether this has occurred in collective atonement usually depends on concrete, public acts such as apologies and redress. The will to change and improve can be seen in these specific actions that show the attitudes of individuals and groups, either to repair past harm themselves or to support representative acts of atonement or reparation by governments and institutions. Many of those who undertake these actions or who witness them are likely to feel the appropriate emotions of concern and empathy for the victims. There can be community atonement through compensation, collective apologies, memorials, monuments, museums, and commemorations. Individual atonement may occur in the confessions or truth-telling in truth and reconciliation commissions, apologies, material compensation, assistance, or

This Hole in My Heart

139

community service. Punishment can also be thought of as a form of atonement. One of the important steps of making atonement in Australia was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008. It came after the previous prime minister’s refusal to apologize although this apology was a key recommendation of the Bringing Them Home Report on the Stolen Generations, the Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (Australia, and Wilkie, 1997). The term “Stolen Generations” is how the indigenous children who had been removed from their families and placed in institutions or with white families, and often abused and further traumatized, are referred to. The term is plural because it happened over decades, and so included generations. The Bringing Them Home Report detailed the experiences of these generations in all states and territories of Australia. A National Sorry Day is held each year to commemorate the tabling of the report and to acknowledge the need for more atonement and reparations. In the debate leading up to the apology, it was sometimes said that because apology is symbolic, there was little point in making it. 20 While this view does not take into account the critical role of symbolic and ritual atonement, we can recognize that apology, like other forms of atonement, must occur in the context of practical reconciliation, and a broader agenda of achieving justice for indigenous Australians. That is the conception of reconciliation of Reconciliation Australia, who contend that reconciliation has five dimensions: “race relations, equality and equity, institutional integrity, unity, and historical acceptance” (2016a, 7). These are all related and concern both trusting and respectful relations, improvement in outcomes, and acknowledgment of the wrongs of the past, making amends, and agreement they will not be repeated. Thus, reconciliation is not simply symbolic or piecemeal acts of reparations, but an integrated progress toward a just life for indigenous Australians, which includes excellent health, education, and social and economic outcomes. The documents note that a range of new inquiries and reparations funds have been established in recent years, and that Native title agreements for land are being made (2016a, 15). These are features of atonement. Areas where the situation of indigenous people have not improved is in incarceration rates and the number of children in out-of-home care (2016a, 14). The report also recommends that a truth and justice process for Australia be researched and developed (2016a, 21). This goal appears to be particularly important since “efforts to repair past wrongs have been slow, piecemeal, largely ignored, or are getting worse” (2016a, 15). I will focus primarily on acts of atonement and how they can contribute to the wider goals of reconciliation and justice. The 2008 apology to indigenous people in Australia was an important act of

140

Chapter 7

atonement, yet any such apology can only be an aspect of an attempt at full atonement, so we need to explore other important instances of atoning. REPARATIONS IN AUSTRALIA Janna Thompson, an Australian philosopher who focuses on understanding historical justice, makes the fascinating point that social justice or demands for more egalitarian distribution of resources has lost appeal, whereas concern with justice to address historical wrongs has increased (2015, 46). 21 The reasons for this change, Thompson believes, is the lack of success of social justice programs such as affirmative action, because ties have loosened amongst communities, leading to a focus on human rights, and because reparative justice seems more concrete and specific than the abstract claims of social justice. Such reparations have to provide redress as well as recognition and acknowledgment, and so should be connected to other practices such as apology, Thompson argues (2015, 49). While she believes that reparative justice and social justice will often conflict and an overarching theory that incorporates them both cannot be developed, she argues that “In practice, the conflict between demands of social justice and rights of bequest and inheritance is settled by a compromise that depends on the tradition of a society, the balance of political forces, and existing conditions and problems” (2015, 61). Thus, we could examine practices of reparation to some extent in terms of how they respond to these demands of justice, in that atonement concerns addressing historical wrongs in a way that speaks to the current social and political circumstances of those wronged, as recommended by Reconciliation Australia. While monetary compensation can never be truly commensurable to the harms perpetrated, thought needs to be given as to how financial reparations are conceptualized and practiced. This issue is particularly difficult when we are discussing historical injustices perpetrated over generations. This is the case for the Stolen Generations in Australia, where the removal of indigenous children from their families was part of a program of assimilation that occurred over many years. Understanding these issues is complicated by Australia’s division into states and territories, as is the case in the United States and elsewhere. The Tasmanian, Queensland, and Western Australian state governments have made ex gratia payments for children who had been abused in institutions or were wards of the state, as analyzed by political philosopher Stephen Winter (2009). 22 An ex gratia payment does not acknowledge liability or legal precedent, approaches which focus on individual cases. Instead it focuses on the financial burden suffered by the victims of abuse. Only the Tasmanian program addressed the wrongful removal and assimilationist policies that ena-

This Hole in My Heart

141

bled the removals, whereas the others only concerned abuse that occurred after removal (2009, 49). The Queensland and Western Australian schemes offered a second level of payment for those who were severely injured, whereas the Tasmanian scheme focused on the Stolen Generations, included children of these Generations, and did not ask claimants to waive future legal claims. Importantly, these payments took place in the context of apologies, memorials and reconciliatory efforts, features that are significant to genuine atonement. Winter argues that whether one takes a corrective or restorative approach to justice here, it is difficult to accept that ex gratia payments can be philosophically justified, in contrast to potential legal rights to compensation. The original payments for abuse in care victims included members of the Stolen Generations and in Queensland and Western Australia “require[d] claimants to indemnify the State against all current and future claims arising from the applicant’s abuse in care” (2009, 51). Ex gratia payments do not acknowledge that the state is really liable, or that the claimants have rights to the payments. Thus, Winter concludes that these payments conflict with a corrective understanding of the states’ redress. He also contends that the arguments given to justify the ex gratia payments—that the wrongs were not compensable, that the claims could not be proven, and that the approach was easier for the claimants than going through the courts—are weak and inconsistent, and are not weighed against a comprehensive redress scheme, such as that undertaken in response to the Canadian residential schools for First Nations Canadians. While Winter concedes that the payments have benefits over lengthy, stressful and expensive legal cases, it is their ex gratia character that concerns him. For the states, this character excludes both descendants and similarly placed groups, ultimately saving them money. However, the argument that public savings are a goal is not used, and thus other ways of providing financial compensation, such as pensions, are not considered (2009, 53). There are also several problems with conceiving the ex gratia payments in terms of restorative justice, according to Winter. One is that centering on individual abuses obscures the structural nature of the abuse, and another is that the individual focus on specific measurable harms is in conflict with restorative justice norms, implying instead corrective ones. Furthermore, giving up rights claims through indemnification and the ex gratia nature of the payments means that applicants may feel compelled to renounce their rights and so be disenfranchised. Moreover, the ex gratia character of the payments implies that the recipients are granted charity and not being regarded as equals. Overall, Winter concludes that ex gratia payments are inherently problematic, need to be reconceived, and related to State liability (2009, 56). As he suggests in an apt epigraph from Karl Jaspers, such payments cannot function as atonement

142

Chapter 7

because they do not acknowledge that a crime has been committed, but present themselves as benevolence to the needy. Jaspers writes that “A crime is atoned for; political liability is limited by a peace treaty and thus brought to an end” (2001, 111). 23 Winter notes that these payments bring a “legal peace” (2009, 53, 55) for the States, but not redress for the survivors. I should note that since Winter’s article was published in 2009, New South Wales has had an inquiry into reparations for the Stolen Generations, and the South Australian government has set up a Stolen Generations reparations fund, so the number of states involved continues to increase, and hopefully the way compensation is conceived will also continue to improve in the light of criticisms such as Winter’s. Another issue of atonement in Australia is compensation for the wages stolen from aboriginal workers during the nineteenth century and the twentieth century up to as late as 1986, which is finally beginning to be addressed. 24 There was a Senate inquiry into this issue in 2006, and there is still much to be done throughout Australia. The term “Stolen Wages” includes parts of wages held back by governments, controlled savings, and underpayment of wages. Legal challenges and complaints have led to small settlements in Queensland in 1996 and 1999. Then Queensland established a stolen wages reparations scheme in 2002, as has New South Wales, and both governments apologized for the theft. A trust was established for scholarships for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Queensland using the balance from that reparations fund. Recently, Queensland has made a further offer of compensation in 2015 and in the same year Western Australia offered successful claimants $2,000, an offer which is being challenged by the Western Australia Aboriginal Legal Service. 25 The scheme is deeply flawed in its lack of transparency, lack of acknowledgment of the wrong done, and the paltry sum, and will doubtless need to be rethought and redone. The Northern Territory stolen generations survivors still await any compensation (Dias 2017). One of the flaws of measures of reparations is that they are often undertaken with little thought given to how the victims and survivors will experience them. This is clear in the Western Australian case, where claimants had their claims either granted or rejected with no explanation in either case (Kinnane et al. 2015). Nevertheless, each of these schemes are a further step in atonement that are likely to reframe how people think about the issues, and lead to more and broader forms of atonement. A commitment to atonement entails support for these kinds of schemes, even when it is acknowledged that they are inadequate and will need to be revisited. The other form of atonement central to expressing and performing moral transformation is symbolic atonement, and I will describe some significant examples of these endeavours.

This Hole in My Heart

143

SYMBOLIC ATONEMENT The issues of symbolic communal atonement concern the need for appropriate memorials and commemorations, of which there are few, such as the Aboriginal Memorial of Hollow Log Coffins in National Gallery of Australia, access to information concerning family histories, 26 the problem of Australia Day being the date of the colonial invasion of Australia, the need for education and indigenous cultural centers, the repatriation and ceremonial reburial of indigenous remains, and much more. Memorialization is the aspect of atonement which can best respond to the impossibility of atonement to the victims of communal violence. As I have argued, sometimes those who are often considered ethically unconnected to the wrong are those that must atone. It could be the government or representatives of community groups or it could be members of the community who want to make that change. For instance, the commemoration of the freedom rides in 1965 in 2015 highlights continuing oppression as well as celebrating resistance to that oppression (Tan and McConnell 2015). These freedom rides were intended to overcome an apartheid-like system of exclusion of aboriginal people from cinemas, pubs, town halls, pools, and employment. The question of how memorialization should be carried out is itself a multifaceted one and needs to be considered in the specific context. Both public memorials and artworks can play a crucial role in enabling atonement and responses to atonement. 27 Another example where atonement is needed is in relation to indigenous military service, which was not honored at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra until the First World War one-hundred-year anniversary commemorations in 2014, even though indigenous people fought in Australian armies in all conflicts from the Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa onward. They were often paid less than their non-indigenous counterparts, and not honored or welcomed by the Returned Services League (RSL) when they came home (Palin 2017). Catriona Elder writes “It did have to be acknowledged that this recognition of indigenous men’s national military contribution, and the recognition of their citizenship, had taken place very late—one hundred years after the fact—but this atonement enabled the renewal and extension of Anzac commemoration for the 2014–2018 period” (2027, 89). Indigenous soldiers led the ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) march of returned soldiers that is held each year, for the first time in 2017. In addition to the belated recognition of indigenous war service, another issue that has arisen is that there is no separate memorial of “frontier wars” between indigenous Australians and settlers at the Australian War Memorial, although some aboriginal elders have called for it and an online petition for it received 20,000 signatures (Beange 2016). There is also progress in symbolic and customary acknowledgment of indigenous groups’ prior connection to the land. This takes the form of either

144

Chapter 7

a “Welcome to Country” by an indigenous speaker at an event, or an “Acknowledgement of Country” and of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander elders if the speaker is non-indigenous as a sign of respect. A Welcome to Country is held at the opening of both houses of Federal Parliament each day. These welcomes and acknowledgments have even become part of sporting events, such as football or the 2018 Commonwealth games held in Queensland. Specific welcome to country signs that acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land are appearing in more and more specific regions. These forms of recognition have been practiced for around thirty years, were encouraged by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd when he made the official apology to the stolen generations, and are arguably based on traditional Aboriginal protocols. On the one hand, these acknowledgments can be seen as attempts to appropriate unique Aboriginal connections to the past and the land or as tokenistic (Everett 2009, 55; Pelizzon and Kennedy 2012, 62). On the other hand, Aboriginal Welcomes to Country are also a cultural recognition of those connections in state ceremonies, which may not be able to be made within the legal system (Everett 2009, 58, 61). They can be interpreted as opening the possibility of “a negotiated meaning around belonging, identity and social justice” (Pelizzon and Kennedy 2012, 67). Partly inspired by the acknowledgments and welcomes, there is more of an effort on the part of non-indigenous Australians to become better informed about the aboriginal groups that lived in different areas. Furthermore, both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander flags have been recognized as official flags since 1995 and are flown more frequently on government buildings and are permanent on some state government buildings. In the late twentieth century, displays of the Aboriginal flag were considered controversial. Wesley Enoch, an indigenous playwright and artistic director, commented on how race relations have improved since athlete Cathy Freeman wore the Aboriginal flag as well as the Australian flag following her two-hundred-meter race win at the 1994 Commonwealth games in Victoria, Canada (Peel 2018). My view overall is that these are positive signs of social progress and of Jankélévitch’s productive remorse that signal a moral transformation, although sometimes the sincerity, motives, and import of these symbolic acts are questioned, on the one hand, or complained about by racist politicians, on the other hand. 28 While they are often carried out by individuals they reflect a cultural shift that contributes toward communal atonement. Finally, there is no reason to think that the responses of aboriginal people to the acts of atonement made by non-indigenous Australians will be homogenous. For example, responses to the 2008 apology varied greatly, with some indigenous people deeply touched and moved as in the quotation from Warren Mundine at the beginning of this chapter and others disappointed in the whole ritual and more concerned about practical forms of redress (Creative

This Hole in My Heart

145

Spirits 2016). Australia as a nation does not have a treaty with indigenous people, unlike Canada and New Zealand, an issue that has meant there is not a legal framework that recognizes the original sovereignty of the First Nations here. However, in 2016 the process began for the states to negotiate a series of treaties with individual indigenous groups, with South Australia leading the way and the concept of a treaty or treaties continues to be discussed. A National convention of indigenous people was held at Uluru in central Australia in 2017 and agreement was reached that there should be an indigenous representative body or First Nations Voice in the Constitution as well as a Makarrata Commission to oversee treaty processes and historical truth-telling. Makarrata means “the coming together after a struggle” (Referendum Council 2017). However, the current government has resisted these proposals. As Elder says of reconciliation, atonement is very much “unfinished business” (2017). What we can see is that each act of atonement acknowledges the past of injustice and oppression and leads to a reframing of indigenous and non-indigenous relations to that past and to each other, so that further acts of atonement can be envisaged, considered, and carried out. The process of atonement is an ongoing one that needs to be continually revisited and rethought in order to ensure that it is carried out in an appropriate and respectful way that enables the development of trust and reconciliation. CONCLUSION Taking the challenges to atonement seriously is the key to undertaking, or beginning to undertake, genuine atonement, as I argued in the previous chapter. Wrongdoing and harm demands that we make up for wrongs that are irreparable, and so we will often, if not always, fail even when we try to atone. Radzik herself acknowledges that sometimes claims against the perpetrator can be “tragically unresolved” (Radzik 2009, 139). Atonement is one aspect of reconciliation, and an important one, yet it is distinct from reconciliation, as I argued in relation to Radzik’s work. The key to atonement is a change of heart that is expressed, like the conversion through remorse that Jankélévitch describes. Furthermore, atonement has to involve the bystanders and the inheritors of responsibility to even begin to be possible. The other way communal or collective atonement can address the legacy of oppressive treatment is through symbolic and ritual acts of memory and acknowledgment. Atonement for the oppression of indigenous people in Australia has a long way to go, although there are signs that more genuine forms of atonement are being taken through redress for child victims of abuse, serious consideration of the stolen wages issue, memorialization, and cultural recog-

146

Chapter 7

nition. One could ask whether atonement is ever over. On the one hand, it could be said that enough has been done or that too much time has passed or that there is really no one appropriate to atone so that atonement is over. On the other hand, in most of the situations I am discussing, this is an extremely unlikely situation and we may have to live with the Derridean concept of ethical impossibility and the grief of knowing that we have failed. In the next chapter, I will consider whether it is possible and ethical for perpetrators to forgive themselves for what they have done, the last, most difficult step of ethical restoration. NOTES 1. Warren Mundine, Aboriginal leader and former National President of the Australian Labor party, quoted in “‘Sorry’ Apology to Stolen Generations,” https://www.creativespirits. info/aboriginalculture/politics/sorry-apology-to-stolen-generations#toc3. Accessed April 19, 2018. 2. Writing from a legal perspective, Roy L. Brooks defines atonement as “apology plus reparations” (2004, 143). 3. There are two footnotes in chapter five concerning taking responsibility and the communal aspect of moral repair, respectively (2009, 219, n. 18, and 221, n. 488). Brudholm notes that the omission is surprising and “a pity” (2013, 772–73). 4. In the case of the Magdalene women, as Radzik notes, the Church as a whole could afford to pay compensation, which would not really be a sacrifice (2009, 230, n. 59). Yet it is the Irish State that has taken up the obligation to compensate. Radzik spells “Magdalene” as “Magdalen.” 5. As an example of how religious traditions can inform secular traditions of apology, Danielle Celermajer discusses teshwah, or repentance, as a form of community atonement, unlike Christian atonement, which focuses on individuals (2009, 65). Her argument is that because it is public and spoken, it has the right features for collective moral transformation. The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, is celebrated every year, as a ritual of collective apology and repentance (2009, 70). In contrast, Richard Swinburne argues for a Christian form of atonement that involves reparation, repentance, apology, and penance, and can be carried on in the afterlife (1989, 73–92). 6. Walker contrasts restorative justice favorably with retributive and compensatory justice, as I note in the previous chapter (2006, 210–11). 7. Here is where important distinctions could be being blurred—for example, between selfforgiveness and atonement, and forgiveness and reconciliation, although Radzik accepts that forgiveness and reconciliation are different (2009, 117–18). 8. Radzik also notes that some harms can be understood as debts, yet insists that harms to relationships are more fundamental (2009, 79). 9. Radzik considers an objection to the idea that harms are primarily harms to relationships and argues that wrongdoing by strangers involves relational harms, they are just more “unwieldy” (2009, 79–80). 10. Atonement needs to be made to the victims, survivors or concerned parties to be worthwhile, otherwise it is more like self-forgiveness. 11. For Jankélévitch, repentance concerns the action, while remorse emphasizes the person, (2015, 93) as I explained in the previous chapter. 12. Radzik notes that feelings of shame due to low status should be discouraged (2009, 89). 13. Améry would not accept Radzik’s stipulation of keeping resentment private (1980, 81). 14. In chapter 6 of her book, Radzik considers criticisms of restorative justice and provides a qualified defense of its use as an alternative to traditional criminal punishment (2009, 153–74).

This Hole in My Heart

147

15. See Peter Mullans’s The Magdalene Sisters (2002) and Steve Humphries’s Sex in a Cold Climate (1998). 16. Paul Hughes criticizes Radzik’s analysis of this example, as he argues that in such a situation our resentment for the splashed mud would be directed at the particular driver, rather than concerning our relationship with other drivers (2011, 348–49). 17. Radzik argues that remorse cannot be compelled (2009, 160). Macalester Bell contends that cash payments are not inspirational, especially of forgiveness, as they have too many meanings so “governments would be wise to offer reparations with inspirational, as well as reason-giving, power” (2012, 217). However, Bell does not suggest what kind of reparations governments should engage in to be inspirational. 18. See Radzik (2009, 103–4) for a discussion of the role of ritual in atonement. Radzik argues that some cultures can have other forms of expression than apology, but that in Western culture apologies have a “special power” and can substitute for reparations or punishment. However, the reverse is not true—reparations and punishment cannot replace apology (2009, 97). Brooks describes an apology as a request for forgiveness (2004, 144) and as needed for atonement (2004, 142). 19. Another example is how significant it is that the Japanese government takes responsibility for the “comfort women” of Korea and elsewhere, rather than just the governments of their own countries. See Solis (2016). 20. See Wonder and Generosity (La Caze, 2013), chapter 7. The Australian Psychological Society apologized to aboriginal Australians recently (ABC 2016). Brooks argues in his discussion of redress for slavery in terms of atonement, that “redress should be about apology first and foremost” in order to demonstrate the new moral ideals being taken up (2004, 142). 21. Steve Kinnane, Judy Harrison, and Isabelle Reinecke note that some predict that the twenty-first century will be the century of global reparative justice (2015, 68). 22. The Parliament of Australia reports states that Tasmanian recipients were paid up to $60,000 in the first scheme and up to $35,000 in the second, in Queensland between $7,000 and $40,000, in Western Australia up to $45,000, and in South Australia up to $50,000. In Western Australia, applicants did not have to waive their rights to further legal redress (2010–2013). All amounts are in Australian dollars. 23. Jaspers also says that “moral and metaphysical guilt, which are understood only by the individual in his community, are by their very nature not atoned for. They do not cease. Whoever bears them enters upon a process lasting all his life” (2001, 111). 24. See Rosalind Kidd (2006) for an analysis of stolen wages in Queensland. 25. See Steve Kinnane et al. (2015) for a discussion of the Western Australian Stolen Wages Reparations Scheme. 26. The Queensland Government has a Community and Personal Histories team to help indigenous people to learn about their own family history. 27. For instance, Susan Best demonstrates in her book, Reparative Aesthetics (2016) that certain art photography can help to transform our traumatic memories and even to suggest the possibility of forgiveness. 28. See Muldoon (2017) for an argument that reconciliation efforts by non-indigenous Australians mask a “narcissistic injury,” although some good may come from these efforts.

Chapter Eight

In Search of a Magic Spell Arendt and Self-Forgiveness

To each person belongs a task: to the criminal belongs desperate remorse, and to the victim belongs forgiveness: but the victim will not repent in the place of the guilty person. It is necessary that the guilty person work toward this himself; it is necessary that the criminal redeem himself all alone. —Vladimir Jankélévitch (2005, 157)

The problem of self-forgiveness is a significant one that relates to forgiveness of the other but is perhaps more difficult in the wake of egregious violence and oppression. While the subject of forgiveness, even of the unforgivable, in the wake of the work of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Derrida, has received a great deal of philosophical attention, self-forgiveness remains relatively neglected, although the literature has begun to grow in recent years. This neglect may be in part due to Arendt’s famous argument in The Human Condition that self-forgiveness is not possible. 1 My chapter will revisit Arendt’s arguments to investigate their import and explore how dismissals of self-forgiveness, including those that take Arendt’s arguments seriously, could have been too hasty. Self-forgiveness raises special puzzles of self-relation. Arendt argues that forgiving, like promising, depends on plurality, others being with us and acting: “For no-one can forgive himself . . . forgiving and promising enacted in solitude or isolation remain without reality and can signify no more than a role played before oneself” (1998, 237). She believes that we need to be forgiven by others in order to escape the consequences of our deeds. Rather dramatically, she suggests that we are like the sorcerer’s apprentice without the incantation to break a magic spell, most likely a reference to the 1797 Goethe poem of that name. While the master is away, the apprentice casts a 149

150

Chapter 8

spell that makes a broom carry water and nothing he does, including splitting the broom in two, can stop it from filling the house with water. Only the master, on his return, can tell the magic word that will send the broom back into the cupboard. To be forgiven, we await the magic word from another. To be more specific, Arendt believes that we cannot forgive ourselves as we cannot be both the subject and object of experience. Furthermore, she argues that the most profound reason that we cannot forgive ourselves is that “we are dependent on others, to whom we appear in a distinctness that we ourselves are unable to perceive. Closed within ourselves, we would never be able to forgive ourselves any failing or transgression because we would lack the experience of the person for the sake of whom one can forgive” (1998, 243). On this view, we are dependent on others to forgive us, as we do not appear to ourselves as we appear to others. While Arendt’s discussion is often taken to concern personal forgiveness in general, a great deal of light can be shed on her views by reminding ourselves that the forgiveness she is describing is political, not personal. In her account of forgiveness, Arendt is writing about the public sphere, where relations with others are paramount, and they “determine the extent and modes in which one may be able to forgive himself” (1998, 238). There are a number of ways that focusing on the political perspective alters our understanding of Arendt’s claims. First, it could be argued that while we cannot forgive ourselves, we can come to some sort of accommodation with ourselves. She refers to a similar idea in her discussion of the two-in-one dialogue in which we need to live with ourselves, where she is focusing on personal morality, as I will discuss later. The other openings left by Arendt are in her hints that forgiveness of self is determined and dependent on the forgiveness of others in its extent and modes. There are many reasons why self-forgiveness is rarely discussed in the contexts of communal violence. Like the question of atonement, perpetrators may be unrepentant, they may be preoccupied with avoiding punishment or centered on being forgiven. Yet, as Jankélévitch states, it is part of their task, and the nature of that task needs to be understood. I argue that it may be possible for perpetrators to develop their own moral response to their acts, in some respects, which may include self-forgiveness or at least an attempt to come to terms with their past actions. The psychological literature on self-forgiveness tends to advocate it, whereas the philosophical literature is more skeptical. I explore both in order to suggest an ethical and phenomenological path that could be taken by those who commit terrible crimes in contexts of political violence and oppression. Finally I will explore the implications of the possibility of self-forgiveness for the basis of selfforgiveness, its relation to the forgiveness of others, and the ethics of selfforgiveness.

In Search of a Magic Spell

151

POLITICAL AND PERSONAL FORGIVENESS Arendt’s examples of forgiveness are of legal and political notions of sparing the vanquished or commuting a sentence, actions that clearly cannot be applied to the self. The possibility of self-pardon has been considered by several US presidents, such as Richard Nixon, George Bush (Senior), and Bill Clinton, but none have done it so far, and the idea is understandably controversial. 2 Rather a judge or state leader makes these kinds of decisions as a parallel to personal forgiveness, or substitute avoiding punishment, as dictators are wont to do. Thus her argument looks more like the claim that selfforgiveness is dependent on political or state forgiveness. It is notable in these examples that it is not the victim who forgives and so suggests that the nature of the forgiveness is different from interpersonal forgiveness. This characterization of forgiveness in the political context is the first clue to how personal self-forgiveness might be possible, even on Arendt’s account. While a person cannot decide their own sentence for a crime, they might be able to consider whether their action was forgivable. Thus, we need to clarify the difference between forgiving the self and pardoning the self, for pardoning is closer in meaning to political forgiveness. First, how can we distinguish between forgiving and pardoning in general? For Paul M. Hughes, pardoning involves releasing the wrongdoer from the consequences of their actions and so is incompatible with punishment and compatible with condoning the wrong, whereas forgiveness is compatible with punishment and not with condoning (1994, 559). However, this way of distinguishing the two is not quite correct as pardoning may occur after some form of punishment, and be made for other reasons, such as the perpetrator has served enough time, as in Rwanda, the punishment seemed inappropriate, they are found to be innocent, legal anomalies and so on. An example of formal pardon in Australia when the accused or convicted was found innocent is the case of Lindy Chamberlain. 3 Pardoning, in English (unlike in French), is generally associated with “an official acting on behalf of the society or the state,” 4 although in everyday speech we might use “pardoning” to refer to interpersonal relations. The other aspect of Hughes’s claim is right, in that pardoning could be compatible with condoning, since it might be judged that the person had not really done anything wrong and forgiving could never (correctly) mean that. When we forgive we do so in the knowledge of the original transgression. In any case, this way of looking at the question does not help us to interpret Arendt’s ideas, since her concern is with political forgiveness, a kind of pardon that is compatible with punishment, as I said. 5 She stresses that even pardon is for the person, saying “no pardon pardons murder or theft but only the murderer or the thief” (1983, 248).

152

Chapter 8

The relation between self-forgiving and self-pardoning needs to be examined. Given that Arendt’s view of forgiveness in the political realm is a kind of mercy or pardoning, self-forgiveness would consist in pardoning oneself for a crime one has committed against others. It is easy to see why she does not believe this is possible, as it is not part of any past or existing system of law or politics and is unlikely to ever be. Judgments about crimes in this sense are made by others. 6 In order to consider that self-forgiveness is possible, we need to shift the ground from the political and public to the private and personal and ask if self-forgiveness is possible then. One of the hurdles Arendt puts up against self-forgiveness is that we do not have the right kind of relation to ourselves. We can concede that we cannot pardon ourselves of crimes as if we were a judge or state power, but is it true that we do not experience ourselves or appear to ourselves in the right way to forgive ourselves? Or in other words, what kind of a self must we be to forgive ourselves? How could a person who has committed terrible atrocities or participated in an unjust system forgive themselves? Let’s think of a recent, fictional example—from the television series The Wire (David Simon 2002–2008). Self-forgiveness is such a personal topic that theoretical and practical discussions of it are quite rare. In the contexts I have been discussing, the perpetrators often do not consider that they have anything to forgive or are so focused on amnesty and forgiveness by others, the question hardly arises. So we have to partly imagine self-forgiveness, and novelists, filmmakers, and other artists help us to do so. 7 Roland “Prez” Prysbylewski (played by actor Jim True-Frost) is a police officer who becomes a public schoolteacher, after a fatal accidental shooting of a plainclothes colleague who is African American leads to his retirement. The character and events are based on the real-life experiences of Ed Burns, producer and writer for The Wire. Immediately after the shooting he is desperate and has to be kept in a cell on suicide watch. We see him much later, calm, and dedicating himself to his work as a teacher. He takes a special interest in a poor boy, Duquan “Dukie” Weems, even washing his clothes so he will have clean clothes for school. Although his efforts to protect this particular child are ultimately unsuccessful after the boy is put in a group home, we can think of Prez as a person who has truly acknowledged his wrong, has tried to make amends or atone, and as someone who may be able to forgive himself. I raise this example so that we have a sense of a person who has forgiven themselves and how they might go about it before we consider some of the questions concerning self-forgiveness. Self-forgiveness, in some ways, comes last, after remorse and after atonement, although the connections between these experiences are complex, as we shall see.

In Search of a Magic Spell

153

THE SELF OF SELF-FORGIVENESS In The Human Condition, Arendt argues that we cannot appear to ourselves as we appear to others, and it seems that we cannot appear in the same way, in that others see us as we appear in the public, political space. But could we appear to ourselves enough to forgive ourselves? We could reflect on our own actions and understand the depth of the harm we have done to others and possibly ourselves. Are we really a what rather than a who for ourselves? 8 Could we recognize our own individuality? Do we see it reflected back by the view of others? I have thought that at the very least Arendt’s position would allow for some kind of accommodation with the self, yet it seems that there is a distinction between reconciling with the self and forgiving oneself, just as there is between interpersonal reconciliation and forgiveness. However, it is not obvious that reconciliation or accommodation with the self is any easier to make sense of than forgiveness of the self, at least in so far as they raise similar issues of self-relationship. So I will see if there are threads in Arendt’s work that enable us to reconsider this question. In a later lecture, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” Arendt discusses the idea that we do have the two-in-one dialogue where we need to learn to live with ourselves in a harmonious state, saying “in a sense I also am for myself though I hardly appear to me” (2003, 183). 9 We should bear in mind that in this discussion Arendt is focusing on thinking rather than acting. In this focus she comes closer to the question of personal forgiveness; at the same time she moves away from the consequences of actions, an issue I will return to when considering what kinds of wrongs we can forgive ourselves for. For her, this is what we call consciousness, and she takes the point further, suggesting that “I am not only for others but for myself, and in this latter case, I clearly am not just one. A difference is inserted into my Oneness” (2003, 184). Although Arendt believes we primarily appear to others, for ourselves we are two-in-one in “Being-conscious-of-myself.” This two in one can have an inner dialogue and be both in harmony and out of harmony with itself, a concept that she associates with Socrates’s dictum that we need to be in harmony with ourselves. 10 Thus there seems to be some room in her overall thinking for some kind of self-relationship. We have to be able to refer to ourselves in self-forgiveness, and create a certain unity of past, present, and future in the self. 11 I argue that we can distinguish these aspects without being committed to a self of distinct components. In contrast, Kathryn Norlock, considering forgiveness from a feminist perspective, suggests that forgiveness is a commitment to “the set of relationships between one’s past, current, and future selves”(2009, 151). Yet this idea seems to differentiate between parts of the self and suggest that a concept of a split self is required. 12 She contends that we need to conceptualize a fragmented self to make sense of self-forgiveness. For her, the ordinary

154

Chapter 8

self is fragmented, yet the traumatized self, often the self in need of forgiveness, is even more so. What Norlock means is that we are structurally and socially fragmented in our identities as well as unstable. (2009, 139) However, there are different kinds and degrees of fragmentation, and such fragmentation is not incompatible with projects of unity and integrity. Following the work of Susan Brison, a philosopher who describes the legacy of a serious assault she suffered (2003), Norlock sees the traumatized person who has been abused or suffered from eating disorders, for instance, as having conflicting self-concepts, some of which can be seen as separate. Self-deception also plays an important role in distancing connections within the self. Norlock argues against Arendt’s idea that we only appear to others thus: “In accounts of those who have been both victims and perpetrators of evils, sometimes the gray agent has the most information about the wrongs done and their magnitude”(2009, 145). The “gray” agent is the person who has been forced or pressured to harm others, as I discussed in chapter 6. For example, only Primo Levi knew the choices he made in the concentration camp until he chose to share them. The basis of Norlock’s argument is that others’ knowledge of us, especially our ethical lives, is incomplete. This approach may miss part of Arendt’s argument, in that Arendt is not so much discussing the amount of knowledge, but discussing the different stance and relation others have to us. Yet I believe that Norlock’s point is relevant to the examples of personal rather than political forgiveness. From her starting perspective, we are all split in multiple ways, both synchronically and diachronically, and what we need to do in self-forgiveness is create a narrative unity, but not necessarily a narrative unity that removes or covers over all sense of fragmentation. Her view ties in with Arendt’s, suggesting that in some ways we take an external perspective on ourselves in order to forgive, and also implying that forgiveness of self is related to the forgiveness of others in that we take their perspective. Thinking of self-forgiveness like this to some extent vindicates Arendt’s claim that the extent and modes of selfforgiveness is dependent on the forgiveness of others (1998, 238). This claim itself requires further explanation, to understand the similarities and differences between the two kinds of forgiveness, so I will consider that question next. SELF-FORGIVENESS AND FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS Arendt’s assertion is that the only way that we can understand self-forgiveness is through the forgiveness of others, so let’s first see the connections. For the purposes of this discussion I am only considering self-forgiveness for wrongs that affect others. I will turn to the question of harms to ourselves further on.

In Search of a Magic Spell

155

The two kinds of forgiveness have to be connected in their overall conception of forgiveness, and be distinct from other ideas such as condoning or legal pardon. 13 A psychologist writing on the issue, Robert Enright, appears to address Arendt’s argument against self-forgiveness although he does not refer to her work. Self-forgiveness might be dismissed on the grounds that we cannot be both our own defendant and judge. However, he says, “This argument confuses legal pardon and forgiveness. In the latter, we are not reducing a deserved punishment, as in legal pardon, but instead are welcoming ourselves back into the human community”(1996, 117). This is an important point, in distinguishing personal self-forgiveness from legal or political punishment, just as interpersonal forgiveness can be distinguished from legal pardon, as I have argued. Nevertheless, we could consider whether we can continue to punish ourselves in an attenuated sense and to forgive ourselves, as is possible in the case of forgiveness of others. This problem can be addressed by taking it that, as in interpersonal forgiveness, we can forgive, but will still have some hard feelings, and we might think that we cannot trust ourselves in certain areas of our lives. For example, the perpetrator of an atrocity might avoid the company of those who took part in it. Another connection between forgiveness of others and self-forgiveness is that they both can be ethically generous to others. We forgive others partly so that they can transform their lives, and sometimes we forgive ourselves so that we can contribute to the lives of others. 14 In other words, as we respect ourselves more, we are more likely to extend that respect to others. Instead of being wrapped up in our own self-flagellation, we are able to open to others on a grounding of respect. Also, unforgiving of ourselves, we may be unforgiving of others. Oedipus’s curse on his sons Polynices and Eteocles, that they will kill each other, suggests that he cannot forgive himself, although he protests his banishment (Sophocles 1947, 988–91). 15 Goldie develops the idea of the relations between the emotions we feel after wrongdoing and selfforgiveness, comparing shame to grief, as things we must feel, but that we also must get over for the lives of others (2011, 84). As I argued in chapter 3, if we feel shame about the sort of person we are, rather than guilt over a particular wrongdoing, that may really undermine our sense of self and poison our relationships with others. Psychologists Julie H. Hall and Frank D. Fincham expect to find a negative relation between shame and self-forgiveness, more than is the case with guilt, as shame focuses on the self and its lack of worth (2005, 631). Someone who feels this way may find it very difficult to integrate into a community. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim is an excellent example of the dangers involved in not forgiving oneself. As Robin Dillon notes in her account of selfforgiveness and self-respect, Jim cannot forgive himself for being the sort of person he thinks he is, that is, a coward (2001, 64–5; Conrad 1957, 32–4). 16 “Lord” Jim is a mate of a ship carrying hundreds of pilgrims. When their ship

156

Chapter 8

appears to be about to sink, Jim jumps into a lifeboat with other crew members, leaving the eight hundred passengers to their fate. Luckily, the ship does not sink and all the passengers survive, but Jim is tried and stripped of his seamen’s license. His mistake in the past colors all his relationships, his judgment of himself, and his capacity to act, ultimately leading him to give up the love of his life, Jewell, and his own life in refusing to defend himself. He seems to have accepted his father’s claim that “who once gives way to temptation, in the very instant hazards his total depravity and everlasting ruin” (1957, 257). Jim is never able redeem himself in his own eyes. The argument that we need to forgive ourselves in order to protect those we love provides self-forgiveness with a crucial ethical implication for others that overcomes Arendt’s sense of our being shut up within ourselves. We need to forgive ourselves precisely in order not to be shut away from others, to open ourselves to them. Of course, there are important differences between forgiveness of others and self-forgiveness as well, but these are surprisingly difficult to pin down. One idea is suggested by Enright, that “Unlike interpersonal forgiveness, which is philosophically distinct from reconciliation, self-forgiveness and reconciliation with self are always linked” (1996, 116). 17 There is a point to this claim in that the processes of self-forgiveness and reconciliation will be linked in that we cannot escape the self in the same way we can avoid the other; nevertheless they are still philosophically distinct processes. 18 The process of self-forgiveness, according to Lin Bauer et al., involves a growing sense of ease with oneself that includes taking responsibility for one’s mistakes and feeling at home in the world. They conclude that self-forgiveness ultimately means becoming part of the human community again (1992, 160). In this account, reconciliation is the outcome of forgiveness, and suggests that if we are able to reconcile ourselves without forgiving ourselves, a sense of unease should remain, although that may not be so. We can see that in the case of Judah Rosenthal in Woody Allen’s film Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), who becomes reconciled with himself but does not forgive himself. Rosenthal hires a killer to murder his girlfriend after she threatens to expose their affair. It seems to me that he does not forgive himself because he fails to properly acknowledge his wrong. He appears to acknowledge it when he is first troubled by what he has done, but ultimately rather than doing so he moves on and forgets it, partly because no one else finds out about it and he is able to go on living very similarly to how he lived before the murder. This must be the case for many perpetrators of political violence who are not found and live a peaceful life where they can push their past into the background, as was the case for many Nazi war criminals in West Germany (Deák 2015, 211–14). Thus this tight connection between self-reconciliation and self-forgiveness, in contrast to interpersonal forgiveness, is not borne out.

In Search of a Magic Spell

157

It is sometimes true that not forgiving the self is even more painful than not forgiving others. Enright sees lacking forgiveness as necessarily negative and painful, but we may not experience this pain, particularly if we forget what others have done to us (1996, 111). However, in our own case, we may continue to find it painful because we continue to punish ourselves in some way and hold hard feelings toward ourselves, as Jankélévitch suggests in his description of remorse and his idea that the guilty person has to work on their own redemption (2005, 157). 19 This point implies that there is more of a psychological imperative to forgive oneself than to forgive others. Another possibility is that there is a proper order between self-forgiveness and forgiveness, with one or the other coming first and enabling the second. Philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon K. Mills suggests that self-forgiveness comes first, and enables forgiveness of the other. His argument is that “If we do not initiate the process of self-forgiveness prior to interpersonal forgiveness, then we are placing responsibility on the other and refusing to accept radical responsibility for our ontological obligation” (1995, 406). His point here can be challenged, as although we should not avoid responsibility, when we have wronged another we have in some way made ourselves dependent on them. That cannot reasonably be denied. What can be taken from Mills’s argument, nonetheless, is that we do need to begin the process of self-forgiveness for that is a full acknowledgment of the wrong and this acknowledgment is also necessary for the forgiveness of the other. 20 Could it be the case then that others have to forgive first from an ethical perspective, before self-forgiveness is possible? An example is one of the killers in the Rwandan genocide, Tasian Nkundiye, who says of his next door neighbor, most of whose family he murdered, that “I am very grateful to her. Ever since I wrote to her from prison, confessing to my crimes and asking her for forgiveness, she has never once called me a killer. Now, I often leave my children with her when I have to be away from the village. She has set me free” (Ong 2017). While the view that victims should forgive first may have some prima facie appeal, it encounters problems in being too dependent on victims’ good will, which appears unjust. For example, Margaret Holmgren argues that the victim does not have to forgive the offender before they forgive themselves, although the offender must acknowledge their crime, take responsibility, and apologize or otherwise make amends to the victim (1998, 79–80). This view takes into account that victims may unreasonably withhold their forgiveness, as I will discuss later on. These conciliatory or atoning gestures toward victims facilitate self-forgiveness. 21 It makes sense that the steps taken of acknowledgment and conciliation also concern our own possibility of self-forgiveness. So what we can take from this discussion is that while steps should be taken to enable the forgiveness of others, it is not necessarily prior to self-forgiveness. 22

158

Chapter 8

However, there are other experiential, phenomenological concerns that mean the forgiveness of others comes first, or a link to others is essential. Without a connection with others, or some level of care, we may stay locked in a cycle of self-recrimination. As Dillon observes, self-forgiveness is connected to that of others, which “can be useful, even necessary” (2001, 81, note 68). This point is one that links with Arendt’s declaration that only others can forgive. 23 The weaker version here is that we need the help of others to forgive the self. 24 If we go back to the example of Prez, the trust of the children, the feeling of doing good for others, of making something valuable in his life through others, is what made him able to forgive himself. 25 These ideas show there is truth in Arendt’s claim that the extent to which we can forgive ourselves is dependent on others. The problem she points to suggests that we cannot forgive ourselves if we are entirely alone and shut up within ourselves, so others have to play some role in our selfforgiveness, even if it is a memory of others’ love in the past or an imagining of their forgiveness. In Three Colours: Blue (1993) it is the small pleasures of life, and feeling compassion for her neighbor that start to bring Julie back to life and perhaps to self-forgiveness, if she has somehow reproached herself after the death of her husband and daughter. Her feelings can be interpreted as a kind of survivor guilt like that I discussed in chapter 3, where even though her family was killed in a car accident and she is not at fault, she still feels blameworthy. We need the concern and trust of others to help us with the spell we need to go through that process. This is another area where trust is vital. So how do we forgive ourselves? What is the phenomenology of self-forgiveness? HOW DO WE FORGIVE OURSELVES? The phenomenology and psychology of forgiveness, in contrast to the ethics of forgiveness, is important here to explain the work of self-forgiveness. Derrida contends that we shift or oscillate between self-forgiveness and nonself-forgiveness, writing “There is in me someone who is always ready to forgive and another who is absolutely merciless, and we are constantly fighting. Sometimes I can sleep, sometimes I cannot” (Caputo et al. 2001, 61). 26 For Derrida, it is the conflict within the self that prevents forgiveness, rather than the lack of being able to see ourselves, as Arendt maintains. Yet we appear to be able to make sense of not forgiving ourselves and if that is so, then surely we must be able to make sense of forgiving ourselves? 27 One of the first difficulties with comprehending exactly how we can forgive ourselves is recognizing what kind of responses we can have to our own actions. For one, is it intelligible that we resent ourselves or be angry with ourselves or experience any of the other negative emotions associated

In Search of a Magic Spell

159

with forgiveness that need to be overcome? Hughes and Warmke claim that “notwithstanding the fact that people may be angry with themselves, experience self-directed loathing, and struggle to overcome such negative emotional attitudes, it is not clear that the idea of resenting oneself is coherent and, thus, whether forgiveness as overcoming self-referential resentment is possible” (2017). If correct, this impossibility would render self-forgiveness distinctly different from forgiveness of others on that ground alone. Their argument is that the view that one and the same person can be both subject and object and victim and wrongdoer “is often thought incompatible with the idea that resentment is necessarily directed against other people” (2017). 28 They cite Arendt’s view of forgiveness here and the problem with the argument is that it begs the question against those who argue that we can resent on behalf of others and resent ourselves. I believe we can resent ourselves, feeling that we have failed our own standards and the standards of others and have behaved in a way that could be considered unjust to both ourselves and others, most strongly in extreme cases of communal violence. 29 We then look on ourselves as if we were looking at another. Norlock adds the point that we often closely identify and empathize with others such that it makes sense to call our feelings resentment, and this can be the case where we have harmed someone else, and so we can resent ourselves (2009, 146). It seems to me that we can and do resent ourselves, and so selfforgiveness will be in part a process of overcoming or transforming that resentment. Hughes and Warmke (2017) note that forgiveness needs to be distinguished from condoning, and so it can be taken to apply to self-forgiveness. This distinction is separate from the distinction I made earlier between personal forgiveness and self-forgiveness, and legal pardon. A number of authors refer to pseudo self-forgiveness, premature, or nongenuine self-forgiveness to set that apart from true self-forgiveness. 30 What they have in mind is forgetting or overlooking the transgression altogether or forgiving oneself without taking responsibility for what one has done, or trying to make amends. 31 However, proper or genuine self-forgiveness entails an acknowledgment of the wrong one has done and acceptance of responsibility for it. If that is so, it indicates that self-forgiveness requires a recognition of the wrong done in order to qualify as self-forgiveness from an ethical point of view. Otherwise it would be more like self-condoning, and that distinction is necessary to understand what we might hope for from those who commit atrocities. From the experiential perspective, self-deception and rationalization can enable the achievement of pseudo self-forgiveness (Holmgren 1998, 77). 32 At the very least, we would like to believe that Judah Rosenthal does not have the sense of wholeness and harmony that someone remorseful and atoning could have. Likewise, offenders who make the complex range of

160

Chapter 8

excuses Margaret Urban Walker articulates, discussed in chapter 6, cannot be considered as self-forgiving. As was said after the official apology to indigenous Australians for the policy of child removal, “We have stopped telling ourselves the comfortable lie.” 33 These considerations clear the ground, as it were, for thinking about the affective and intellectual changes we might need to go through to forgive ourselves. Enright notes that forgiveness involves affect in giving up resentment, cognition in giving up condemning beliefs, and behavior, in giving up revenge (1996, 108). In her account of political forgiveness, Arendt stresses only the action aspect, the foregoing of revenge, but these other elements are necessary for interpersonal and intrapersonal forgiveness (1998, 240). Giving up resentment, as I have already stated, but not all hard feelings, is necessary for us to forgive ourselves. We could also forgive ourselves but still remain angry with ourselves, although without those feelings dominating more positive ones, as Dillon notes (2001, 83). Furthermore, self-forgiveness may involve overcoming different feelings from forgiving others, such as “guilt, shame, or self-loathing” (Hughes and Warmke 2017). As I discussed in chapter 3, victims can often experience guilt and shame, so in that sense need to forgive themselves. We might also feel contempt or even disgust for ourselves. To some extent we can overcome remorse and regret and other ethical responses to our actions, although not entirely. 34 We have to accept that there will be a certain level of remorse and self-blame that does not go away after we have forgiven ourselves but is brought under control and thus makes it possible to live with ourselves. So far I have been discussing selfforgiveness without looking in detail at a significant question concerning what kinds of wrongs we can forgive ourselves. WHAT KINDS OF WRONGS CAN WE FORGIVE OURSELVES? The question of what kinds of wrongs we can forgive ourselves is distinct from the question of what extremity of wrongs can be forgiven, which I will consider in the following section. There are three possibilities: wrongs done to ourselves, wrongs done to others, and wrongs done to ourselves through our wrongs to others, and there is controversy over which of these make sense as objects of self-forgiveness. It may seem inappropriate to forgive ourselves for wrongs done to others—if only the victim of harms can forgive, we would be unethically substituting ourselves for the victim. As Derrida states, only the victim can forgive, “The survivor is not ready to substitute herself, abusively, for the dead” (2001, 44). In other words, we do not have the ethical standing to forgive ourselves for what we have done to others. This stricture would apply to both self-forgiveness and third-party forgiveness by bystanders or others.

In Search of a Magic Spell

161

However, first and most obviously and literally, if the victim is dead or otherwise not possible to contact, how could self-forgiveness even be possible? 35 Griswold (2007, 124) and Hagberg (2011, 73) claim that in general if the victim is present, then the other has to forgive us before we forgive ourselves. This point appears problematic, nonetheless; for instance, what if the victim is a heartless and cruel nonforgiver—should we be chained for the rest of our lives to their whims? 36 That possibility has to be taken into account, and then the person has to consider what they have done from an impartial perspective and reflect on the concerns of the victim. Second, there may be deeper reasons for turning to self-forgiveness. To demonstrate this point, Peter Goldie argues that there are cases where selfforgiveness for wrongs to others is necessary because there are moral reasons preventing the victim forgiving us, for example, if we have disloyal thoughts or have done something disloyal behind a person’s back (2011, 85). Should we go and announce what we have done in order to gain their forgiveness? This occurs in the film Frantz (2017) when a former French soldier visits the parents and fiancée of the German soldier he shot in World War I. Radzik notes that it might not be ethical to remind someone of what we have done by apologizing and asking their forgiveness, as I mentioned in the previous chapter (2009, 84). This is true in cases of child abuse, and is likely to be true whenever the victim does not want to be reminded of what happened. Norlock makes the even more profound point that we may need to begin to forgive ourselves even when the victim cannot, as part of the process of becoming a more ethical person (2009, 147). She believes such self-forgiveness may be imperfect, but that is what we have. We should not leave ourselves outside the pale, ashamed, perhaps humiliated, and too desperate to improve. There is a certain level of disbelief in the possibility of forgiving ourselves for what we have done to others. Holmgren discusses this kind of self-forgiveness in the context of making amends, apologizing and otherwise going through the process of trying to make up to the victim for what one has done (1998, 78). As Norlock points out, it has a similar structure to what she calls third-party forgiveness, or forgiveness on behalf of the victim. Nevertheless, there are a range of situations where self-forgiveness even for what we have done to others is ethically demanded. Furthermore, there are a variety of ways in which we can harm or injure ourselves and may need to at least consider forgiving ourselves. 37 Norlock, for example, defines as moral harms that may require self-forgiveness those practices that “demean us, damage our capacities, or limit the opportunities of our future selves” (2009, 149). For self-forgiveness to be at play, there has to be a weighing of the sense in which people bear some responsibility even when they are suffering from an illness, being oppressed by others, or coerced into taking part in crimes. For victims of atrocities, they have a similar legacy of guilt and shame to overcome.

162

Chapter 8

Dillon adds that we can be hurt by our own feelings, thoughts, and desires, such as racist thoughts and fears or being excited by violence, and these can damage our self-respect (2001, 59). For instance, Karl Ove Knausgaard in A Man in Love (2013, 433–34) cannot forgive himself for knocking on a woman’s door in the middle of the night, even though she did not let him in and he agrees it was nothing. I would like to take this issue further and consider the way we can wrong ourselves in wronging others, say by undermining our own character. Hall and Fincham (2005, 626) note that some wrongs may indicate a character flaw and so be harder to forgive. This is likely to be the case with extreme wrongs, although perhaps people who see themselves as caught up with a large group of others in crimes may excuse themselves, and that is why seeing strong remorse in these cases is quite rare. These kind of wrongs suggest a damage that cannot be overcome. When we harm or injure others we harm ourselves in a range of ways, by letting ourselves down, or by making ourselves a lesser person. This point links to Lisa Tessman’s worry about burdened virtues under circumstances of oppression, an aspect of self-forgiveness that Dillon does not consider (Tessman 2005). Oppression or unjust systems of circumstances could structure our lives in ways that make it more likely that we do things we struggle to forgive ourselves for. Oppression could also be even worse in the sense that by limiting our options, we may have to continue to do such things without hope of transforming ourselves. For instance, we could corrupt our own character by being so angry about class injustices, by telling lies to oppressors, or by manipulating others, but cannot see any other way to live. Some of the examples Norlock gives—such as women suffering abuse—are relevant here. She notes that victims of abuse feel or are implicated in the situation of abuse, and may make some choices and have some sense of responsibility for those choices, such as how they deal with children in that situation (2009, 143). These are complicated cases, since as Enright argues, victims of abuse have nothing to forgive themselves for (1996, 120). Yet victims in these cases often feel implicated in the abuse and the need for selfforgiveness so the idea of responsibility is tied to the bad moral luck of being a victim. In many situations, we can unfairly blame ourselves for the actions of others. After the death of others, particularly suicide, we are likely to blame ourselves for not having done something to prevent the death. It is an instance of survivor guilt, as I described in chapter 3. Hall and Fincham are aware of this possibility but argue that in these cases there is nothing to forgive (2005, 628). This way of seeing these circumstances is correct; what is needed is recovery from grief and that will involve giving up self-blame and shame. Dillon observes that we often find it difficult to forgive ourselves in these cases, and we risk being overly rationalistic if we do not take these feelings seriously (2001, 60, note 18). In other words, we should not draw too sharp a

In Search of a Magic Spell

163

line between offending acts that call for self-forgiveness and acts that are not “objectively” wrong; rather we should consider the experience of the person who feels guilt, regret, and remorse as the most crucial factor. The person who cannot forgive themselves feels angry, bitter, cynical, and “beats themselves up,” a common expression used to indicate the notion of punishment of the self. Another way to describe the phenomenon is as self-destructive behavior, which could be in thoughts and feelings or even in physical selfabuse. Their own lack of self-forgiveness is something that itself calls for self-forgiveness. Thus we should not forget that situations of oppression may make self-forgiveness difficult and even impossible if the person cannot see a way to change. In general, I argue that we can forgive ourselves for wrongs done to others in some circumstances without the victim forgiving us, for wrongs done to ourselves, and for wrongs done to ourselves through what we do to others. There is still the different question, however, as to whether we can forgive ourselves in extreme cases. SELF-FORGIVENESS AND EXTREMITY OF WRONGS Arendt may be correct that we cannot see ourselves as others see us; nevertheless, we may be able to see ourselves sufficiently to find the basis for selfforgiveness, as I have argued so far. The answer to the question of the ethics of self-forgiveness—whether we should forgive ourselves—is going to depend to some extent on the extremity of the wrong and thus there may be wrongs to self and others and to the self through wrongs to others that cannot be forgiven. These wrongs may be precisely those I have been discussing throughout the book. In the context of action, Arendt sees forgiveness as being “released from the consequences of what we have done” (1998, 237). However, there are some crimes and “willed evil” that are unforgivable on her account (1998, 240–41). In the context of self-forgiveness, we cannot release ourselves from all the consequences of our actions; we may rely on others to do that in the case of crimes, and even when there has not been a crime as such, our actions could be unforgivable. Can and should people forgive themselves for the crimes of collaboration, of atrocities, of serious oppression of others? However, forgiveness of the self can include forgiveness for trivial faults, or “trespassing,” or acting unknowingly, as Arendt calls it (1998, 240). One example here is Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1999), who could probably fairly easily forgive herself for her prejudices against Darcy. Forgiveness is not generally strictly obligatory, since it is a duty of sympathy or imperfect duty, to put in in Kant’s terms (1996a, 4: 421). However, as in the case of forgiveness of others, if the wrong is very slight, and we have made it up to ourselves, forgiveness could become a kind of obligation. For example,

164

Chapter 8

if we were to do something very trivial, like complain about the coffee somewhere or forget to go to someone’s birthday party, incidents that are probably quickly forgotten by others, then we should forgive ourselves for them. 38 Furthermore, we should aim to be generally forgiving of ourselves as of others, since non-forgivingness of faults, particularly trivial ones, is suggestive of a character flaw or at least of some psychological problem, in being too harsh on ourselves or too proud. So forgiveness for these lesser faults should be something we aim for, along with what Dillon calls preservative self-forgiveness, a future-oriented self-forgivingness and acceptance of ourselves as worthwhile human beings who sometimes make mistakes (2001, 72–74). However, forgiveness for extreme crimes raise special puzzles, especially when we consider it is often difficult and/or unethical for victims to forgive extreme wrongdoing like rape, murder, torture, or genocide. Raskolnikov’s self-forgiveness after being imprisoned for murder in Crime and Punishment, if that is what it is, happens mysteriously through a religious conversion that begins a rebirth, a “gradual regeneration, of his gradual passing from one world to another, of his acquaintance with a new and hitherto unknown reality” (1951, 559). Surprisingly, Snow suggests that self-forgiveness may be important in such extreme cases, when it is not possible to atone for the wrong, as that is the only way one can go on living with oneself (1993, 80). In extreme cases, one could consider that it is possible to live with oneself, or reconcile, without forgiving oneself, as I suggested earlier. Radzik suggests that we may reconcile with ourselves without forgiving ourselves, by continuing to resent ourselves and feeling guilty even though we have redressed the wrong and become trustworthy (2009, 139–40). Self-forgiveness, she argues, should be dependent on atonement, as taking those steps leads to the possibility of self-forgiveness. Life could become just tolerable without a person entirely giving up on resentment or anger against oneself. There are a range of different views about these extreme situations. Hughes observes that some wrongs are so heinous as to be unforgivable by self or other (1994, 559–60). Hall and Fincham consider whether self-forgiveness is appropriate for terrible crimes such as rape and murder, and accept that it might be possible, if the offender goes through a process of true self-forgiveness (2005, 628). Forgiveness is not always possible even though it could be possible in principle, if the offender were able to take responsibility and atone for what they have done. Self-forgiveness may depend on whether the victim is able to forgive and if they are present to consider forgiving. Holmgren contends that forgiveness in extreme cases is possible and appropriate. She uses the example of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to argue that self-forgiveness is a better outcome for everyone than his breakdown due to self-contempt (2012, 125–6). Dahmer became a born-again Christian and was killed by another prisoner in 1994.

In Search of a Magic Spell

165

More broadly, she argues that there is no value in judging our past acts or our self as a whole; rather we should be focused on improving ourselves. Many views that consider self-forgiveness always appropriate are focused on acts, where we might look back on them and believe we have changed in fundamental ways since committing them, rather than the action, as Jankélévitch focuses on. However, if we consider the problem of a serious fault— such as realizing that one has a racist character that we are unable to transform—then it may be appropriate to remain angry with oneself. Also, some acts may be so extreme that they are judged unforgivable, either by others or ourselves. If we are to understand self-forgiveness in any of these cases, we need to examine what reasons we might have for forgiving ourselves or not doing so. WHY SHOULD WE FORGIVE OURSELVES? In the literature, there are two main approaches to the grounds for forgiveness, one that focuses on respect, and the other that stresses love in certain forms. In the case of self-forgiveness, is self-respect sufficient to ground selfforgiveness or do we need self-love in the form of compassion and empathy for ourselves? Dillon argues that we can forgive ourselves, although we should not always do so, and sometimes we are appropriately left with selfreproaches (2001, 83). 39 She centers on “transformative” self-forgiveness, concerned with our past acts, (as opposed to preservative self-forgiveness) and how it can be compatible with evaluative self-respect (in contrast to recognition and what Dillon calls basal self-respect, the basic sense that I matter) if we go through the appropriate processes. 40 Although we might still feel self-reproach, it does not have such a powerful hold on us (2001, 83). Herman Melville leaves it unclear whether Captain Vere forgives himself for ensuring the hanging of Billy Budd for accidentally killing the man who brings false charges against him, but since he dies with Billy’s name on his lips, we can be sure that he was disturbed (1985, 406). We cannot necessarily overcome every aspect of what we have done wrong through self-forgiveness. Our self-respect tells us that we have worth in spite of the wrong we have done as human beings, and many ethical theories will tell us that we all have worth. But does our worth mean that we should be forgiven? Dillon believes self-respect is enough for self-forgiveness, but do not we need self-love in the form of empathy and compassion as well? 41 While I accept self-respect is necessary, love in some form will foster forgiveness and is also necessary to a healthy sense of self, involving both self-respect and self-esteem. Arendt notes that love is sufficient for forgiveness in the private sphere (1998, 242). However, we may need both respect and love for forgiveness of self or other. Then we can forgive ourselves, in some way

166

Chapter 8

modeled on what Norlock calls third-party forgiveness, by feeling empathy for ourselves, or an aspect of ourselves (2009, 140). What we need to do is have empathy for our own past and present selves, and be able to see ourselves as “both agents and victims” (2009, 150). She argues that self-forgiveness is part of a project of regaining moral integrity, taking responsibility, living up to our moral ideals, and developing hope and trust (2009, 149). We could also distinguish between empathy and compassion here, in that empathy involves a sharing of different feelings and compassion a feeling of concern for our suffering. Do we feel compassion toward the self? 42 The character of Briony in Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2002) can be seen as someone who has had to exercise a compassionate and imaginative response to her own wrongdoing, especially since the people she has wronged are not alive to do this for her. We have to have some kind of feeling or attitude that looks on our own actions with imaginative understanding and sees that we are not fully defined by them and may be worthy of forgiveness. Then we can enter into the action of self-forgiveness, which will enable us to lead a better kind of life. 43 Finally, another question: is it hard to forgive ourselves or too easy? Dillon, for example, argues that forgiving ourselves is more difficult than forgiving others (2001, 54). 44 As Aurel Kolnai writes in his article on forgiveness, “So much is certain that in most of us a tendency to self-exculpation is operative and needs careful watching; the habit of easy self-absolution, even following an act of repentance, is always suspect of being more akin to condonation than to genuine forgiveness” (1973, 106). He does add, however, that we need to have patience with ourselves, as with others. This idea is in contrast to Griswold’s view that people sometimes forgive themselves with “lightning speed” (2007, 122). 45 Here what we see is that the more ethically concerned a person is, the less likely they are to forgive themselves, whereas the less ethically concerned they are, the more likely they are to forgive themselves, thus leading to extremes in both types of cases. The greater the wrong, the more likely we are to look for excuses. It is not clear that we can make either generalization, just that we will tend to see these extremes as they are self-reinforcing. So we need to take particular care to note which way we might be tending. CONCLUSION From my discussion of the phenomenon of self-forgiveness, it appears to be possible, at least in the personal rather than political sense. Furthermore, such forgiveness of the self could be compatible with Arendt’s view of forgiveness, as outlined in The Human Condition, if we separate political forgiveness from personal forgiveness, and focus on personal forgiveness of the self.

In Search of a Magic Spell

167

What Arendt rules out is self-forgiveness as self-pardon for crimes, a rare and controversial phenomenon sometimes considered by heads of state since only they appear to have such a power. Perpetrators of political violence are generally not in a position to pardon themselves and perhaps often not likely to consider the question of self-forgiveness. Nevertheless, what we can take from Arendt’s idea of self-forgiveness being dependent on the forgiveness of others is the reality that others generally play a role in self-forgiveness: we cannot forgive ourselves really “shut up within ourselves.” We usually need the support and comfort of others to be able to forgive ourselves. This could occur through truth and reconciliation processes, such as that aspect of Rwanda’s gacaca trials, or through living and working with others. It is very difficult, sometimes more difficult than forgiving others, and there may be times when we should not forgive ourselves. Yet, self-forgiveness, just as Arendt says of forgiveness of the other, can allow the possibility of starting something new. It is a kind of magic spell that shares the miraculous quality of forgiveness and promising others, and is needed in the grief and tragedy of political violence. NOTES 1. Philosophers who accept that Arendt takes this view include Charles Griswold (2007, 122), Kathryn Norlock (2009, 144), and Peter Goldie (2011, 93). 2. See Brian C. Kalt (1996–7, 779–809), for a discussion of the legal issues involved. 3. See Linda Ross Meyer, “The Merciful State” for a detailed discussion of different reasons for legal pardons, in Austin Sarat and Nasser Hussain (2007, 63–116). 4. Meir Dan-Cohen, in Sarat and Hussain (2007, 117). 5. Arendt does see political forgiveness as having a personal aspect, in addressing and concerning the individual, or the “who” in question (1998, 241). 6. Goldie argues that while self-forgiveness is possible, self-pardon is not (2011, 69). Nevertheless, he means something different again by pardon—that it is taking the person as not fully responsible for an action—something that we cannot (reasonably) do in our own case, although we can for others (2011, 92). 7. Another example is the film Manchester by the Sea, which portrays a character who finds self-forgiveness impossible (2016). 8. See Arendt on the individuality of the person, which we see reflected in everything we do, in Responsibility and Judgment (2003, 13). 9. This lecture was first published in Social Research in 1971. 10. Arendt sees the “who” as expressed in the narrative of a person’s life, for example the narrative we have of Socrates (1998, 186). 11. Some authors, such as Nancy E. Snow, have thought of self-forgiveness as restoring the self to wholeness. However, this idea does not imply splitting the self into higher and lower parts, just that the self is complex and can judge aspects of itself (1993, 76). 12. Garry L. Hagberg argues that self-forgiveness is self-constitutive, in that the self is changed by the process of self-forgiveness (2011, 69). For him, the self is not partitioned; instead a bifocal doubling bootstraps an increasing sense of self-worth through forgiveness (2011, 75). Similarly, Goldie contends that in self-forgiveness we see ourselves from an external perspective but nevertheless it is first or second person rather than third-person or impersonal (2011, 89). 13. Enright distinguishes self-forgiveness from narcissism and self-esteem (1996, 117). Hall and Fincham distinguish it from self-centeredness as well (2005, 626).

168

Chapter 8

14. For instance, Enright suggests that self-forgiveness may be an indirect gift to others since as we lose our self-resentment; we may be able to respect others more (1996, 117). Snow sees self-forgiveness as potentially facilitating forgiveness of others as it may make us more empathetic to offenders (1993, 77). 15. In her work with substance abuse users in recovery, psychologist Marjorie Baker found that people had to self-forgive to overcome guilt and shame and that that helped them to avoid relapsing into drug use (Baker, in Malcolm et al. 2008, 72). 16. See also Goldie (2011, 89). Linda Radzik discusses Jim’s emotional reaction in her book and argues that his guilt and repentance is inappropriately focused on his violation of a code of honor, rather than the wrong to the pilgrims and sailors that might have died (2009, 91). However, it could be argued that because the sailors and pilgrims did not die, Jim’s focus understandably shifted to his professional dereliction of duty. 17. Norlock agrees with Baker that we have to reconcile with ourselves to forgive ourselves (2009, 151; Baker, 2008, 64). The primary reason given is that we cannot avoid ourselves in the way we can live apart from others. 18. Horsbrugh (1974, 278); Hall and Fincham (2005, 64) suggest that, typically, the consequences for the self of lack of forgiveness is more severe than lack of forgiving another, as we can avoid the perpetrator, but we cannot avoid ourselves. Self-alienation and self-destructiveness may be the result. However, they note that this point has not been shown empirically. 19. Szablowinski takes that idea further and says that “the inability to forgive oneself or others not uncommonly results in the strongest and most negative psychological conditions that can arise in human experience” (2012, 678). 20. Another philosopher who takes this idea further is Byron Williston, who argues that we are “morally required” to forgive ourselves first to deserve the forgiveness of others (2012, 67). His reason for thinking this is necessary is that he identifies the steps toward self-forgiveness with the process necessary for forgiveness by others (2012, 76). 21. Or so Hall and Fincham, (2005, 632) predict, given that the evidence on this score is mixed. 22. A third possibility is that we need to forgive others for what they have done to us before we can forgive ourselves. Bauer et al. stress that forgiveness of self can coincide with forgiving others as one realizes that one also had a role to play in the wrongs suffered, for example, in the relationship with a parent, and it can occur after a specific incident or arise over time (1992, 154). 23. Also, like Dillon, Bauer et al. acknowledge the importance of others in aiding selfforgiveness through love and acceptance: “It may not be too strong a statement to say that “self” forgiveness always takes place in the context of some variation of loving relationships with others” (1992, 155). 24. Norlock also acknowledges this relevance of Arendt’s point—that we need to talk about what has happened to others as they help us to make a narrative of our lives. They can also affirm a sense of our being worthy of self-forgiveness (2009, 153). 25. See Williston (2012, 71–72) for quite an interesting discussion of Briony and selfforgiveness in Atonement (2002), although he appears to believe that Briony was able to apologize to Cecilia and Robbie, rather than create a fiction where that occurs. 26. Bauer et al. also observe there is a great deal of vacillation between self-recrimination and self-forgiveness (1992, 155). 27. Griswold makes the point that we can reproach people for not forgiving themselves, being too hard-hearted with themselves, and too proud to forgive themselves, and that is as equally meaningful as criticizing people for forgiving themselves too easily (2007, 122). 28. Goldie also accepts we cannot feel resentment toward ourselves, but we can feel blame, reproach, shame, and hatred, (2011, 83) likewise Murphy (1998, 217) and Griswold say that we cannot feel resentment toward ourselves as well; rather we feel self-hatred (2007, 125). Holmgren (1998) accepts that we can feel resentment, although in her later book she prefers to use the term “self-condemnation” as an analogue for resentment felt toward others (2012, 104–33). 29. As Hagberg maintains, when we enter into the plight of the person harmed, we “become able to feel warranted resentment against he who perpetrated the injury i.e. ourselves” (2011, 73).

In Search of a Magic Spell

169

30. See Hall and Fincham 2005, 621; Holmgren 1998, 77; Holmgren 2002, 122; Tangney et al. 2005, 151–52. 31. Similarly, Hughes suggests that our own wrongdoings may not cause us psychological distress, (1994, 558) although what he has in mind are trivialities, like accidentally stepping on someone’s foot on the bus. 32. Hall and Fincham question whether it would have “the same emotional, psychological, and physical benefits as true self-forgiveness” (2005, 627). 33. Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney, quoted in “Creative Spirits.” 34. Szablowinski modifies the point by suggesting that self-forgiveness involves not the elimination of these feelings, but their control and prevention from becoming “excessive, unwarranted, or malicious” (2012, 688). 35. Griswold mentions this possibility (2007, 123), as well as the idea of when the victim ought to forgive but will not. 36. Similarly, Snow argues that self-forgiveness is a second-best alternative when the forgiveness of the other is not possible, or when the offender unreasonably refuses to forgive (1993, 79–80). 37. As Hughes and Warmke observe, we talk of forgiving ourselves for self-directed wrongs such as not fostering our talents or not living according to our commitments or values (Hughes and Warmke, 2017). Snow sees that we may need to forgive ourselves for character traits, attitudes, and dispositions (1993, 78). As specific examples, psychologists Hall and Fincham mention academic and social failures, substance abuse and eating disorders, (2005, 626) a group of problems that Norlock centers on. 38. Hughes (1994, 558) points out that we can easily forgive our own minor transgressions through an act of forgiveness. 39. Lippitt argues that this kind of self-forgiveness that can allow for remaining hard feelings is consonant with Kierkegaard’s view of self-love (2014, 156–80). In contrast, Radzik accepts that we should not forgive ourselves if atonement is not possible (2009, 141). 40. Dillon sums up her complex distinctions between different forms of self-respect thus: “Whereas recognition self-respect expressed, ‘I matter because I am a person,’ and evaluative self-respect expressed, ‘I matter because I have merit,’ basal self-respect expresses simply, ‘I matter’” (2001, 68). Per-Erik Milam contends that Dillon’s view of self-forgiveness is very close to a self-reconciliation view and does not fully acknowledge the improvement in our attitude to ourselves (2015, 54–55). 41. Enright argues we should forgive ourselves because although we acknowledge the wrong we have done, we still “see the self as worthwhile” (1996, 117). He defines selfforgiveness as “a willingness to abandon self-resentment in the face of one’s own acknowledged objective wrong, while fostering compassion, generosity, and love toward oneself” (1996, 116). Enright accepts that these last attitudes are not duties, but like Dillon, finds selfrespect necessary for this process. 42. Enright says we feel compassion toward ourselves as we become more aware of our own suffering (1996, 118). Holmgren also sees compassion as necessary for self-forgiveness (1998, 79). Hagberg argues we need compassion, along with insight and understanding to see ourselves differently and so forgive (2011, 76). 43. French argues that Briony’s act is selfish, “not one of repentance and definitely not atonement” (2014, 602). In chapter 6, I contended similarly that she does not atone; nevertheless, the novel does tell us something about self-forgiveness. 44. Enright, who has worked with victims of incest, argues similarly that “our experience is that most people are harder on themselves than on others” (1996, 119). 45. His example is members of the clergy found to be unfaithful.

Conclusion

This book has investigated the issues of ethical restoration in a way that tries to acknowledge the immense difficulties of decent and just punishment, trust, forgiveness, reconciliation, atonement, and self-forgiveness in real political contexts. The negative and positive conditions of ethical restoration are evident in different ways in the reconciliation processes discussed—the postwar French purge, the trials of post-genocide Rwanda, and the drawn-out reconciliation in post-colonial Australia—as are the difficulties that arise, and the problems that occur when these conditions are not respected. Ethical restoration and its conditions suggest hope in a more peaceful and just community, without necessarily relying on faith in remorseful perpetrators and forgiving survivors, as the community can act to atone. The role of community in restoring an ethical political state through support for its enabling conditions is affirmed, and these conditions can provide the framework for individual responses that may include remorse and forgiveness. The first chapter reflected on the problem of the death penalty, as articulated by Jacques Derrida, who argues that we need to think the concept of unconditional abolition. He also makes the claim that philosophers traditionally have not opposed the death penalty qua philosophy and in fact many philosophers have supported it. However, I contended that Albert Camus’s essay “Reflections on the Guillotine” (1960) can be held as an exception, that begins to think what unconditional abolition might look like. Unconditional abolition must be universal, and so supported globally. Questioning of the use of capital punishment needs to challenge states’ power over life and death and that of state and nonstate actors to decide that others deserve to die, for example, through targeted assassinations, political executions, and extrajudicial killings, and should consider how conscription and killing in war could be constrained and eliminated. Derrida’s discussion of the death penal171

172

Conclusion

ty considered how we must respect life, even love life, and so we must oppose capital punishment for shattering that concern. Furthermore, he argued that state decisions to execute violate an essential element of the human by choosing the moment of our death. When we link this concern about capital punishment to ethical restoration after political violence, such as occupation, genocide, and oppression, it is clear that the death penalty cannot be part of these processes, as became evident in Rwanda, but was not as obvious to the planners of the purge of collaborators in France after World War II. More general questions about the nature of punishment, the relationship between guilt, shame, humiliation, for both survivors and perpetrators, and the importance of not using humiliating punishments is related to unconditional abolition, and I discussed these questions in chapter 3. In chapter 2, I examined Simone de Beauvoir’s justification for the death penalty, which she links with human concerns with vengefulness. She gives her views on these issues at a time of great turmoil, after the liberation of France and as a witness to the trial of Robert Brasillach. During that period, capital punishment for war crimes and crimes against humanity was accepted, although how that should be determined—through trials or decisions by political leaders—was debated amongst the allies. Her basic argument is that through punishment we try to re-establish a reciprocity between victim and perpetrators, an attempt that generally fails. The death penalty, Beauvoir admits, cannot establish such a reciprocity; rather it is an expression of how seriously the crimes of “absolute evil” are taken by society. What is most significant about Beauvoir’s essay “An Eye for an Eye” (2004) is that, because she articulates the tensions even in her own partial support for the death penalty, we can see even more clearly how ethical restoration must be conceived with rejection of the death penalty as a starting point. This chapter shows the ambivalence in Beauvoir’s own view, as is evident from her own later comments and justifications for a refusal to sign the clemency petition for Brasillach that was submitted to Charles de Gaulle and rejected, and by Jean-Paul Sartre’s comments that she was against Brasillach’s execution. In contrast, Camus, who wrote specifically against the death penalty, as I discussed in chapter 1, was consistent in being a signatory to the clemency petition, although he had supported the use of capital punishment at the beginning of the liberation. Intertwined with Beauvoir’s ambivalence and inconsistency about the trial and execution of Brasillach is the experience of the French purge itself, which included “spontaneous” acts of revenge and the rapid legal trials of suspected collaborators. A reflection on the decisions made by the courts show that they were arbitrary in many ways and tended to target writers such as Brasillach for the irreparable punishment of the death penalty. To take just one example from the “wild” purge, women were scapegoated for the ills of occupation, often by men who were themselves collaborators, hoping to

Conclusion

173

deflect attention from their own activities, as is now acknowledged (Beevor, 2009). Thus the French purge acts as a kind of negative example, of mistakes that later communities trying to recover from political violence do not wish to repeat. Beauvoir articulates the passions of the righteous bystander and witness; yet we need to also understand the complex experiences of guilt, shame, and humiliation that victims, survivors, and perpetrators often share. Thus, chapter 3 examines the work of Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt in their debate about guilt, shame and responsibility to clarify the distinctions between these concepts, and then goes on to show how they are related to humiliation. Jaspers and Arendt were concerned that people might claim they experience guilt and shame unrealistically and self-indulgently. My argument is that guilt and shame may also be improperly demanded of, ascribed to, and provoked by humiliation, and so experienced by the most vulnerable. The three examples in chapter 3, Cheshire Calhoun’s interpretation of Adrian Piper’s shame when she is blamed for supposedly “passing” as African American, Giorgio Agamben’s discussion of a man’s shame when he is called out from a death march from the World War II concentration camps, and the current use of punishment that involves shaming practices, demonstrate the way being oppressed means we are more likely to experience humiliating treatment by others as our own shame. That is how we can comprehend each of these examples: as a feature of the structure of oppressive situations, as a taking on of the view of the subordinating other. Often the humiliation brought about by treating victims and offenders in humiliating ways is not recognized as such. Furthermore, these examples show beyond the wrong of shaming victims the risks in attempts at ethical restoration that use shaming and humiliating perpetrators as part of these processes. While we can understand why people, especially those most vulnerable, as victims of political violence or as prisoners, experience shame when they are shamed or humiliated by others, and accept that in other respects they have a robust sense of self, we should focus on the way that dominant groups in situations of power over others shame and humiliate them. The examples of punishment may be slightly different from the other examples, as offenders who are subjected to humiliating and shaming punishments might be able to repel the intention of the punishments and become angry about the treatment instead. My discussion of these structures is intended to suggest that we should shift our attention to the experiences of shame and humiliation. Furthermore, we should regard the removal of treatment that tries to force these emotions on people, especially in vulnerable groups, yet on anyone as a feature of ethical restoration, as one of the negative conditions of a more just restoration after political violence. The oppressors or newly dominant may not believe their practices are humiliating, and if so that feature of their actions should be explained. Victims of

174

Conclusion

atrocities are those most vulnerable and yet so are those imprisoned on suspicion of committing those atrocities. For chapter 4, I focused on the positive condition for ethical restoration of how we can bring about and maintain trust after political violence, where those grieving and the unrepentant offenders responsible for their grief are often thrown together. Immanuel Kant’s development of guidelines for maintaining trust between states even during conflict provides a model for understanding trust within states and between individuals. His work articulates constraints that should be kept on actions taken in war and other conflicts and following conflict in order to restore justice and peace. These constraints limit practices of deception such as violation of cease-fire agreements that would prevent or obstruct the regaining of peace. What his argument allows is that we can move from a provisional state, like the state of nature, or a transitional state, like that following conflict and political violence to a more just one, even if a “perfect” state of justice and peace is not achieved. These are positive conditions of political trust. Nevertheless, these features of limiting deception and promoting respect within states and between individuals are not the only ones that are important. Jean Améry identifies the significance of caring for others as an element of trust, through his reflections on being tortured, where he lost his trust in the world. Thus trust as respect through honesty and trust as caring for and helping others must be combined. The last section of the chapter considers the issue of trust in post-genocide Rwanda as exemplifying a kind of “hopeful trust” or as one survivor puts it, “pretending peace.” What is implied is that the first conditions for trust do not involve perfect sincerity or a fully genuine trust. However, trust begins from the actions of limiting deception and encouraging care to establish a wary but hopeful trust. These steps toward political trust may always be provisional, or steps that always have to be taken further to establish the kind of trust that is seen in democratic societies without such a painful legacy. Chapter 5, concerning the reconciliation processes of post-genocide Rwanda, shows how after an initial use of the death penalty to punish killers in the genocide, Rwandans abolished capital punishment and focused on other means of holding people accountable. The gacaca trials, developed to try thousands of those suspected of involvement in the genocide, mixed punishment with clemency and reduction of sentences, including time served in exchange for confessions and apologies. Although some of the confessions were comprehensive and apologies sincere, many were limited and perfunctory, and survivors often felt pressured to at least make a show of forgiveness, however they felt. Understanding this process in relation to Jacques Derrida’s account of the logic of forgiveness, the forgiveness that occurs is often a conditional forgiveness that is a response to confession and apology, demanded by the state, not necessarily spontaneous forgiveness. Neverthe-

Conclusion

175

less, the scantiness of many of the apologies, and the generally extreme nature of the crimes, also implies that an unconditional forgiveness of the unforgivable, as characterized by Derrida, is a core expectation of the survivors. Despite the difficulties of forgiveness and reconciliation that I centered on in the chapter, the progress post-genocide Rwanda has made in restoring justice and peace after such atrocities is noteworthy and can suggest ways that a hybrid approach to ethical restoration can work. The gacaca courts were a distinct kind of trial for such serious crimes, and they provided punishment and lead to reparations, and prepared the way for reconciliation. All of the processes of justice, peace, and reconciliation in Rwanda have been undertaken while contending with the reconstruction of a nation that was devastated and had a raft of additional political, social and economic problems. The demand for reconciliatory expressions arose from a situation where survivors of the genocide have no choice but to live and work side-byside with the perpetrators. As the gacaca trials and the trials of the International Criminal tribunal for Rwanda have wound up, it has become clearer that reconciliation after such an extreme event of political violence comes at a worrying price. The mandate to avoid referring to ethnicity limits free speaking in public, people’s lives are controlled to a high degree, and not everyone benefits from increases in wealth. Although there are many inspiring elements in Rwandans’ response to the legacy of the genocide, the question of whether some of the means used to maintain peace denature the end or undermine some of the values that are meant to be upheld, as Sartre and Derrida warned us against, is still open. While we would all like to believe that that forgiveness and reconciliation are possible, they are not easy, and Rwanda’s ethical restoration has burdened the grieving victims and survivors, and may not be the best example of communal atonement, the subject of the following chapters. In chapter 6, I undertake a close reading of Vladimir Jankélévitch’s account of remorse and how genuine remorse requires a conversion rather than a false repenting that searches for a reward in exchange, like absolution in exchange for penance. True remorse is a sign of an ethical change for the better. Thus this interpretation of remorse is needed to comprehend the experience of genuine atonement. I contrast this way of thinking with my reading of Margaret Urban Walker’s account of “making amends,” where she explains the process as an exchange or transaction, whereby the offender is willing to atone insofar as they are expectant of a commensurate response from the victims or survivors. Jankélévitch’s description of the radical conversion of the will and the suffering of remorse to begin atonement is one of the strongest challenges to a complacent idea of atonement. Reflecting on the issue of unremorseful perpetrators highlights another challenge, as does reflection on the issues of

176

Conclusion

victims and survivors unwilling to receive or respond to atonement. The wrongs of communal violence and historical oppression often feel overwhelming in their depth and reach. In addition to Derrida, several philosophers have contended that being unable to fulfill an ethical obligation does not reduce the demand of the obligation. So the impossibility or great test of completing atonement is not a justification for not practicing atonement. Yet taking these problems seriously is the core of beginning to undertake sincere atonement. What we can do is attempt to make up for the wrongs of the past in a variety of essential ways. Furthermore, we must acknowledge the distinctiveness of the violence and historical injustice, the specific context they took place in, as well as the ethical asymmetry between the victims and survivors and the offenders. I argue that we cannot build up from minor or trivial cases of wrongs to understand atonement for those of occupation, genocide, or historical injustice and oppression. Then, in chapter 7, I considered further how we should conceptualize the process and acts of atonement, considering the implications of Jankélévitch’s view of remorse as asking for nothing in return, and its contrast to Walker’s exchange view of how to “make amends.” To clarify the distinctive character of atonement, I explored Linda Radzik’s account of atonement as reconciliation and discussed forms of atonement for historical injustices committed against indigenous Australians. I argued that atonement is one aspect of reconciliation, albeit an important one, yet it is distinct from reconciliation, and needs to focus on harms to individuals as well as to relationships, and to involve ethical transformation. Wrongdoing and harm, especially the extreme and large-scale harms considered here, demand that we attempt to make up for irreparable wrongs, and so we will often, if not always, fail. Radzik acknowledges that sometimes claims against the perpetrator can be “tragically unresolved” (Radzik, 2009, 139). She also suggests that sometimes, as in the case of Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, where the church was reluctant to atone, atonement must involve bystanders and those who inherit responsibility to be practicable. Furthermore, I argue that such communal atonement must involve symbolic and ritual atonement that acknowledge the depth of the harm to the victims, along with more practical measures, such as reparations. Considering the practices of atonement in Australia thus far, there are still many failures and limitations in the extent of atonement and even in the spirit in which it is carried out. However, there are positive indications that genuine forms of atonement are being taken through compensation for indigenous child victims of abuse and removal from their families, the beginnings of reparations for indigenous stolen wages, commemorations and memorialization, inclusion of indigenous service men and women in the War Memorial and ANZAC marches, welcomes to country and acknowledgments of country, and the flying of both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags,

Conclusion

177

which are official Australian flags. What emerges from each of the situations I have discussed is that atonement takes generations, and at any given moment we could have to live with the reality of Derrida’s concept of ethical impossibility or the grief of knowing or fearing that we have failed, without using that as a justification for giving up. In the final chapter, I examined whether it is possible and ethical for perpetrators to forgive themselves for their wrongs—what appears to be the last and most difficult step of ethical restoration, partly because to forgive oneself one must properly acknowledge the wrong and go through the steps necessary for self-forgiveness. From my discussion of the phenomenon of self-forgiveness, it seems to be possible, if sometimes too challenging, at least in the personal rather than political sense. I also argued that such forgiveness of the self could be compatible with Hannah Arendt’s view of forgiveness in The Human Condition (1998). To make sense of that compatibility, we need to we separate political forgiveness from personal forgiveness, and focus on personal forgiveness of the self. What Arendt’s view does exclude is self-forgiveness as self-pardon for crimes, a possibility occasionally considered by heads of state who have that power. Typically, perpetrators of political violence could not pardon themselves, although they might excuse themselves or try to forget what they have done. Nonetheless, there is an important lesson to be learned from Arendt’s view that self-forgiveness is dependent on the forgiveness of others. This lesson is that other people often play a role in self-forgiveness, even if that role has to be partly imagined. Usually, we need the support and comfort of others, the caring trust Améry describes, in order to be able to forgive ourselves. Such forgiveness might be an aspect of truth and reconciliation processes like Rwanda’s gacaca trials, or by taking part in apologies and other acts of atonement. Sometimes self-forgiveness is harder than forgiving others, and we need to allow that there are extreme cases when we should not forgive ourselves. Self-forgiveness has the feature of natality, or starting something new, that Arendt ascribes to forgiveness of the other. These are co-implicated, and many acts of atonement will work toward both possibilities. This book is written in a kind of hope that conceptualizing the features and conditions of ethical restoration, both negative and positive, in a way that is sensitive and respectful to the people involved and reflecting on the insights of the survivors of political atrocities and injustices, both philosophical and that of others, will contribute to greater efforts and success in that regard. Finally, we should remember that there are political communities where a full truth and reconciliation process is avoided, either because some parties believe it would inflame tensions or are concerned too much damaging information will emerge, in places such as Northern Ireland, or they feel that they have not reached that point in their peace process yet, such as between Israel

178

Conclusion

and Palestine. It is difficult to undertake ethical restoration when the conflicts are on-going, so people are left with grief that is continually exacerbated. Nevertheless, the peace processes in these places continue, and one day much of the information about what occurred during their troubles and conflict will be told and reparations made, we must hope. Like the work of thinking, as Arendt understands it, the work of ethical restoration must be begun anew each day.

Bibliography

ABC News online. 2016. “Australian Psychological Society apologises for failing Indigenous Australians.” September 15. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-15/aps-sorry-for-failingindigenous-australians/7849694. Accessed May 10, 2018. ABC News online. 2016. “What Will Indigenous Treaties Mean?” December 14. http://www. abc.net.au/news/2016-12-14/creation-of-indigenous-treaties-being-led-by-states/8119488. Accessed May 10, 2018. Abramson, Kate. 2009. “A Sentimentalists’ Defense of Contempt, Shame, and Disdain.” The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, edited by Peter Goldie, 189-214. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Adelsberg, Geoffrey, Guenther, Lisa, and Zeman, Scott, ed. 2015. Death and Other Penalties: Philosophy in a Time of Mass Incarceration, New York: Fordham University Press. Agamben, Giorgio. 1999. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen. New York: Zone Books. Aghion, Anne. 2002–2009. Gacaca trilogy. Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Allen, Woody. 1989. Crimes and Misdemeanors. American Civil Liberties Union. “A Death Before Dying: Solitary Confinement on Death Row.” https://www.aclu.org/report/death-dying. Accessed May 10, 2018. Améry, Jean. 1980. At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities. Translated by Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Amnesty International. 2017/18. “Algeria.” https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-eastand-north-africa/algeria/. Accessed May 10, 2018. ————. 2007. “Rwanda Abolishes the Death Penalty.” http://www.amnesty.org/en/newsand-updates/good-news/rwanda-abolishes-death-penalty-20070802. Accessed April 20, 2017. ————. 1994. “Rwanda: Reports of Killings and Abductions by the Rwandese Patriotic Army, April-August 1994.” October 19. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr47/016/ 1994/en/. Accessed May 10, 2018. Antelme, Robert. 1998. The Human Race. Translated by Jeffrey Haight and Annie Mahler. Evanston, IL: The Marlboro Press. Arendt, Hannah. 2005. Essays in Understanding: 1930-1954, edited by Jerome Kohn. New York: Harcourt Brace. ———. 2003. Responsibility and Judgment, edited by Jerome Kohn. New York: Schocken Books. ———. 1998. The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

179

180

Bibliography

———. 1994. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin. ———. 1982. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, edited by Ronald Beiner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1973. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace. ———. 1971. “Thinking and Moral Considerations.” Social Research, 38(3): 417–47. ———. 1968. Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. 2nd ed. New York: The Viking Press. ———. 1948. “The Concentration Camps.” Partisan Review 15(7): 743-763. Associated Press. 2014. “Rwandan genocide: 20th Anniversary Brings a Nation Together to Mourn.” The Guardian. April 7. Ataner, Attila. 2006. “Kant on Capital Punishment and Suicide.” Kant-Studien 97(4): 452-82. Austen, Jane. 1999. Pride and Prejudice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Australian, and Wilkie, Meredith. 1997. Bringing them Home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Bagnetto, Laura-Angela. 2014. “Serving Time for Rwandan Genocide in Nyamagabe Prison.” http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20140408-serving-20-years-rwanda-s-genocide-nyamagabe-prison. Accessed May 10, 2018. Baier, Annette C. 2004. “Demoralization, Trust, and the Virtues.” Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers, edited by Cheshire Calhoun, 176-88. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 1995. Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bartky, Sandra Lee. 1990. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. London: Routledge. Bass, Gary Jonathan. 2000. Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bauer, Lin, Duffy, Jack, Fountain, Elizabeth, Halling, Steen, Holzer, Maria, Jones, Elaine, Leifer, Michael and Rowe, Jan O. 1992. “Exploring Self-Forgiveness.” Journal of Religion and Health 31(2): 149-60. Bavas, Josh. 2015. “Newman Government’s Pink Bikie Prison Uniforms to Be Sold Off as Breast Cancer Charity Fundraiser.” ABC News. June 2. Bazelon, Emily. 2016. “Where the Death Penalty Still Lives.” The New York Times, August 23. BBC news. 2012. “Rwanda ‘Gacaca’ Genocide Courts Finish Work.” June 18. http://www.bbc. co.uk/news/world-africa-18490348. Accessed May 10, 2018. ———. 1998. “Rwanda Executes Genocide Convicts.” April 24. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ africa/82960.stm. Accessed May 10, 2018. Beange, Jessica. 2016. “First Exhibition Honouring Indigenous Military Service Launches at Australian War Memorial.” ABC NEWS online. September 23. Beauvoir, Simone de. 2010. The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier. New York: Knopf. [Le deuxième sexe. 2 Vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1949.] ———. 2004. “An Eye for an Eye.” Philosophical Writings. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 237-260. [“Oeil pour œil.” L”existentialisme et la sagesse des nations. Paris: Éditions Nagel, 1948, 109-143.] ———. 1997. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. Secaucus: Citadel. [Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté. Paris: Gallimard, 1947]. ———. 1969. A Very Easy Death, Translated by Patrick O’Brian. London: Penguin. ———. 1968. Force of Circumstance. Translated by Richard Howard. Harmondsworth: Penguin. [La force des choses. Paris: Gallimard, 1963.] ———. 1966. “Must We Burn Sade?” in The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, by the Marquis De Sade, Translated by Annette Michelson, New York: Grove Press. 11-82. [Fautil brûler Sade? Paris: Gallimard, 1972.] Beccaria, Cesare. 1964. “Of Capital Punishments” in Allessandro Manzoni, The Column of Infamy. Translated by Kenelm Foster and Jane Grigson. London: Oxford University Press. 45-52. Beck, Lewis White. 1971. “Kant and the Right of Revolution.” Journal of the History of Ideas 32(3): 411-22.

Bibliography

181

Beevor, Antony. 2009. “An Ugly Carnival.” The Guardian. June 5. https://www.theguardian. com/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/05/women-victims-d-day-landings-second-world-war. Accessed May 10, 2018. Bell, Macalester. 2012. “Forgiveness, Inspiration, and the Powers of Reparation.” American Philosophical Quarterly 49(3): 205–21. Bennett, Christopher 2011. “Review of Linda Radzik, Making Amends: Atonement in Law, Morality and Politics.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 8: 153–67. ———. 2009. “Review of Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing.” Mind 118: 215-20. Bennington, Geoffrey. 2012. “Rigor, or, Stupid Uselessness.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, Spindel Supplement, 20–38. Benton, Robert J. 1982. “Political Expediency and Lying: Kant vs. Benjamin Constant.” Journal of the History of Ideas 43(1): 135–44. Bergson, Henri. 1956. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Translated by R. Ashley Audra and Cloudesley Brereton. New York: Doubleday. Bernstein, J. M. 2011. “Trust: On the Real but Almost Always Unnoticed, Ever-changing Foundation of Ethical Life.” Metaphilosophy 42(4): 395-416. Best, Susan. 2016. Reparative Aesthetics: Witnessing in Contemporary Art Photography. London: Bloomsbury. Bjerregaard, Mette. 2014. “What Indonesians Really Think about The Act of Killing.” The Guardian. March 6. Blumenthal, Ralph. 2007. “Not the Killer, but Still Facing a Date with the Executioner.” New York Times. August 30. Boctor, Audrey. 2009. “The Abolition of the Death Penalty in Rwanda.” Human Rights Review 10: 99–118. Bornkamm, Paul Christoph. 2012. Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Between Retribution and Restoration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Borradori, Giovanna. 2003. Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Boss, Judith. 1997. “Throwing Pearls to the Swine: Women, Forgiveness, and the Unrepentant Abuser.” Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination, edited by Laura Duhan Kaplan and Laurence F. Bove, 235–47. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Brännmark, Johan. 2008. “Review of Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing.” Theoria 74: 169–72. Briefing. 2017 “Paul Kagame, Feted and Feared.” The Economist. July 15. https://www. economist.com/news/briefing/21724982-rwanda-more-prosperous-country-ever-it-alsorepressed-one-paul-kagame. Accessed May 13, 2018. Brison, Susan J. 2003. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Brooks, Roy L. 2004. Atonement and Forgiveness: A New Model for Black Reparations. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brudholm, Thomas. 2013. “Atonement and the Limits of Philosophy: Review Essay.” Criminal Law and Philosophy November, 1-7. ———. 2010. “Hatred as an Attitude.” Philosophical Papers 39(3): 289-313. ——— and Rosoux, Valérie. 2009a. “The Unforgiving: Reflections on the Resistance to Forgiveness after Atrocity.” Law and Contemporary Problems 72: 33-49. ———. 2009b. “On the Advocacy of Forgiveness after Mass Atrocities,” The Religious in Response to Mass Atrocity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Thomas Brudholm and Thomas Cushman, 124-53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2008. Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Burnet, Jennie. E. 2012. Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory, and Silence in Rwanda. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Butler, Joseph. 1878. The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. London: George Bell and Sons. Butler, Judith. 2014. “On Cruelty.” London Review of Books 36(14): 31-3.

182

Bibliography

Calhoun, Cheshire. 2009. “Review of Linda Radzik, Making Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law, and Politics,” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. ———. 2004. “An Apology for Moral Shame.” Journal of Political Philosophy 12(2): 127-46. Camus, Albert. 2006. Camus at Combat: Writing 1944–1947. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2005. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. London: Penguin. ———. 1988. The Stranger. Translated by Matthew Ward, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ———. 1960. “Reflections on the Guillotine.” Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Knopf. 175–234. Capriccioso, Rob. 2010. “A Sorry Saga: Obama Signs Native American Apology Resolution; Fails to Draw Attention to It.” Indian Law Resource Center. January 13. http://indianlaw. org/node/529. Accessed April 27, 2018. Caputo, John, Dooley, Mark, and Scanlon, Michael J., eds. 2001. Questioning God. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Card, Claudia. 2010. Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———, ed. 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carey, Benedict. 2011. “Celebrating a Death: Ugly, Maybe, but Only Human.” New York Times. May 12. Carlin, John. 2003. “New Dawn in Rwanda as a Nation Forgives.” The Observer. August 24. Carroll, David. 2007. Albert Camus the Algerian: Colonialism, Terrorism, Justice. New York: Columbia University Press. Celermajer, Danielle. 2009. The Sins of the Nation and the Rituals of Apologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Phil. 2010. The Gacaca Courts, Post-genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Phil, and Kaufman, Zachary D., eds. 2009. After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Postconflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond. New York: Columbia University Press. “Compensation for Women Excluded from Magdalene Laundries would be €5m: Ombudsman.” 2018. Irish Examiner. January 31. https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ ireland/compensation-for-women-excluded-from-magdalene-laundries-scheme-would-be5m-ombudsman-825717.html. Accessed May 14, 2018. Conrad, Joseph. 1957. Lord Jim: A Tale. London: Penguin. Cordner, Christopher. 2007. “Guilt, Remorse and Victims.” Philosophical Investigations 30(4): 337–62. Courtright, Jeffrey M. 2013. “Is Trust like an ‘Atmosphere?’: Understanding the Phenomenon of Existential Trust.” Philosophy in the Contemporary World 20(1): 39–51. Creative Spirits. “‘Sorry’ Apology to Stolen Generations.” https://www.creativespirits.info/ aboriginalculture/politics/sorry-apology-to-stolen-generations#toc3. Accessed May 7, 2018. Custer, Olivia. 2016. “From Reprisal to Reprieve.” Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Genealogy, Deconstruction, and Politics, edited by Olivia Custer, Penelope Deutscher, and Samir Haddad, 187–204. New York: Columbia University Press. Daigle, Christine. 2006. “The Ambiguous Ethics of Beauvoir.” Existentialist Thinkers and Ethics, edited by Christine Daigle, 120–141. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. David, Kezio-Musoke. 2011. “Grenade Attack Wounds 21 in Rwanda.” Reuters. July 13. Davis, Angela Y. 2003. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press. Deák, István. 2015. Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution During World War II. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Death Penalty Information Center. 2018. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions-unitedstates. Accessed May 4, 2018. Deigh, John. 2006. “The Politics of Disgust and Shame.” The Journal of Ethics 10: 383–418. Deonna, Julien, Rodogno, Raffaele, and Teroni, Fabrice. 2011. In Defense of Shame: The Faces of an Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

183

Derrida, Jacques. 2017. The Death Penalty, Vol. II, Translated by Elizabeth Rottenberg. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2014. The Death Penalty, Vol. 1. Translated by Peggy Kamuf, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2005. Rogues: Two Essays On Reason. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ——— and Roudinesco, Elizabeth. 2004. “Death Penalties.” For What Tomorrow: A Dialogue. Translated by Jeff Fort. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 139–65. ———. 2002a. Without Alibi. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2002b. “Peine de mort et souverainete.” Divinatio. 15: 13–38. ———. 2002c. Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews, 1971–2001. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2001. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. Translated by Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes. London: Routledge. ———. 1992. “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority.’” Translated by Mary Quaintance. Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice. Edited by Drucilla Cornell, Michel Rosenfeld, and David Gray Carlson, 3–67. London: Routledge. Des Forges, Alison. 1999. Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. Human Rights Watch. Deutscher, Penelope. 2016. “‘This Death Penalty Which Is Not One’: Reproductive Biopolitics and the Woman as Exception in The Death Penalty, Volume 1,” Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Genealogy, Deconstruction, and Politics, edited by Olivia Custer, Penelope Deutscher, and Samir Haddad, 166–84. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2008. The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Ambiguity, Conversion, Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dias, Avani. 2017. “NT Stolen Generations ‘Feel Like the Last People in Australia’ to Get Commonwealth Compensation.” ABC News. August 21. http://www.abc.net.au/news/201708-21/nt-stolen-generation-continue-push-for-federal-compensation/8825080. Accessed April 27, 2018. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. 1951. Crime and Punishment. Translated by David Magarshack. London: Penguin. Dow, David. R. 2006. “The End of Innocence.” New York Times. June 16. Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Rabinow, Paul, ed. 1983. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Duras, Marguerite. 1961. Hiroshima Mon Amour. Translated by Richard Seaver. New York: Grove Press. Eckholm, Erik. 2016. “Delaware Supreme Court Rules State’s Death Penalty Unconstitutional.” New York Times. August 2. The Editorial Board. 2016. “Rare Chance for Mercy on Texas’ Death Row.” New York Times. August 18. Elder, Catriona. 2017. “Unfinished Business in (Post)Reconciliation Australia.” Australian Humanities Review 61: 74–93. Ellis, Elisabeth. 2005. Kant’s Politics: Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Erkenbrecher, Andrea. 2012. “A Right to Irreconcilability? Oradour-sur-Glane, GermanFrench Relations and the Limits of Reconciliation after World War II.” Reconciliation, Civil Society, and the Politics of Memory, edited by Birgit Schwelling, 167–99. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Everett, Kristina. 2009. “Welcome to Country . . . Not.” Oceania, 79(1): 53–64. Fanon, Frantz. 2008. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press. Faulkner, William. 1960. Light in August. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Foucault, Michel. 2003. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France 1975–1976. Translated by David Macey. New York: Picador.

184

Bibliography

———. 1991. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin. French, Peter A. 2014. “Self-Blaming, Repentance, and Atonement.” Journal of Value Inquiry, 48: 587–602. Gerassi, John. 2009. Talking with Sartre: Conversations and Debates. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gettleman, Jeffrey. 2013. “The Global Elite’s Favorite Strongman.” New York Times. September 4. ———. 2010. “Rwanda Pursues Dissenters and the Homeless.” New York Times. April 30. ———. 2008. “Rwanda Stirs Deadly Brew of Troubles in Congo.” New York Times. December 4. Goldie, Peter. 2012. “Self-Forgiveness: A Case Study.” The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, and the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 69–110. ———. 2011. “Self-forgiveness and the Narrative Sense of Self.” The Ethics of Forgiveness, edited by Christel Fricke, 81–94. London: Routledge. Gourevitch, Philip. 2014. “Where Does Rwanda Go from Here?” Interview with Steve Inskeep. NPR. April 7. https://www.npr.org/2014/04/07/300118525/where-does-rwanda-go-fromhere. Accessed May 15, 2018. ———. 2011. “Climbers: A Team of Young Cyclists Tries to Outrun the Past.” The New Yorker. July 11 and 18. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/11/climbers-philipgourevitch. Accessed May 10, 2018. ———. 2009. “The Life After.” The New Yorker. May 4. 36–49. ———. 1998. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Govier, Trudy. 2002. Forgiveness and Revenge. London: Routledge. Grant, Richard. 2010. “Paul Kagame: Rwanda’s Redeemer or Ruthless Dictator?” Telegraph. October 29. Greenhouse, Linda. 2008. “Justices Weigh Injection Issue for Death Row.” New York Times. January 8. Griswold, Charles L. 2007. Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration. Cambridge University Press. Guenther, Lisa. 2013. Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 2012. “Resisting Agamben: The Biopolitics of Shame and Humiliation.” Philosophy and Social Criticism, 38(1): 59–79. ———. 2011. “Shame and the Temporality of Social Life.” Continental Philosophy Review, 44: 23–39. Haffajee, Rebecca L. 2006. “Prosecuting Crimes of Rape and Sexual Violence at the ICTR: The Application of Joint Criminal Enterprise Theory.” Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, 29(1): 201–21. Hagberg, Garrgh. 2011. “The Self Rewritten: The Case of Forgiveness.” The Ethics of Forgiveness, edited by Christel Friche, 69–80. London: Routledge. Hall, Julie H., and Fincham, Frank D. 2005. “Self-Forgiveness: The Stepchild of Forgiveness Research.” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24(5): 621–37. Hamblet, Wendy C. 2011. Punishment and Shame: A Philosophical Study. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Hatzfeld, Jean. 2009. The Antelope’s Strategy: Living in Rwanda after the Genocide. Translated by Linda Coverdale. New York: Picador. ———. 2005. Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak. Translated by Linda Coverdale. New York: Picador. Hawley, Katherine. 2012. “Trust, Distrust and Commitment.” Noûs, 48(1): 1–20. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 1981. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam. Hay, Carol. 2011. “The Obligation to Resist Oppression.” Journal of Social Philosophy, 42(1): 21–45. Heidegger, Martin. 2008. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper.

Bibliography

185

Hinson, Laura Waters. 2009. As We Forgive. Hola, Barbora, and Brehm, Hollie Nyseth. 2016. “Punishing Genocide: A Comparative Empirical Analysis of Sentencing Laws and Practices at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Rwandan Domestic Courts, and Gacaca Courts, Genocide Studies and Prevention 10(3): 59-80. Holmgren, Margaret R. 2012. Forgiveness and Retribution: Responding to Wrongdoing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. “Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness in Psychotherapy.” Before Forgiving: Cautionary Views of Forgiveness in Psychotherapy, edited by Sharon Lamb and Jeffrie G. Murphy, 112–35. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1998. “Self-Forgiveness and Responsible Moral Agency.” The Journal of Value Inquiry, 32(1): 75–91. Horsbrugh, H. J. N. 1974. “Forgiveness.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 4(2): 269–82. Horstkotte, Silke, and Peeren, Ester, ed. 2007. The Shock of the Other: Situating Alterities. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Hughes, Paul M. and Warmke, Brandom. 2017. “Forgiveness.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Ed Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/ forgiveness/. ———. 2011. “Review of Linda Radzik, Making Amends: Atonement in Law, Morality and Politics.” Journal of Value Inquiry, 45(3): 343–50. ———. 1994, “On Forgiving Oneself: A Reply to Snow.” Journal of Value Inquiry, 28(4): 557–60. Humphries, Conor. 2013. “Ireland Agrees Compensation for Magdalene Laundries Survivors.” World News. June 26. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ireland-laundries-compensationidUSBRE95P18420130626. Accessed May 10, 2018. Humphries, Steve. 1998. Sex in a Cold Climate. Hutchinson, Phil. 2008. Shame and Philosophy: An Investigation in the Philosophy of Emotions and Ethics. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Hutchings, Kimberly. 1996. Kant, Critique, and Politics. London: Routledge. Ingelaere, Bert. 2016. Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice after Genocide. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Jankélévitch, Vladimir. 2015. The Bad Conscience. Translated by Andrew Kelley. Chicago: University of Chicago. ———. 2005. Forgiveness. Translated by Andrew Kelley. Chicago: University of Chicago. ———. 1996. “Should We Pardon Them?” Critical Inquiry, 22: 552–72. Jaspers, Karl. 2001. The Question of German Guilt. Translated by E.B. Ashton. New York: Fordham University Press. Jones, Karen. 2004. “Trust and Terror.” Moral Psychology: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory, edited by Peggy DesAutels and Margaret Urban Walker, 3–18. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Judt, Tony. 1992. Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kamatali, Jean-Marie. 2014. “Following Orders in Rwanda.” New York Times. April 4. Kamuf, Peggy. 2012. “Protocol: Death Penalty Addiction.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, Spindel Supplement, 5–19. Kant, Immanuel. 1996a. Practical Philosophy. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1996b. Religion and Rational Theology. Translated by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaplan, Alice Yaeger. 2000. The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Karakezi, Urusaro Alice, Nshimiyimana, Alphonse, and Mutamba, Beth. 2004. “Localizing Justice: Gacaca Courts in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity, edited by Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein, 69–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

186

Bibliography

Kidd, Rosalind. 2006. Trustees on Trial: Recovering the Stolen Wages. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1941. Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Human Life: Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. Translated by David F. Swenson. Minneapolis: Augsburg. Kieślowski, Krzysztof. 1993. Three Colours Blue. Kinnane, Steve, Harrison, Judy, and Reinecke, Isabelle. 2015. “Finger Money: The Black and White of Stolen Wages.” Griffith Review, 47: 49–70. Knausgaard, Karl Ove. 2013. A Man in Love. Translated by Don Bartlett. London: Vintage. Kolnai, Aurel. 1973. “Forgiveness.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 74: 91–106. Kobil, Daniel T. 2007. “Should Mercy Have a Place in Clemency Decisions?” Forgiveness, Mercy, and Clemency, edited by Austin Sarat and Nasser Hussain, 36–63. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Krinks, Andrew. 2018. “The Color of Transcendence: Whiteness, Sovereignty, and the Theologico-Political.” Political Theology, 19(2): 137–56. Kristeva, Julia. 2010. Hatred and Forgiveness, Translated by J. Herman. Columbia University Press, New York. 191–94. Kristjánsson, Kristján. 2003. “On the Very Idea of ‘Negative Emotions.’” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 33(4): 353–64. Kruks, Sonia. 2012. Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Ambiguity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kulish, Nicholas. 2014. “In Rwanda, Finding Echoes of Germany.” The New York Times. May 11. La Caze, Marguerite. 2013. Wonder and Generosity: Their Role in Ethics and Politics. New York: SUNY Press. Lamb, Roger. 1983. “Guilt, Shame, and Morality.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 43(3): 329–46. Lambourne, Wendy. 2002. Justice and Reconciliation: Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Cambodia and Rwanda. PhD Thesis. Sydney: University of Sydney. Lang, Berel. 2006. “Die Schuldfrage Sixty Years After.” The Review of Metaphysics, 60(1): 101–19. Lanzmann, Claude. 1985. The Shoah. Levi, Primo. 1988. The Drowned and the Saved. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. London: Penguin. ———. 1986. Survival in Auschwitz and The Reawakening: Two Memoirs. Translated by Stewart Woolf. New York: Summit Books. Levinas, Emmanuel. 2001. “Interview with François Poirié.” Is It Righteous to Be?: Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas, edited by Jill Robbins, 23–83. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 1990. “An Eye for an Eye.” Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism. Translated by Seán Hand. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 146–48. Leys, Ruth. 2009. From Guilt to Shame: Auschwitz and After. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lippitt, John. 2013. “Towards a More Positive Account of Self-Love II (Self-Forgiveness and Self-Respect).” Kierkegaard and the Problem of Self-Love. New York: Cambridge University Press, 156–80. Liptak, Adam. 2016. “Supreme Court to Hear Death Penalty Cases.” The New York Times. June 6. ———. 2007. “Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate.” The New York Times. November 18. Locke, Jill. 2007. “Shame and the Future of Feminism.” Hypatia, 22(4): 146–62. Lonergan, Kenneth. 2016. Manchester by the Sea. Looney, Aaron T. 2014. Vladimir Jankélévitch: The Time of Forgiveness. New York: Fordham University Press. Lottman, Herbert R. 1986. The Purge: The Purification of French Collaborators after World War II. New York: William Morrow.

Bibliography

187

Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu. 2011. “Asserting Their Presence! Women’s Quest for Transitional Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” Gender in Transitional Justice, edited by Susanne Buckley-Zistel and Ruth Stanley, 163–90. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mahon, James Edwin. 2003. “Kant on Lies, Candour and Reticence.” Kantian Review, 7: 102–33. Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. When Victims become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Kampala: Fountain. Margalit, Avishai. 1996. The Decent Society. Translated by Naomi Goldblum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Marso, Lori J. 2012. “Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt: Judgements in Dark Times.” Political Theory, 40(2): 165–93. McEwan, Ian. 2002. Atonement. London: Vintage. McGeer, Victoria. 2008. “Trust, Hope and Empowerment.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86(2): 237–54. McQuillan, Martin. 2009. “Extra Time and the Death Penalties: On a Newly Arisen Violent Tone in Philosophy.” Derrida Today, 2(2): 133–50. Meierhenrich, Jens. 2008. “Varieties of Reconciliation.” Law and Social Inquiry, 33(1): 195–231. Melville, Herman. 1985. Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories. London: Penguin. Milam, Per-Erik. 2015. “How Is Self-forgiveness Possible?” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96(1): 49–69. Mill, J. S. 1988. “Capital Punishment.” Public and Parliamentary Speeches. Edited by John M. Robson and Bruce L. Kinzer, 266–72. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Mills, Jon K. 1995. “On Self-Forgiveness and Moral Self-Representation.” The Journal of Value Inquiry, 29(3): 405–6. Minow, Martha. 1998. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. Boston: Beacon Press. Moon, Claire. 2004. “Prelapsarian State: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Transitional Justice.” International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 17: 185–97. Morgan, Anne. 2008. “Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Freedom and Absolute Evil.” Hypatia, 23(4): 75–89. Morrison, Scott. 2013. “Jupiter and the God of Morality: The Paradox of Individual Autonomy and National Self-determination in Kant.” Studia Kantiana, 14: 55–79. Moser, Susanne. 2008. Freedom and Recognition in the Work of Simone de Beauvoir. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Muldoon, Paul. 2017. “A Reconciliation Most Desirable: Shame, Narcissism, Justice, and Apology,” International Political Science Review, 38(2): 213–26. Mullans, Peter. 2002. The Magdalene Sisters. Murphy, Ann. 2011. “‘Violence Is Not an Evil’: Ambiguity and Violence in Simone de Beauvoir’s Early Philosophical Writings.” philoSOPHIA, 1(1): 29–44. Murphy, Colleen. 2010. A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murphy, Jeffrie G. 1998. “Jean Hampton on Immorality, Self-Hatred, and Self-Forgiveness.” Philosophical Studies, 89(2–3): 215–36. Naas, Michael. 2016. “Violence and Hyperbole: From ‘Cogito and the History of Madness’ to the Death Penalty.” Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Genealogy, Deconstruction, and Politics, edited by Olivia Custer, Penelope Deutscher, and Samir Haddad, 38–60. New York: Columbia University Press, ———. 2012. “The Philosophy and Literature of the Death Penalty: Two Sides of the Same Sovereign.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, Spindel Supplement, 30–55. Narayan, Uma. 1997. “Forgiveness, Moral Reassessment, and Reconciliation.” Explorations of Value, edited by Thomas Magnell, 169–78. Amsterdam: Rodopi. National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NSIR), Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN). 2014. Rwanda Fifth Population and Housing Census. National Public Radio. 2008. “Congress Apologizes for Slavery, Jim Crow.” July 30. https:// www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93059465. Accessed May 14, 2018.

188

Bibliography

Niesen, Peter. 2012. Restorative Justice in International and Cosmopolitan Law.” Kant and Colonialism: Historical and Critical Perspectives, edited by Lea Ypi and Katrin Flikschuh, 170–96. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 2000. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by Carol Diethe. Edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1996. Human, All Too Human. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 2004. Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. O’Flynn, Pauline. 2008. “A Question of Vengeance.” Philosophy Now, 69: 8-9. Oliver, Kelly, and Straub, Stephanie, ed. 2018. Deconstructing the Death Penalty Towards a New Abolitionism: Essays on Derrida’s Death Penalty Seminars. New York: Fordham University Press. Oliver, Kelly. 2013. Technologies of Life and Death: From Cloning to Capital Punishment. New York: Fordham University Press. ———. 2004. The Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Oppression. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ong, Amandas. 2017. “My Neighbour Murdered Nearly All of My Family, but Now We are Friends.” The Guardian. January 12. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/12/myneighbour-murdered-my-family-now-we-are-friends-rwanda-genocide. Accessed May 10, 2018. Oppenheimer, Joshua. 2014. The Look of Silence. ———. 2012. The Act of Killing. Ousby, Ian. 1999. Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940–1944. London: Pimlico. Oxford Literary Review. 2012. 34(1). Special Issue on Derrida and the Death Penalty. Ozon, François. 2017. Frantz. Palin, Megan. 2017. “Our Shameful Past: Australian ANZACs Who Were Treated Like Second Class Citizens on Their Return Home.” News.com.au. April 25. Parliament of Australia. 2001–2013. Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs Completed Inquiries. Parliament, UK. “Written Evidence from the Survivors Fund (SURF).” October 15. https:// publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmfaff/267/267vw12.htm. Accessed May 13, 2018. Paxton, Robert O. 1972. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Pedersen, Esther Oluffa. 2012. “A Kantian Conception of Trust.” Northern European Journal of Philosophy, 13(2): 147–69. Peel, Charlie. 2018. “Commonwealth Games 2018: Hanson Hits Out at Indigenous Focus of Opening Ceremony.” The Australian. April 7. Pelizzon, Alessandro, and Kennedy, Jade. 2012. “Welcome to Country: Legal Meanings and Cultural Implications.” Australian Indigenous Law Review, 16(2): 58–69. Pettigrove, Glen. 2012. Forgiveness and Love. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Philpott, Daniel. 2009. “When Faith Meets History: The Influence of Religion on Transitional Justice.” The Religious in Response to Mass Atrocity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Thomas Brudholm and Thomas Cushman, 174–212. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piper, Adrian. 1996. “Passing for White, Passing for Black.” Passing and the Fictions of Identity, edited by Elaine Ginsberg, 234–69. Durham: Duke University Press. Plato. 1999. Plato: The Collected Dialogues, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Bollingen. Potter, Nelson T. 2002. “Kant and Capital Punishment Today.” The Journal of Value Inquiry, 36(2-3): 267–82. Prunier, Gérard. 1997. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. New York: Columbia University Press. Radzik, Linda. 2009. Making Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law, and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

189

Reconciliation Australia. 2016a. The State of Reconciliation in Australia. February. ———. 2016b. Reconciliation News. No. 35. April. Referendum Council. 2017. “Uluru Statement from the Heart.” May 26. https://www. referendumcouncil.org.au/event/uluru-statement-from-the-heart. Accessed April 27, 2018. Roberts, Robert C. 2003. Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robertson, Campbell. 2015. “History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names.” New York Times. February 10. Rodogno, Raffaele. 2009. “Shame, Guilt, and Punishment.” Law and Philosophy, 28: 429–64. Roermund, Bert van. 2001. “Rubbing off and Rubbing on: The Grammar of Reconciliation.” Lethe’s Law: Justice, Law and Ethics in Reconciliation, edited by Emilio Christodoulidis and Scott Veitch, 153–90. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1968. The Social Contract. Translated by Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin. Rousso, Henry. 1991. The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rutayisire, Antoine. 2010. “Rwanda: Repentance and Forgiveness—Pillars of Genuine Reconciliation.” Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Psychological Pathways to Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding, edited by Ani Kalayjian and Raymond F. Paloutzian, 171–87. New York: Springer-Verlag. Rwanda. 1996. Organic Law No. 08/1996 of 1996 on the Organization of Prosecutions for Offenses Constituting the Crime of Genocide or Crimes against Humanity Committed since 1 October 1990. September 1, 1996. Available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4f64. html. Accessed May 14, 2018. Rwanda. 2000. Organic Law N0 40/2000 Of 26/01/2001 Setting up and Organizing Prosecutions for Offences Constituting the Crime of Genocide or Crimes against Humanity Committed between October 1, 1990, and December 31, 1994. https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/ 0bdf0f/pdf/. Accessed May 14, 2018. Rwanda. 2004. Organic Law No.16/2004 Establishing the Organization, Competence and Functioning of Gacaca Courts Charged with Prosecuting and Trying the Perpetrators of the Crime of Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity Committed between October 1, 1990, and December 31, 1994. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/ 4582/3677.pdf?sequence=1. Accessed May 14, 2018. Rwanda. 2006. Organic Law Nº 28/2006 of 27/06/2006 Organic Law Modifying and Complementing Organic Law nº 16/2004 of 19/06/2004 Establishing the Organisation, Competence and Functioning of Gacaca Courts Charged with Prosecuting and Trying the Perpetrators of the Crime of Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity, Committed between October 1, 1990 and December 31, 1994. http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/452e391c4.pdf. Accessed May 10, 2018. Rwanda. 2008. Organic Law Modifying and Complementing Organic Law n° 16/2004 of 19/06/ 2004 Establishing the Organisation, Competence and Functioning of Gacaca Courts Charged with Prosecuting and Trying the Perpetrators of the Crime of Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity, Committed between October 1, 1990, and December 31, 1994, as Modified and Complemented to Date. Official Gazette of the Republic of Rwanda. June 1 2008. http://primature.gov.rw/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Official%20Gazettes/ 2008%20Official%20Gazettes/Official_Gazette_no_11_of_01.06.2008.pdf Accessed May 14 2018. Samuel, Henry. 2013. “German President Joachim Gauck to Make History with Visit to Oradour-sur-Glane.” Telegraph. September 3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ europe/france/10284142/German-president-Joachim-Gauck-to-make-history-with-visit-toOradour-sur-Glane.html. Accessed May 10, 2018. San Martin, Inés. 2016. “Pope Francis Calls for World ‘Free of the Death Penalty.’” Crux: Taking the Catholic Pulse. https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2016/06/21/pope-francis-callsworld-free-death-penalty/. Accessed May 10, 2018.

190

Bibliography

Sapiro, Gisèle. 2006. “Portrait of the Writer as a Traitor: the French Purge Trials (1944-1953).” E-rea: Revue électronique d’études sur le monde Anglophone 4(2): 1-11. http://erea.revues. org/257 Access éd May 10 2018. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 2008. The Aftermath of War. [Situations III]. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Seagull. ———. 2003. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. London: Routledge. [L’Être et le néant. Paris: Gallimard, 1943.] ———. 2001a. “The Wretched of the Earth”. Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism. London: Routledge. ———. 2001b. Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Translated by Philip Mairet. London: Routledge. [Esquisse d’un théorie des emotions. Paris: Herman, 1938.] ———. 1995. Anti-Semite and Jew. Translated by G. Becker. New York: Schocken Books. [Reflexions sur la question juive. Paris: Gallimard, 1954.] Schaap, Andrew. 2008. “Reconciliation as Ideology and Politics.” Constellations, 15(2): 249–64. ———. 2001. “Guilty Subjects and Political Responsibility: Arendt, Jaspers and the Resonance of the German Question in Politics of Reconciliation.” Political Studies, 49(4): 749–66. Scheler, Max. 1987. Persons and Self-Value: Three Essays. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Sebarenzi, Joseph. 2011. God Sleeps in Rwanda. New York: Atria. Seltzer, David. 2007. “An Eye for an Eye: Beauvoir and Levinas on Retributive Justice.” International Studies in Philosophy, 39(1): 59–77. Sheaffer-Jones, Caroline. 2016. “Effects of ‘Phantasmastic Truth’: On the Reading of Albert Camus in Jacques Derrida’s The Death Penalty Seminars.” Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy, 26: 176–93. Shelby, Karen Lee. 2004. “Simone de Beauvoir’s Theories of Freedom.” PhD Diss. New Brunswick: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Simon, David. 2002–2008. The Wire. Sloterdijk, Peter. 2010. Rage and Time: A Psychopolitical Investigation. Translated by Marion Wenning. New York: Columbia University Press. Smale, Alison. 2015. “Former SS Member, on Trial in Germany, Says He Was ‘Morally Complicit’ at Auschwitz.” New York Times. April 21. Smith, Angela A. 2011. “Guilty Thoughts.” Morality and the Emotions, edited by Carla Bagnoli, 235–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, Nick. 2010. “Kantian Restorative Justice?” Criminal Justice Ethics, 29(1): 54–69. Snow, Nancy E. 1993. “Self-Forgiveness.” The Journal of Value Inquiry, 27(1): 75–80. Solis, Michael. 2016. “Japan and South Korea’s Non-Solution for the ‘Comfort Women.’” The World Post, May 1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-solis/japan-and-south-koreasno_b_8908868.html. Accessed May 10, 2018. Sosnov, Maya. 2008. “The Adjudication of Genocide: Gacaca and the Road to Reconciliation in Rwanda.” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, 36(2): 125–53. Spelman, Elizabeth V. 2008. “Review of Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing.” Hypatia, 23(4): 228–33. Spotts, Frederic. 2008. The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Statman, Daniel. 2000. “Humiliation, Dignity and Self-Respect.” Philosophical Psychology, 13(4): 523–40. Staub, Ervin, Pearlman, Laurie Anne, Gubin, Alexandra, and Hagengimana, Athanase. 2005. “Healing, Reconciliation, Forgiving and the Prevention of Violence after Genocide or Mass Killing: An Intervention and its Experimental Evaluation in Rwanda.” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24(3): 297–334. Stauffer, Jill. 2015. Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of nor Being Heard. New York: Columbia University Press. Stocker, Michael. 2007. “Shame, Guilt, and Pathological Guilt.” Bernard Williams, edited by Alan Thomas, 135–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

191

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. 2005. “Senate Issues Apology over Failure on Lynching Law.” New York Times. June 14. Stover, Eric, and Weinstein, Harvey M., ed. 2004. “Conclusion: A Common Objective, a Universe of Alternatives.” My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Atrocity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 323–42. Straus, Scott. 2004. “How Many Perpetrators Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? An Estimate.” Journal of Genocide Research, 6(1): 85–98. Swiffen. Amy. 2016. “Mastery Over the Time of the Other: The Death Penalty and Life in Prison Without Parole.” Law Critique, 27: 171–86. Swinburne, Richard. 1989. “Guilt, Atonement, and Forgiveness.” Responsibility and Atonement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 73–92. Szablowinski, Zenon. 2012. “Self-Forgiveness and Forgiveness.” The Heythrop Journal, 53(4): 678–89. Tan, Monica, and McConnell, Fred. 2015. “Freedom Ride: Plenty of Lessons to Be Learned at Dubbo Juvenile Justice Centre.” The Guardian. February 19. Tangney, June, Boone, Angela L. and Dearing, Ronda. 2005. “Forgiving the Self: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Findings.” Handbook of Forgiveness, edited by Everett L. Worthington, Jr., 143–58. New York: Brunner-Routledge. Tangney, June, and Fischer, Kurt W. ed. 1995. Self-Conscious Emotions: The Psychology of Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment and Pride. New York: Guilford Press. Taylor, Gabriele. 1985. Pride, Shame and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tessman, Lisa. 2015. Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2005. Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomas, Laurence. 2003. “Forgiving the Unforgivable?” Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust, edited by Eve Garrard and Geoffrey Scarre, 201–30. Aldershot: Ashgate. ———. 1990. “Trust, Affirmation, and Moral Character: A Critique of Kantian Morality.” Identity, Character, and Morality: Essays in Moral Psychology, edited by Owen Flanagan and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 235–57. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Thomassen, Lasse. 2010. “Political Theory in a Provisional Mode.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 13(4): 453–73. Thompson, Janna. 2015. “Reparative Claims and Theories of Justice.” Historical Justice and Memory, edited by Klaus Neumann and Janna Thompson, 45–62. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ———. 2010. “Is Apology a Sorry Affair? Derrida and the Moral Force of the Impossible.” Philosophical Forum, 41(3): 259–74. Thomson, Susan. 2013. Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Todd, Olivier. 1996. Albert Camus: A Life. Translated by Benjamin Ivry. London: Vintage. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future without Forgiveness. London: Rider Books. United Nations. 1948. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. http://unictr.irmct. org/. Accessed September 7, 2018. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 2011. “Rwanda: Alleged Child Genocidaires in Re-Education.” IRIN: Humanitarian News and Analysis. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Report of the Mapping Exercise Documenting the Most Serious Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Committed within the Territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between March 1993 and June 2003. http://www.unhcr.org.refworld/codid/4ca99bc22. html. Accessed September 11, 2018. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948. United Nations General Assembly. Verbin, N. 2010. “Forgiveness and Hatred.” Ethical Perspectives, 17(4): 603–25.

192

Bibliography

Varden, Helga. 2010. “Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door. . . One More Time: Kant’s Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis.” Journal of Social Philosophy, 41(4): 403–21. Velleman, J. David. 2001. “The Genesis of Shame.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 30(1): 27–52. Verdeja, Ernesto. 2009. Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Wajda, Andrzej. 2007. Katyn. Waldorf, Lars. 2011. “Instrumentalizing Genocide: The RPF’s Campaign against ‘Genocidal Ideology.’” Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights after Mass Violence, edited by Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf, 48–66. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Walker, Jamie. 2014. “Blood Ties.” The Weekend Australian Magazine. April 5. 15-21. Walker, Margaret Urban. 2006. Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warren, Rossalyn. 2017. “‘Fake News’ Fuelled Civil War in Burundi. Now It’s Being Used Again.” The Guardian. March 4. Watts, Philip. 1998. Allegories of the Purge: How Literature Responded to the Postwar Trials of Writers and Intellectuals in France. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Welz, Claudia. 2011. “Shame and the Hiding Self.” Passions in Context 2. http://www. passionsincontext.de/?id=774. Accessed May 10, 2018. Wiesenthal, Simon. 1998. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. New York: Schocken Books. Wieviorka, Olivier. 2012. Divided Memory: French Recollections of World War II from the Liberation to the Present. Translated by George Holoch. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wilkerson, William S. 2012. “A Different Kind of Universality: Beauvoir and Kant on Universal Ethics.” Beauvoir and Western Thought from Plato to Butler, edited by Shannon M. Mussett and William S. Wilkerson, 55–73. Albany: SUNY Press. Williams, Bernard. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1981. “Persons, Character and Morality.” Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–19. Williston, Byron. 2012. “The Importance of Self-Forgiveness.” American Philosophical Quarterly, 49(1): 67–80. Winter, Stephen. 2009. “Australia’s Ex Gratia Redress.” Australian Indigenous Law Review, 13(1): 49–61. Wollheim, Richard. 1999. On the Emotions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wright, Joe. 2007. Atonement. Zahavi, Dan. 2014. Self and Other: Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2010. “Shame and the Exposed Self.” Reading Sartre: On Phenomenology and Existentialism. London: Routledge, 211–26. Zolkos, Magdalena, ed. 2011. On Jean Améry: Philosophy of Catastrophe. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ———. 2010. Reconciling Community and Subjective Life: Trauma Testimony as Political Theorizing in the Work of Jean Améry and Imre Kertész. London: Continuum. Zwartz, Barney. 2008. “Spare the Bali Bombers Says Catholic Church.” The Age. January 3.

Index

abolition, xv, xx, 3–5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 11–12, 13, 15, 16, 17–18, 19, 21n8, 22n25–22n28, 40, 69, 71, 87, 171, 172; unconditional abolition, xii, xv, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14–15, 16, 17, 20, 171, 172 abolitionism, 5, 10, 13 abolitionist, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 38 absolute evil, 27, 28, 34, 37, 38, 172 abuse, 52, 53, 54, 59, 61, 64n21, 98, 141, 145, 161, 162, 163, 168n15, 169n37, 176 accountability, 119, 120, 124 acknowledgement, 24, 31, 51, 82n20, 113, 121, 133, 134, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 157 Acknowledgement of Country, 176 affirmative action, 140 African Americans, 28, 122, 123, 127n37 Agamben, Giorgio, xii, xvii, 45, 46, 56, 56–59, 61, 62, 62n3, 63n18, 64n26, 64n29, 173, 179 Aghion, Anne, 96, 98 Algeria, xi, 18, 19 Allen, Woody, 156 ambiguity, 24, 28, 30, 31, 35, 37, 43n26 ambiguous, xv, 14, 24, 28, 45, 58, 108 America, 11, 21n23. See also United States of America Améry, Jean, xi, xii, xiv, xvii, 67, 68, 75–78, 80, 81, 82n17, 82n18, 106, 107, 125n4, 134, 137, 146n13, 174, 177

amnesty, xiv, 41n4, 94, 98, 120, 152 anger, 24, 27, 31, 32, 33, 42n21, 59, 60–61, 63n17, 64n21, 64n31, 78, 124, 164 Antelme, Robert, 45, 57, 58–59, 62n1, 64n28 ANZAC, 143, 176 apologies, xiii, xiv, xix, 78, 82n20, 93, 94, 95, 96, 101, 113, 121, 125, 138, 139, 141, 174, 175, 177 apology, xix, 54, 93, 96, 101, 113, 119, 121, 122, 123, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 144, 146n1, 146n2, 146n5, 147n18, 147n20, 160, 174 Arendt, Hannah, xi, xii, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, xix, xx, 4, 21n10, 27, 42n7, 42n18, 43n24, 45, 47, 48, 50–51, 52, 54, 57, 62, 63n13, 63n15, 63n16, 71, 73, 82n13, 82n16, 87, 91, 103n23, 111, 126n8, 149–150, 151–152, 153, 154–155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 163, 165, 167, 167n1, 167n5, 167n8, 167n10, 168n24, 173, 177; The Human Condition , xix, 19, 91, 111, 126n11, 149, 153, 166, 177; “Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship”, 25, 50 ashamed, xvi, 45, 46, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59. See also shame assassinating, 27 assassination, 12, 17, 18, 20, 21n22, 42n9, 74, 171

193

194

Index

asymmetry, xix, 129, 176 atone, xviii, 101, 106, 107, 112, 113, 114, 122, 124, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 138, 152, 164, 171, 175 atonement, xii, xiii, xiv–xv, xviii–xix, 22n33, 34, 37, 49, 63n11, 63n16, 82n20, 92, 105–108, 111, 112, 113–114, 115, 117–120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 125n1, 126n5, 126n10, 127n32, 129–140, 142, 143, 145–146, 146n2, 146n5, 146n7, 146n10, 147n18, 147n20, 150, 164, 169n39, 169n43, 171, 175–177, 177; Atonement , 106, 107, 125n3, 166, 168n25; collective, 106, 131, 136, 138, 143, 145; communal, xviii, xix, 101, 138, 143, 144, 175; symbolic, xix, 142, 143 atrocity, xviii, 24, 45, 54, 59, 124, 155 Auschwitz, xvii, 46, 75, 93, 124 Australia, xii, xiv, xviii, xix, 11, 59, 113, 129, 138, 139–141, 142, 144, 145, 147n22, 151; Australia Day, 143; postcolonial, xi, xiv, xix, 129 Australian, xiv, 18, 21n21, 75, 88, 129, 130, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146n1, 147n20, 147n22, 147n25, 177 autoimmunity, xii–xiii bad conscience, 63n11, 105, 109, 110, 115 bad faith, 28, 34 Badinter, Robert, 5 Baier, Annette, 76, 80, 81n1, 82n5 barbaric, 8, 9 Bartky, Sandra, 52, 53 Bauer, Lin, 156, 168n22, 168n23, 168n26 Beauvoir, Simone de, xi, xii, xiv, xv–xvi, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 19, 20, 23, 24, 24–27, 28–41, 47, 87, 107, 126n5, 126n12, 172–173; The Ethics of Ambiguity , xvi, 27, 28, 31, 36, 37, 38, 39, 64n30; The Force of Circumstance, 32, 40, 41, 43n28, 43n32; Second Sex, 28, 54; A Very Easy Death, 39 Beccaria, Cesare, xv, 5, 9, 10 Beevor, Antony, 26, 32, 173 Bennett, Christopher, 127n34, 134 Bernstein, J. M., 70, 78, 81n1, 82n17 Bettelheim, Bruno, 57 Brännmark, Johan, 124

Brasillach, Robert, xvi, 5, 6, 21n6, 23, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40–41, 42n23, 43n28, 172; execution of, xv, 32, 39, 43n28, 172 Bringing Them Home Report, 139 Brison, Susan, 154 Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, 122 Buckley-Zistel, Susanne, 67, 79, 80, 97, 98 burden, xviii, 50, 95, 141 bureaucratic, xiv, 86 Bush, George (Senior), 151 bystanders, xiii, 105, 137, 138, 145, 160, 176 Calhoun, Cheshire, xvii, 46, 54–55, 61, 135, 173 Camus, Albert, xi, xiv, xv, 3, 4–5, 16, 18, 19, 21n4, 22n31, 22n33, 22n34, 40, 42n23, 43n32, 108, 172 Canada, 143, 144 capital punishment, xiii, xv, xviii, 3, 3–6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 11–13, 15, 16–18, 19, 21n3, 21n12, 22n26, 25, 31, 32, 36–37, 37, 38, 40, 87, 88, 171, 172, 174 Card, Claudia, 124 categorical imperative, 6, 7, 9, 70, 74 Catholic church, 12, 92, 136, 137 Celermajer, Danielle, 146n5 Chamberlain, Lindy, 151 charity, 5, 33, 34, 40, 59, 108, 110, 116, 141 children, 34, 39, 79, 96, 101, 104n40, 113, 124, 136, 139, 140–141, 157, 158, 162; indigenous children, 139, 140; removal of, xix Christian, 5, 12, 21n19, 33, 34, 40, 93, 103n30, 103n31, 146n5, 163 civil rights, 37, 43n29, 103n19, 122 Clark, Phil and Zachary Kaufman, 93, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103n30, 103n34, 104n41 clemency, xiv, 19, 33, 36, 40, 42n23, 94, 103n32, 172, 174 Clinton, Bill, 151 collaboration, xvi, 32, 42n12, 163 collaborationist, 25, 26 collective, 14, 42n10, 50, 51, 97, 100, 130, 136, 138, 146n5; morality, 48

Index colonialism, xi, 18; post-colonial. See postcolonial Australia commemoration, xix, 139, 143, 176 commensurability, 8, 114 communist, xviii, 40, 113 community, xvii, xviii, xix, 31, 32, 37, 41, 49, 68, 86, 89, 90, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100, 106, 112, 117, 120, 121, 121–122, 125, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 139, 143, 146n5, 147n23, 147n26, 155, 156, 171 compensation, xix, 80, 105, 113, 115, 123, 131, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 146n4, 176 confess, 49, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 97, 102n11, 103n31, 157 confession, 49, 88, 90, 93, 94–95, 113, 116, 139, 174 conflict, xiv, xvii, xviii, 10, 25, 38, 49, 57, 69, 71, 74, 75, 81, 97, 98, 99, 101, 120, 124, 140, 141, 158, 174, 177 consciousness, 27, 28, 30, 49, 58, 64n30, 108, 109, 110, 153 conscription, 10, 20, 21n17, 171 contempt, 9, 54, 55, 59, 61, 63n18, 120, 122, 160, 179; self-contempt, 134, 164 conversion of the will, 108, 114, 129, 175 Cortès, Donoso, 12 cosmopolitan, 69, 71, 72 Courtright, Jeffery M., 77 Crime and Punishment, 164 crimes against humanity, xvi, 20, 89, 172 criminal, xii, 7, 8, 19, 20, 21n3, 21n13, 24, 24–25, 28, 32, 36, 37, 38, 49, 51, 98, 146n14, 149, 156; guilt, 47, 51, 63n8, 93; justice, 5, 85, 123; law, 6, 12, 22n36, 120 cruel, 3, 8, 9, 13, 21n23, 22n30, 32, 45, 76, 112, 136, 161 cruelty, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 18, 26, 28, 37, 59 culpable, xvi cultural, xiii, xiv, xix, 11, 143, 144, 145 cultural specificity, xiv culture, xiii, xvi, 11, 12, 18, 21n20, 64n37, 87, 146n1, 147n18 de Jonge, Klaas, 95 death, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21n9, 22n28, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36,

195

37, 38, 39, 40, 45, 58, 63n13, 71, 92, 102n11, 109, 111, 122, 124, 158, 162, 171, 172; march, xvii, 46, 57, 173; row, 10, 102n9 death penalty, xiii, xv–xvi, xx, 3–6, 8, 8–10, 10–20, 21n2, 21n4, 21n14, 21n17–21n19, 21n21, 21n22, 22n25, 22n30, 22n33, 22n36, 23, 24, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42n23, 45, 59, 67, 81, 86, 87, 88, 103n15, 108, 112, 171–172, 174 deceptive, xi, 74, 81 deconstruct, 6 deconstructed, 7, 14, 92 deconstructible, xv, 3, 9, 10 deconstruction, 6, 9, 92 Deigh, John, 59–60, 64n32, 64n33 democracies, 14, 38 democracy, xiii democratic, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, 13, 174 Derrida, Jacques, xi, xii, xiv, xv, xviii, 3–11, 11–19, 24, 25, 38, 39, 40, 82n13, 85, 87, 92, 94, 95, 96, 101, 103n22, 108, 120, 125, 126n13, 149, 158, 160, 171, 174–175, 176, 177 destructive, xii, xiii, 49, 86 desubjectification, 57, 58 deterrence, 25, 98, 100 deterrent, 9, 10, 12, 89 Dialogue, two-in-one, xx, 126n8, 150, 153 dignity, 6, 9, 16, 18, 21n14, 33, 38–39, 64n35, 76, 123 Dillon, Robin, 155, 158, 160, 162, 164, 165–166, 168n23, 169n40, 169n41 disgust, 33, 57, 60, 64n30, 160 dishonour, 9 Duras, Marguerite, 23, 26, 41n1 East Timor, 120 Eichmann, Adolf, xvi, 6, 42n22, 63n13 Elder, Catriona, 143, 145 Ellis, Elizabeth, 71, 82n7, 82n9 empathy, 137, 138, 165–166 Enoch, Wesley, 144 Enright, Robert, 155, 156, 157, 160, 162, 167n13, 168n14, 169n41, 169n42, 169n44 enslaving, 27 Equal Justice Initiative, 123

196

Index

ethical, xi, xi–xii, xiii, xv, xvii, xviii, xx, 24, 26, 36, 45–46, 47, 54, 56, 57, 61, 72, 78, 82n18, 86, 94, 96, 101, 103n33, 106, 108, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 125, 126n17, 129, 134, 137, 143, 146, 150, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 165, 166, 171, 175, 176–177; asymmetry, 129, 176; restoration, xi, xii, xiii, xiv–xv, xvi, xvii, xx, 3, 6, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 75, 77, 86, 96, 98, 101, 105, 111, 116, 125, 146, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177 ethnic, xiii, 97, 98, 101, 104n37, 175 Europe, 12, 13, 14, 26 European, xi, 11, 85, 103n16 euthanasia, 10, 12, 16 evil, 26, 28, 29, 30, 34, 36, 37, 51, 116, 124, 154; “absolute evil”, 27, 28, 34, 37, 38, 172; radical evil, 91; “willed evil”, 163 execution, 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 25, 36, 38, 64n26, 88, 102n9, 107, 171 existentialism, 34 existentialist, xvi, 36 facticity, 31, 37 fear, 76, 79, 80, 98, 115, 120, 131, 162 First Nations Canadians, 141 forced labor, 9 forgetting, 97, 114, 116, 126n19, 159 forgiveness, xii–xv, xviii, xix–xx, 4, 14, 15, 16, 19, 22n27, 33, 40, 76, 77, 80, 81, 82n18, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90–97, 97, 98, 101, 105, 106, 111, 116, 119, 120, 121, 129, 130, 134, 135, 149, 150–152, 153–155, 156–160, 161, 163–164, 164, 165, 166, 167, 171, 174–175, 177; conditional, 92, 95, 96, 101, 174; self-forgiveness, xii, xiii, xiv, xix–xx, 62n1, 63n16, 134, 149, 150, 151, 152–153, 153–156, 157–158, 159–160, 160–161, 162–166, 171, 177; state-mandated, xviii, 19, 95; unconditional, 92, 95, 96; unforgivable, 80, 89, 92, 93, 101, 149, 163, 164–165, 175 forgiving, xix, 85, 89, 91, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164–165, 166, 167, 171, 177; self-

forgiving, 152, 160; unforgiving, 155 formal wrong, 69, 70 Foucault, Michel, 5, 14 France, xi, xii, xiv, xv, 5, 18, 23, 24, 25, 29, 33, 78, 109, 172 freedom, 16, 27, 28, 34, 36, 37, 68, 70, 74, 101, 111, 143 freedom rides, 143 Freeman, Cathy, 144 French colonization, 18 French Jews, 24 French purge. See purge gacaca trials, xiv, xviii, 78, 79, 85, 88–90, 90, 91, 92, 92–95, 96, 97, 97–100, 101, 102n8, 174–175, 177 Gasana, Solomon Nsabiyera, 96 Gaulle, Charles de, 172 generosity, ix, 116 genocidaires, 49, 61, 101 genocide, xi, xiv, xv, xviii, 9, 18, 20, 25, 47, 50, 52, 62, 67, 68, 71, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85–86, 86–87, 88–89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 105, 112, 113, 121, 157, 164, 172, 174–175, 176; post-genocide, xi, xii, xiv, xvii, xviii, 4, 19, 20, 33, 61, 77, 78, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101, 130, 133, 171, 174–175 German, xvi, 20, 24, 26, 32, 47, 161 Germans, 56, 57, 107 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 149 Goldie, Peter, 155, 161 the good, 9, 36 Gourevitch, Paul, 79–80, 86, 89, 90, 95, 98, 99, 100, 101 gray zones, 123, 124, 134 grief, xv, 94, 106, 137, 146, 155, 162, 167, 174, 177 Griswold, Charles, 161, 166 groups, 59, 60, 61, 62, 92, 94, 100, 112, 131, 138, 141, 143, 144, 173; dominant, xvii, 46, 62, 173; ethnic, xiii, 101; indigenous, 143, 145; oppressed, xvii, 46, 56, 60 Guenther, Lisa, 46, 56, 58, 59 guillotine, 4, 18, 19, 40, 171 guilt, xii, xvi–xvii, 20, 30, 36, 41, 45–47, 47–51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60,

Index 61, 62, 93, 100, 101, 106, 107, 133, 134, 137, 155, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 172, 173; collective, xvi, 45, 49, 51, 57; criminal, 47, 51, 93; metaphysical, 47, 48, 49, 51; moral, 47–49, 50; political, 47, 48, 49, 50; survivor, 47, 51, 56, 59, 158, 162 Hagberg, Garry L., 161 Hall, Julie H. and Frank D. Fincham, 155, 162, 163, 164, 167n13, 168n18, 168n21, 169n30, 169n32, 169n37 happiness, 8, 73, 106 harm, xii, xiii, 7, 17, 49, 70, 106, 111, 114, 117, 119, 121, 122, 129, 130, 132, 135, 138, 145, 153, 176; harms, xix, 17, 116, 119, 120, 122, 125, 130, 131, 132, 133, 138, 140, 141, 154, 160, 161, 176 hate, xvi, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 40, 80 hatred, xii, 26, 27, 35, 56, 86, 134 Hatzfeld, Jean, 78, 100, 109, 116 Hegel, G.W.F., 4, 5, 57 Heidegger, Martin, 5, 6, 29, 46 history, xiii, 6, 12, 13, 16, 18, 26, 49, 59, 68, 77, 85, 96, 98, 113, 120, 122 Hobbes, Thomas, 4 Holmgren, Margaret, 132, 157, 159, 161, 164 honesty, 72, 75, 110, 174 hospitality, xv, 14–15, 16, 71 Hughes, Paul M., 151, 159, 160, 164 Hugo, Victor, 5, 18 human condition, 20, 35, 59. See also Arendt, Hannah; crimes against humanity; human dignity, 6, 76; human rights, xiii, 140; humanity, xiii, xvi, 9, 51, 60, 61, 70–71 humiliate, xii, 60, 62, 173; humiliating, 27, 61, 62, 173; humiliating practices, xvi, 60; humiliating punishments, xiii, xvi, xvii, 20, 26, 62, 98, 112, 172, 173; humiliating treatment, xvii, 45, 46, 54, 59, 60, 61, 173; humiliation, xvi–xvii, 20, 26, 36, 41, 45, 46, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58–62, 123, 134, 172, 173 Hutu, 77, 85, 86, 87, 99 immoral, 48, 73, 114

197

immune law, 7 impunity, 90, 98, 99, 113, 131 Indigenous Australians, 125, 139, 160, 176; indigenous people, xix, 139, 140, 143, 144, 145 Indonesia, xviii, 113, 131 inexpiable, 107, 111 Ingelaere, Bert, 80 injustice, xi, xix, 9, 37, 48, 54, 62, 68, 70, 72, 106, 112, 116, 118, 120, 122, 125, 136, 137, 140, 145, 162, 176, 177 innocence, 57, 111, 116 innocent, 10, 50, 51, 57, 151 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), xviii, 85, 89, 98, 100 intersubjectivity, 59 inviolability, 5 Ireland, xix, 123, 136, 176, 177 Israel, 123, 177 ius talionis See jus talionis Jallow, Hassan Bubacar, 100 Jankélévitch, Vladimir, xi, xii, xiv, xviii, 92, 105, 106, 108–112, 114, 114–115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 125, 129, 131, 133, 137, 138, 144, 145, 149, 150, 157, 175–176; “Pardonner?”, 107, 134 joy, 24, 117 jus talionis, 6, 7, 107. See also lex talionis justice, xii, xiii, xviii, 5, 6, 18, 20, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 49, 56, 59, 68, 69, 70, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 123, 125, 130, 138, 139–140, 141, 174, 175; compensatory, 121; institutional, 35; restorative, 86, 98, 101, 120–121, 123, 141; social, 62, 140; transitional, xvii, 86, 120, 121 Kagame, Paul, 79, 87 Kant, Immanuel, xii, xiv, xv, xvii, 3, 4, 5–9, 9, 11, 12, 17, 19, 27, 29, 67–76, 77–78, 79, 80–81, 86, 108, 163, 174; The Metaphysics of Morals, xvii, 3, 6, 68, 86 Karekezi, Urusaro Alice, 90, 95, 98 Katyn massacre, 112, 113 Kayigamba, Jean-Baptiste, 79, 87, 98

198

Index

Kelley, Andrew, 108, 112 killing, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 38, 58, 79, 86, 89, 90, 94, 113, 118, 165, 171 Knausgaard, Karl Ove, 162 Kolnai, Aurel, 166 Kruks, Sonia, 35 Lanzman, Claude, 113 Levi, Primo, 56, 57, 59, 123, 154 Levinas, Emmanuel, 5 lex talionis, 5, 7, 8, 29, 32 liberation, 23, 25, 35, 78, 172; postliberation, xi lie, 69–70, 107, 160. See also lying life imprisonment, 31, 39, 40 Locke, John, 4 Lottman, Herbert, 26, 41n5 love, xv, 23, 30, 31, 33, 48, 51, 75, 76, 106, 108, 116, 156, 158, 162, 165, 172; selflove, 165 lying, xvii, 67, 68, 69–70, 76 lynching, 25, 28, 123 Magdalene, 137, 138; Magdalene Laundries, 132, 136, 137, 138, 176 making amends, xii, xix, 86, 98, 105, 106, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 129, 130, 138, 139, 161, 175 massacre, 25, 38, 42n20, 86, 98, 109, 118. See also Katyn massacre maxim, 8, 69, 70, 71, 72–73 McEwan, Ian, 106, 166 McQuillan, Martin, 5 Melvern, Linda, 100 Melville, Herman, 165 memorial, xix, 138, 139, 141, 143. See also Australian War Memorial mercy, xiv, 33, 49, 152 metaphysical, 20, 25, 30, 31, 49, 76, 111. See also guilt Mills, Jon K, 157 mistreatment, 9 moral, 9, 28, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55–56, 62, 71, 72, 91, 93, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 120, 121, 123, 124, 130, 133, 134, 135, 138, 150, 153, 161, 166; community, 133; conscience, 108, 109, 110, 115, 123; failure, 48, 49, 114; luck, 109, 110, 162;

pain, 109, 115; reconciliation, 135, 137; repair, xix, 17, 105, 106, 117, 118, 124; shame, 46, 52, 53, 54; transformation, 131, 133, 135, 136, 138, 142, 144; wrongs, 50, 135. See also guilt Morgan, Anne, 28 Morrison, Scott, 74 Mukarurinda, Alice, 89 Mundine, Warren, 129, 144 murder, 4, 7–8, 8, 12, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 37, 38, 78, 79, 85–86, 88, 89, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 113, 122, 151, 156, 157, 164 murderer, xvi, 69–70, 74, 87, 88, 96, 151 Murphy, Ann, 27 Murphy, Colleen, 76 mutilation, 78 National Sorry Day, 139 Nazi, xi, 5, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 40, 48, 58, 61, 75, 76, 77, 85, 87, 93, 107, 109, 132, 156 Ndayisaba, Emmanuel, 89 New Zealand, 143, 145 Niesen, Peter, 68 Nixon, Richard, 151 Norlock, Kathryn, 153, 154, 159, 161, 162, 166 Northern Ireland, 123, 177 Nussbaum, Martha, 52, 60 obligation, 28, 112, 125, 130, 131, 157, 163–164, 176 occupation, xi, xv, 5, 18, 23–24, 24, 29, 50, 68, 75, 112, 172, 176 offender, 30, 60, 113, 134–135, 136, 157, 164, 175. See also perpetrators ontology, 16 onto-theological-political, 6 Oppenheimer, Joshua, 113 oppression, xi, xii–xiv, xviii, 17, 18, 20, 24, 28, 37, 46, 53–54, 55, 56, 59, 61, 61–62, 76, 105, 113, 117, 122, 124, 129, 136, 143, 145, 149, 150, 162, 163, 172, 173, 176 Osama bin Laden, 10, 17 the Other, 48, 52, 54, 56 outrage, 23, 54, 56

Index pain, xi, 23, 59, 96, 98, 107, 109, 110, 112, 115, 116, 125, 131, 157. See also suffering Palestine, 123, 177 paradoxes, 13, 29, 30, 31, 32–33, 33, 34, 40, 58 pardon, 19, 35, 40, 92, 95, 107, 134, 159; self-pardon, 151, 152, 155, 167, 177 peace, xii–xiii, xviii, 67–81, 175, 177; peacetime, 10, 72 penitence, 49, 114–115, 116. See also repentance perpetrators, 24, 28, 31, 32, 32–33, 33–34, 36, 38, 41, 45, 46, 47, 50, 52, 61–62, 77–78, 78–80, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93–94, 96, 97–101, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119–120, 121, 121–122, 122, 123, 125, 129–130, 131, 133, 134, 137, 146, 150, 152, 154, 156, 167, 171, 172, 173, 175, 177 Pétain, Henri Philippe, 32, 34, 38 phenomenal, 6 phenomenological, 25, 47, 107, 110, 117, 150, 158; phenomenology, 23, 51, 158 Philippines, 10, 17 philosophers, xx, 3–6, 25, 46, 54, 60, 96, 171, 176 pink uniforms, xvii, 59 Pinochet, 118 Piper, Adrian, 46, 54–55, 56, 61–62, 173 Plato, 4, 6 plurality, xix, 149 political theology, 6 pride, 49, 52 Pride and Prejudice, 163 principle, xv, 3, 5, 6, 7–8, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11–12, 12, 13, 16, 17–18, 39, 68, 69–70, 72–73, 75, 107, 138, 164 prisoner, xvii, 26, 39, 59, 78, 79, 86, 94, 95, 98, 116, 124, 164, 173 promising, xix, 149, 167 propaganda, 27, 39 punishers, 30 punishment, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xv–xvii, xviii, xx, 3–20, 23–41, 59–62, 87–90, 97–101, 163, 171–172, 173, 174; selfpunishment, 131. See also capital punishment; the death penalty

199

pure reason, 6, 7 purge, 18, 23, 24, 26, 41, 61, 100, 132, 171, 172–173; legal purge, 26; wild purge, 26, 172 racial bias, 10; antiracist, 51; racially, 46, 122; racism, 14, 55, 123; racist, 77–78, 144, 162, 165 Radzik, Linda, xii, xix, 117, 125, 130–138, 145, 161, 164, 176 rape, 7, 77, 80, 106, 164 rebuilding, xii, 67, 68, 77, 90, 97, 137 reciprocity, xii, xvi, 24, 27, 30, 31, 32, 36–37, 41, 76, 172 reconciliation, 46, 76, 77, 78, 81, 85, 86, 87, 89–90, 90, 91, 93–94, 95–101, 105, 113, 116, 120, 121, 122, 125, 129–136, 137, 138, 139–140, 145, 153, 156, 167, 171, 174–175, 176, 177; Reconciliation Australia, 139, 140; self-reconciliation, 133, 156 reconstruction, 80, 85, 91, 96, 97, 98, 99, 175 redemption, 17, 34, 114, 115, 134–135, 138, 157 regret, 41, 57, 95, 100, 110, 113, 114–115, 137, 160, 163 relationship, xvi, xviii, 19, 20, 24, 46, 67, 85, 91, 93, 95, 97, 113, 118, 130, 131, 131–132, 133, 136, 155, 156, 176 remorse, xii, xviii, 30, 34, 36, 51, 92, 94, 95, 101, 107–112, 112–113, 114, 114–115, 116–117, 118, 121, 125, 129, 131, 133–134, 137, 138, 144, 145, 149, 152, 157, 159–160, 162, 163, 171, 175–176; remorseful, 159, 171; unremorseful, 125, 175 renewal, 49, 115, 143 reparations, 107, 123, 133, 134, 137–138, 139, 140, 142, 175, 176, 177; reparative, 41, 91, 105–106, 115, 117, 118, 121, 140 repentance, 17, 48, 92, 93, 94, 113, 114, 116, 133–134, 137, 166; unrepentant, xv, xviii, 62, 92, 112, 113, 121, 150, 174 resentment, 76, 93, 107, 134, 158–159, 160, 164

200

Index

respect, xi, xii, xiii, xvi, xx, 8, 10, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 36, 52, 54, 55, 60, 61, 67, 68, 70, 73, 75, 76–73, 81, 97, 98, 121, 130, 133, 135, 139, 144, 145, 155, 165, 172, 173, 174, 177; self-respect,. See respect 54, 134, 155, 162, 165 responsibility, xvii, 25, 34–35, 37, 45, 47, 50–51, 52, 55, 57, 94, 95, 105, 111, 115, 117–118, 121, 122, 124, 129, 136, 137, 145, 156, 157, 159, 161, 162, 164, 166, 173, 176; collective, 51, 136 restitution, 49, 68, 92, 96, 122, 130 retribution, 7, 25, 100 revenge, xii, xiii, xv–xvi, 3, 4, 5, 7, 17, 19, 20, 23–25, 29, 31–32, 33–34, 38, 39, 40, 78–79, 86, 87, 91, 93, 107, 160, 172 right to life, 11, 11–12, 16 Rodogno, Raffaele, 60 Rosoux, Valerie, 94–95 Roudinesco, Elizabeth, 3, 19, 20 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 4 Rudd, Kevin, 139, 144 Rukun, Adi, 113 Russia, 56, 112–113 Rwanda, xi–xii, xiv, xvi, xvii–xviii, 4, 9, 18, 19, 20, 33, 46, 49, 52, 61, 67, 68, 75, 77–81, 85–101, 105, 109, 113, 116, 118, 120–121, 130, 132, 133, 151, 157, 167, 171, 172, 174–175, 177 sanction, 13, 32, 60, 110; state-sanctioned, 11, 17, 18, 32, 38; state sanctions, xviii sanctity of life, 10, 12, 17 Sartre, Jean-Paul, xii, xiv, xvii, 5, 24, 26, 30, 34, 40, 41, 45, 52–53, 172, 175 scapegoating, xvi, 172 Schaap, Andrew, 99–100 Schabas, William, 85, 86 Sebarenzi, Joseph, 86 Srebrenica, 118 secret, 71, 72–73, 78, 110 self, 153–154; self-assessment, 46, 61; self-blame, 61, 160, 162; self-criticism, xiii; self-deception, 154, 159; selfdeconstructing, 15, 24, 40; selfdestructive, xii, xiii, 46, 163; selfesteem, 48, 54, 165; self-forgiveness. See forgiveness; self-inflicted, 7; selfinterest, 48, 108, 120; self-relation, xix,

131, 149, 153; self-respect; respect; self-sacrifice, 108, 130 sentence, 16, 19, 20, 32, 34, 38, 39, 40, 88, 89, 90, 94, 95, 98, 100, 118, 151, 174; sentencing, 10, 20, 100 sex crimes, 7 shame, xvii, 9, 20, 36, 41, 45–46, 47, 48, 51–62, 100, 107, 114–115, 134, 137, 149, 160, 161, 162, 172, 173; shame, ontological, 56; shameful, xvi, 41, 45; shaming, 45, 46, 53, 56, 59, 60, 173 shaving of women's heads, 25, 26, 32 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 5 the Shoah, 5, 11, 24, 27, 29, 47, 56, 57, 93, 107, 109, 113; Shoah, 113, 123 sincerity, xvii, 50, 68, 75, 77, 81–67, 144, 174 Snow, Nancy E., 164 social contract, 76 social nature, xvii, 32, 46, 54, 55, 60, 77, 78, 130, 131, 138, 139, 140 society, xiii, 4, 6–7, 7, 9, 14, 15, 17, 25, 28, 32, 37–38, 40, 59, 60–61, 68, 77, 86, 87, 90, 97, 98, 140, 151, 172 Socrates, 16, 153 solitary confinement, 10, 22n30 Solomon Islands, 120 South Africa, 85, 143; South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 94, 120, 121 the sovereign, 8, 19; sovereignty, 6, 10, 13–14, 15, 17, 20, 58, 76, 145 spectator, 9, 71, 108 Spelman, Elizabeth, 123 stability, xi, xviii, 73, 85 the state, 8, 9, 10, 13, 13–14, 16, 20, 32, 38, 40, 71, 73, 74, 86, 95, 101, 136, 137, 140–141, 151; the state of nature, 69, 174 state-sanctioned violence: state sanctions, xviii Steward, John, 96 Stolen Generations, xix, 113, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144 Stolen Wages, xix, 142, 145, 176 Stover, Eric, 98, 100 subjectification, 57–58; desubjectification, 57–58

Index subjectivity, 27, 28, 30, 37, 58, 58–59; intersubjectivity, 59 suffering, xv, 13, 27, 30, 48, 76, 109, 115, 116, 119, 123, 131, 161, 162, 166, 175. See also pain suicide, 7, 10, 20, 26, 75, 113, 152, 162 survivors, xii, xiv, xv, xviii, 3, 51, 55, 56–57, 62, 77–78, 78–79, 80, 85, 86, 87, 90, 94–95, 97–101, 105, 106, 107, 113, 118, 121, 122, 125, 129, 130, 137, 138, 141–142, 171, 172, 173, 174–175, 176, 177 symbolic means, xix, 18, 38, 119, 121, 122, 136, 139, 142, 143, 143–144, 145, 176 sympathy, 49, 134, 163. See also empathy Tessman, Lisa, 114, 125, 162 Thompson, Janna, 125, 140 Three Colours: Blue, 158 torture, xi, xiii, 8, 13, 30, 31, 75–76, 110, 113, 118, 164, 174 traditional courts, xviii, 89 transactional, 108, 115, 118, 119, 121 transcendence, 28 transitional justice, xvii, 86, 120, 121, 174 trauma, 62, 94, 95, 98, 131, 139, 154 treason, 8, 12, 23, 32, 71 trial, xiv, xv, xviii, 6, 8, 10, 11, 17, 20, 23, 32–33, 34–35, 36, 38, 39, 49, 80, 89–90, 91, 94, 95, 98, 99–100, 101, 167, 171, 172, 174–175, 177; See also gacaca trials. trust, xii, xiii, xiv, 47, 49, 62, 67–68, 69–80, 81, 86, 90, 91, 101, 105, 117, 120, 121, 122, 123, 129, 133, 134, 135, 137, 171, 174; distrust, 73, 77, 78, 131; existential, 77; mistrust, 77, 107, 135; political, xii, xvii, 67, 75, 77, 81; trust in the world, 68, 75, 76, 77, 80, 174 truth, xvii, 34, 55, 70, 89, 90, 99, 100, 112, 116, 122, 123, 139, 158, 177; truthtelling, 70, 78, 94, 98, 123, 139, 145; truthfulness, xvii, 67, 68 Turkey, 112 Tutsi, 77, 85–86, 87 Unforgivable. See forgiveness unethical, 28, 160, 164

201

United States of America, xi, xii, xviii, 12, 13, 14, 17, 28, 60, 122, 140 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 13 unrepentant. See repentance utilitarian, 6, 25 Varden, Helga, 70, 74 Velleman, David, 55–56 vengeance, xiii, 7, 20, 24, 25–26, 29–32, 35, 41. See also revenge; vengefulness, xv–xvi, 23–24, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 172 Verdeja, Ernesto, 97 Vichy, 32, 39 victim, xi, xii, xiii, xvi–xvii, xviii, xviii–xix, xix, 24, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53–54, 55, 56, 61, 61–62, 78, 79–80, 86, 86–87, 90, 91, 92, 93–94, 95, 99–100, 101, 105, 106, 107, 117–119, 119–120, 120–121, 122, 123–124, 125, 129–132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137–138, 138, 141, 142, 143, 145, 149, 151, 154, 157, 159, 160, 160–161, 162, 163, 164, 166, 172, 173, 175, 176 violence, xi, xii, xiv, xix, 8, 13–14, 16, 19, 27, 30, 32, 38, 41, 46, 53, 54, 59, 68, 72, 76, 79, 86, 91, 92, 100, 101, 106, 110, 119, 120, 129, 149, 162, 176; violence, communal, xi–xii, xvi, xx, 17, 18, 33, 59, 62, 109, 112, 117, 130, 143, 150, 159, 176; violence, political, xi–xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, 20, 45, 51, 62, 105, 107, 110, 117, 119–120, 122, 124, 129, 136, 150, 156, 167, 172, 173–174, 175, 177 virtue, 5, 8, 70, 72, 81, 108, 114, 115, 119, 162 Voltaire, 5 vulnerable, 56, 62, 67, 100, 173–174; vulnerability, 46, 67 wages, stolen. See Stolen wages Walker, Margaret Urban, xix, 105, 117, 160, 175, 176 War, xi, xvii, 10, 11, 12, 17, 19, 20, 25, 27, 32, 49, 50, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 77, 97, 112, 123, 171, 174; post-war, xii, xiv, 3, 4, 5, 18, 33, 39, 41, 61, 100, 132,

202

Index

171; Boer War, 143; war criminals, 24, 38, 156; World War I, 143, 161; World War II, xi, xv, xvii, 24, 46, 47, 106, 109, 112, 172, 173 Warmke, Brandom, 159 Weinstein, Harvey M., 98, 100 Welcome to Country, 144, 176 Welz, Claudia, 58 Wilkerson, William, 27 will to power, 32, 49 Winter, Stephen, 140–142 Wire, the, 152, 158 witnesses, xi, 56, 79, 92, 98, 100, 105, 109, 134, 172; witnessing, 19, 23, 48, 58, 79, 90, 138, 173 wrongdoing, xiii, xiv–xv, 26, 31, 33, 35, 46, 54, 91, 105, 105–106, 107, 107–108, 109, 112, 114, 117, 118, 119,

120, 125, 129, 130, 131–132, 133, 133–134, 135, 136–137, 137, 145, 151, 155, 159, 164, 166, 176 wrongs, xiii, xvi, xvii, xx, 5, 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, 25, 29, 34, 35, 37, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50–51, 51–52, 54, 55, 56, 59, 61–62, 69–71, 72–73, 75, 76, 78, 87, 91, 95, 96, 100, 105, 107, 110, 111–112, 112, 113, 114, 115–116, 117–118, 119, 121, 122–123, 124, 125, 129, 130–131, 132, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163–164, 165, 166, 173, 176, 177 Zahavi, Dan, 52 Žižek, Slavoj, 5

About the Author

Marguerite La Caze is associate professor in philosophy at the University of Queensland. She has research interests and numerous publications in European and feminist philosophy especially concerning questions of ethics, politics, and aesthetics, including philosophy and film. Her publications include Wonder and Generosity: Their Role in Ethics and Politics, (SUNY Press, 2013) The Analytic Imaginary (Cornell, 2002), Integrity and the Fragile Self, with Damian Cox and Michael Levine (Ashgate, 2003) and articles in Contemporary Political Theory, Culture, Theory and Critique, Derrida Today, Hypatia, Law, Culture, and the Humanities, Parrhesia, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Philosophy Compass, Philosophy Today, Political Theory, Simone de Beauvoir Studies, Symposium and other journals, and book collections, including on the work of Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida Sigmund Freud, Luce Irigaray, Immanuel Kant, Michèle Le Dœuff, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Iris Marion Young. She held an Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Research Fellowship (2003–2007) and currently holds an ARC Discovery grant (2015–2018).

203