Declarations of Forgiveness and Remorse in European Politics

Abstract

This article examines the historical background, proliferation, and later internationalization of public declarations of forgiveness and remorse, first made in Europe a few decades after the end World War II. The author suggests that these declarations should be understood as a political practice, and bases her claim on three premises: (1) after 1945, politicians began apologizing not only for their own crimes but mainly for those perpetrated by the communities they represented; (2) these declarations implied a tacit acceptance of responsibility of both the group that declares its remorse and of the group that accepts and possibly forgives the former for its past crimes; (3) apart from representing a shared collective moral responsibility, declarations of forgiveness and remorse imply the continuity of a nation (or of other kinds of human collectivities). These three premises apply if declarations of forgiveness and remorse are not banal and conventional, but function as a political ritual. The author discusses the main controversies relating to these declarations, such as the problem of collective responsibility or the neglect of the victims of past crimes, and concludes that, despite their flaws, authentic declarations of forgiveness and remorse have important moral and political consequences.

Keywords:

• Political forgiveness
• reconciliation
• collective responsibility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Raveling, Ist Versöhnung möglich? 10; see also Derrida’s translation, “To Forgive,” 38.

2. Jankélévitch, Forgiveness and “Should We Pardon Them?”

3. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 37.

4. Jankélévitch, “Should We Pardon Them?” 555.

5. Ibid., 556, 567.

6. Kurt Georg Kiesinger, a former Nazi, was West German Chancellor in 1968. Klarsfeld’s gesture drew international attention, but she was still summarily sentenced to a year in prison. Cf. Binder, “Woman Hits Kiesinger.”

7. Raveling, Ist Versöhnung möglich, 17.

8. Jankélévitch’s remark is quoted in Derrida,“To Forgive,” 29.

9. Améry, “Resentments,” 67.

10. Ibid., 63.

11. Arendt, Between Past and Future, 13; and Strauss, “Progress or Return?” 227.

12. Diner, Cataclysms, 9.

13. Meier, From Athens to Auschwitz, 137.

14. Judt, Postwar, 804.

15. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 298.

16. Judt, Postwar, 811, 817.

17. Cf. Brooks, “Age of Apology,” 3.

18. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 31.

19. Cf., for example, Kozub-Ciembroniewicz, Konrad Adenauer; and Gräfin Döhnhoff, Deutschland, Deine Kanzler.

20. Lübbe calls it “a political ritual of atonement” in “Ich entschuldige mich,” 16.

21. Cf., for example, Kukułka, Wstęp do nauki o stosunkach międzynarodowych; Bole, Christiansen, and Hennemayer, Forgiveness in International Politics; Frevert, Dialogues on Justice; and Wigura, Wina narodów.

22. Austin, Performative Utterances, 235.

23. See, for example, Améry, “Resentments”; and Levi, If This Is a Man.

24. Cf. Brudholm, Resentment’s Virtue.

25. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 28.

26. L’Hôte, “Forgiving is Not Forgetting.”

27. Arendt, “Dziennikmyśli,” 101–3.

28. There are alternative interpretations of the story with the piano. In “La première vie,” Onfray claims, for example, that Jankélévitch did mean reconciliation with Raveling but showed a kind of irony, very typical of him as an author.

29. Ricoeur, “The Difficulty to Forgive,” 11.

30. This may explain the proliferation of declarations of political remorse in Polish post-1989 politics. Cf. Wigura, “Deklaracje przebaczenia.”

31. This is how Radzik interprets the 2008 apology to the Australian Aborigines in “Moral Bystanders.”

32. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 469.

33. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 214 (emphasis added).

34. Cf. Schneider, Der Warschauer Kniefall, 285.

35. Ibid.

36. Wigura, “Alternative Historical Narrative,” 400-412.

37. Wigura, Wina narodów, 93-104.

38. Cf. Schneider, Der Warschauer Kniefall, 285.

39. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 215.

40. Declaration dated August 25, 1993; after Lübbe, “Ich entschuldige mich,” 26.

41. Garton Ash, “True Confessions,” 33–38, 36–37, quoted after Philpott, “Beyond Politics as Usual,” 11.

42. Ibid., 12, 13.

43. Cf. Philpott, “Beyond Politics as Usual.”

44. Van Oyen Witvliet, “Understanding and Approaching Forgiveness.”

45. http://deutsch-polnische.schulbuchkommission.de.

46. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1110a24-26, 1136a5-9.

47. Butler, The Whole Works; Griswold provides an extensive analysis of Butler’s thought in Forgiveness.

48. Cf., for example, Finlayson, Conflict and Reconciliation, 493–520; Hardimon, Hegel’s Social Philosophy, 85; Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, First Treatise, par. 10, par. 21; Gerl-Falkovitz, Verzeihung des Unverzeihlichen? 91.

49. Griswold, Forgiveness, 15, and Kodalle, Annäherungen, 6ff., both come to similar conclusions.

50. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 31.

51. Kodalle uses the term “the philosophy of forgiveness” in Annäherungen, 7, but does not give an equally detailed account of the philosophy of forgiveness.

52. Cf. Arendt, The Aftermath of Nazi Rule, 248ff.

53. Schlink, Kollektivschuld?, 13ff.; cf. Popescu and Schult, Revisiting Holocaust Representation.

54. Cf., for example, Nora, “Czas pamięci,” 37–45; Żakowski, Rewanż pamięci; Korzeniewski, Polityczne rytuały; Amstutz, The Healing of Nations.

55. Wolff-Powęska, “Zwycięzcy i zwyciężeni.”

56. Wigura, “Deklaracje przebaczenia.”

57. Cf. Kłoczowski, “Europa Środkowo-Wschodnia; and Sosnowska, Zrozumiećzacofanie, 125ff.

58. See materials from the conference of the Polish Academy of Sciences on “The Search for Reconciliation.”

59. Lucas, The New Cold War, 114.

Additional information

Funding

The project was financed by Poland’s National Science Centre, grant number DEC-2011/03/D/HS6/05938.