Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparation Politics by John C Torpey

by John Torpey

This book explores the spread in recent years of political efforts to rectify injustices handed down from the past. Although it recognizes that campaigns for reparations may lead to an improvement in the well-being of victims of mistreatment by states and to reconciliation among former antagonists, it examines the extent to which the concern with the past may represent a departure from the traditionally future-oriented stance of progressive politics.

Genres: Politics, History

Hardcover

First published January 30, 2006

Reviews

[Tabea Werhahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Torpey is misleading; the “Historikerstreit” was not actually about the singularity of the Holocaust. No, after the shocking realization of the horrifying events which had occurred and which Germans slowly understood they were all guilty of in different ways, the first reaction of the German people was not a debate about whether, historically speaking, the Holocaust had been the “worst” genocide, determining philosophical questions around what defines 'the worst'. The first reaction was, of course, to focus on themselves in and for the future. What can we do for us as a society to build us up again, our morale and self-image, national identity, economy, international reputation and so on. For that purpose exactly, for their own self-gain and second chance for their people, they had to do something. So, after a while, they seemingly acknowledged their mistakes, apologized, became the 'bigger person', prosecuted a few people and paid some more people (of course there were other measures, I am simply making a point). As contemporary philosopher Omri Boehm puts it, they re-established the Kantian idea of reason as essentially public by “rehabilitating reason’s authority through developing discourse ethics and defending constitutional patriotism” (namely accepting liberal citizenship, the idea of a neutral constitution and international law as the only sources of legitimacy), as well as “[recovering] free public speaking as the only way to defend universal rationality”. This was a noble cause (if you can say that), it was the right thing to do for Germany. But it wasn’t actually about the Holocaust, it was about the future of German Identity. The singularity of the Holocaust was used as an argument by German intellectuals to establish a renewed German Identity based on universal reason (rather than racism and other horrible things). But the singularity of the Holocaust itself was actually never debated. The German argument was simply accepted at face value (internationally), in order to encourage Germany in their neoliberal aspirations. And that is the real underlying reason why the first reparations were paid out to larger groups of people based on their past experiences as tied to their identity, even if Germans didn’t fully comprehend that at the time.

But this caused a shift for other groups of people. Because genocides after all are not singular events; the discrimination, occupation, systematic execution, starvation and erasure of a people had previously occurred in many different shapes, sizes and colors. Of course, it is true that at no other point in history had we ever witnessed such mass-scale systematic, cruel, blatantly and openly fascist treatment of a people normalized within a society within such a short span of time. But this is not a behaviour inherent to the German people only, but a product of particular conditions acting as the breeding ground for such events to unfold. As humans have changed, progressed and developed, (technologically, intellectually and politically) genocides have taken many different shapes and forms. I tend to think about it in terms of a sliding scale. Depending on factors such as the economic, intellectual or political 'success' of a state, its relationships to its neighbouring states (historical and current), its international reputation (which affects the social and psychological identity of a nation), and just general global developments of history, genocides have gone to different extents and taken different forms, also taking into account the amount of time they were allowed to persist before other states or bodies of authority intervened (militarily, economically, in whatever manner). One could argue all day about where which genocide should be placed on that scale in terms of intensity of destruction, and most people would probably agree on placing the Holocaust as the very highest genocide on that scale, with the highest intensity and cruelty ever seen before within a short amount of time. But just because of the common understanding of its previously unseen intensity, it didn’t suddenly mean that the Holocaust had been the only genocide to have occurred. Nor does it mean that genocides of smaller scale (or even ones of the same or higher scale who knows what will happen) cannot happen again. And every genocide must be fought to stop, no matter the size or subject group. People realized and understood this. Different groups who had been subjected to genocide started thinking about their past in terms of developments within the present and wanted to claim reparations for themselves, rightfully so.

Of course, some groups have been more vocal about their claims for reparations than others. It makes sense that, for example, Black Americans would be more vocal about reparations for the Jim Crow era, as the party responsible (the American government) supposedly subscribes to values of democracy and equality. That Black Americans are therefore more vocal than say, Armenians demanding reparations from Turkey, a government which does not even recognize and continues to perpetrate the genocide of the Armenian people (pretty openly) is also self-evident (although it is also important to acknowledge the restless efforts of particularly the Armenian diaspora in fighting for the recognition of their people’s history). Nevertheless, despite different levels of outspokenness, the first payments of reparations to larger groups of people by a government, based on that group's particular experience as tied to identity, forced every group of people with a shared identity to turn to themselves and examine their own past more closely. Accelerated by globalization and technological developments such as the creation of social media, this caused a psychological shift in the universal psyche of humanity, causing developments of the present to be increasingly thought of in terms of the past, rather than the future, as had previously been the case. Germany focused on itself and faced its past in order to move into its future, forcing everyone else to do the same (very loosely put).

We should be striving to get to a point where your economic background and general well-being are not intrinsically tied to the colour of your skin, where you were born or the history of your people. Reparations are one method within the struggle of moving towards that point, but we should not rely so heavily on identity categories to get there. Because if we increasingly think of and about what separates us from other people (identity paradigms) it becomes much harder to think about and envision a future, as a collective. There are many aspects of the book that I wish Torpey would have expanded on. I thought there was a lack of consideration of the implications of intersectionality (as visible within the case of Japanese-Americans), indigenous perspectives and exploration of community-based approaches to reparations. But the biggest one is reparations not as individual cases but as a general redistribution of wealth, the anti-systemic approach to reparations. From my perspective, that is the only way to achieve outcomes with the same aspirations while focusing on the future and avoiding the divisive nature of identity politics, which can easily get obstructed by individual leaders creating “we vs them” scenarios, potentially leading other genocides. There are already so many duelling dualisms in this world. In the future, I hope to live in a world where we are able to think about things on a spectrum and acknowledge not just black and white, but all the shades of grey in between.

[Eliza Marin · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do people remember the Holocaust and genocides? How do other people deal with collective trauma and how to make reparations without being condescending?

Torpey questions the notion of the victim’s rights, in the context of the law, as elitist advocacy, rather than equal representation? There is a core shift that he is underlying, by quoting Garlands' description, of the turn of the victim's imagery, in the last century. This shift is bringing into the light a new cultural character, that of the victims’ experiences, as decentralized individuals of the public good, opposed to its former status of conflict with the public interest.

This is exactly why Torpey is broadening the perception of victimhood, bringing up the case of the politically abused, noting that the difference between the previous and the crime victim has brought needed attention on this subject.

He highlights the transformation that occurred in the political area or more to say the stagnation. The brake of the balance of the ‘past, present, future temporal horizon’ (pg.18) represents proof that the recovery of the historical discourse is still emerging. One of his main statements is characterizing this period as a post-conflict state of suspension, unable to move forward because of this confusion.

This book is finally legitimizing the explosion of the ‘entrepreneurs of memory’, pointing at their importance, not as nostalgic contemplators, but rather at perceiving them as vitally necessary for the restoring of the future visions.