Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation

There is often an uneasy tension between national sovereignty, political pressure, and international justice. The execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin in the United States yesterday highlights this often palpable strain.

The execution of Medillin, 33, in the state of Texas, occurred after a widespread international plea for leniency. At the root of this controversy lies the fact that Medillin was not informed of his right to a consular before and during the trial. The state of Texas earlier stated that while it was true that Medillin was not informed of his right to an attorney, as he did not raise a complaint during the trail, he may not do so after a verdict has been reached. The US Supreme Court also rejected an appeal from Medillin's lawyers, stating that "...(the) petitioner was not prejudiced by his lack of consular access."

The International Court of Justice, on the other hand, has long been against the execution in Medillin:

The ICJ told US authorities in 2004 that Medellin's case and that of other Mexicans facing execution violated the Vienna Convention because authorities failed to inform the foreigners of their right to consular access and assistance during trial.

While the US did not abide by the ICJ's strong suggestions, it openly supports the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudan President Bashir. It does not officially recognize the ICC.

This insistence on the prosecution of President Bashir comes in the face of many African leader's insistence that a suspension of Bashir's indictment is essential in order to stop further bloodshed in the region. The Sudanese government has threatened to expel peacekeepers if Bashir's indictment continues. In response, US envoy Alejandro Wolff stated:

There is no compromise on the issue of justice...The crime of impunity has gone on too long and the United States felt that it was time to stand up on this point of moral clarity and make clear that this permanent member of the Security Council will not compromise on the issue of justice.

This irony has not been lost on many critics of the current system of international justice. In his recent opinion piece, Osama al Sharif, a journalist based in Jordan, lamented the political nature of international justice. Warranted or not, Bashir stated that many powerful nations, their allies, and their leaders are able to perpetrate human rights abuses with impunity. For him, this is the biggest problem with the current system of "international justice":

Legal experts will waste much ink explaining the differences and underlining the reasons why the ICC is focusing on Sudan now and not on Israel. But the fact of the matter is that we do not live in a perfect world and while the survivors of the horrors of Srebrenica will see justice served in the arrest and trial of Karadzic, the reality is many notorious war criminals are walking free in other areas of conflict because the big powers chose to let them off the hook.

While al Sharif's indictment of the international community may be controversial, there is no doubt that there is a considerable and unfortunate divide between what is politically acceptable, and what is judicially acceptable in current international justice proceedings.

One of the positive effects of the growing tendency toward the universalization of Holocaust themes is the increasing recognition of other injustices based on racism, xenophobia and civil rights abuses. For example, it seems that it has recently become difficult to speak of the historical injustices committed against Jews in Germany without in the same breath also recognizing contemporary injustices committed against minorities, particularly Turks, in Germany today. However, when this equation is flipped – and the specter of the Jewish past in Germany is evoked as political and moral capital to be used to fight contemporary injustice against minority groups in Germany today – it becomes much more problematic. While these connections are certainly more imagined than historical, they are nonetheless shaping the nature of Turkish-Jewish relations in Germany (and abroad) as well as affecting the politics of integration and inclusion in Germany. While a growing awareness of contemporary injustice is of course something positive, when certain parallels are drawn between the situation of the Jews in Germany in the past and the Turks in Germany in more recent years, tensions rise and the potential for political and emotional fallout becomes high.

As one of the few scholars who work on the (albeit limited) interactions between Turks and Jews in Germany, Jeffrey M. Peck raises many of the complex issues regarding these groups in his recently published book Being Jewish In the New Germany (2006). In the chapter specifically covering this topic he writes: “In fact, to many Germans, the Turks have become ‘the new Jews’” (p.90). He then explores what this statement means through a discussion of the parallels and complexities of the Turkish-Jewish, Turkish-German, and German-Jewish relationships in Germany. While Peck for the most part objectively explores these relationships from historical and sociological perspectives, it is obvious that as the “Turkish Question” and the “Jewish Question” in Germany become more intimately intertwined in academic scholarship and popular media, problems arise that are potentially damaging to either or both groups. A recent example of a counter-productive coupling of the “Turkish/Jewish Questions” was at the otherwise productive conference entitled “Immigration and Cultural Exchange – German Jewish Presences in the U.S. and Post Cold War Germany” sponsored jointly by NYU and the Leo Baeck Institute (March 25-27, 2007).

The final panel of the conference was entitled “Jewish, Turkish, German: Cross-Cultural Perspectives” and was intended to be a forum to expand the themes present in the conference to encompass another minority group and to foster collaboration between people working on issues of immigration and integration in Europe and the United States. The panel was selected and chaired by Almut Wieland-Karimi from the Fredrich Ebert Foundation and included the journalist Cem Sey, anthropologist Koser Akcapar, and sociologists Göçe Yurdakul and Michael Bodemann. Each speaker presented, along with his or her own intended topic, many of the difficulties of attempting to broach this topic, especially in such a homogenous forum.

Most of the scholars on the panel quickly admitted that they “knew absolutely nothing about Jews” before being invited to the conference, and were strained to quickly find some sort of connection to talk about; an issue which led to bizarre (and for many members of the mostly Jewish audience offensive) historical and contemporary comparisons between Turks and Jews. These ranged from the direct comparison of the Turkish situation in Germany today to that of the Jews in 1938, to declarations of current Turkish solidarity with Jews because “the Jews are being attacked by Palestinian terrorists while the Turks are being attacked by Kurdish terrorists” as well as many other less-than-academic comments. The Turkish-Armenian issue was also never mentioned, which caused some members of the audience to immediately discredit the speakers and the other issues that had been raised. A full discussion of the panel is not possible here, but it is worth mentioning that the thread that seemed to run through each lecture was how the Turkish community in Germany directly instrumentalizes the Holocaust and the “shared Jewish-Turkish narrative of injustice” to achieve political goals – a blatantly taboo subject for most members of the audience but a candid declaration by the speakers.

The nature of this forum seemed to force the ahistorical comparison of victimhood and suffering of two very different groups, something Peck explicitly warns against in his book. In the context of the Turkish trend to compare the violent acts committed against Turks in Germany between 1989 and 1992 with Kristallnacht (and even the entire Holocaust) Peck wrote simply, “When comparisons are taken out of context, they threaten to overshadow the injustices of both historical epochs.” (p.105). This threat became a reality during this final panel of the conference. If it had been done differently, it could have been the perfect platform to increase the highly prestigious audience’s awareness of the difficult situation for Turks currently living in Germany. It could have created the unique opportunity to explore potential routes of cooperation in scholarship and/or society between Turks and Jews. It could have possibly even begun to forge some sort of solidarity between the American and German Jews (and other scholars and students present) and the Turks who are currently working on difficult historical and contemporary issues in a post-9-11 atmosphere that weighs so heavily on Jewish–Muslim (and American-Muslim) relations in general and is often hostile to collaboration and scholarship on such subjects. Instead, it proved the danger inherent in attempts to instrumentalize shared narratives of injustice, suffering, and victimhood instead of proving the possibilities that could come from such attempts.

Recently, a debate has emerged in New York about a proposal to grant honorary citizenship to Anne Frank. (Read the full article in the New York Times.) It is a proposal that was made public a few years ago on the occasion of Anne Frank’s 75th birthday, but was not passed. A congressman from Long Island, Christopher Bodkin, hopes that by honoring Frank now, the U.S. government can atone for having denied the Frank family entry to the country before their deportation to the concentration camps.

On one side of the debate, Bodkin and his supporters hope to use the recent release of Otto Frank’s letters showing his desperate attempt to obtain a U.S. visa to leave Holland, in order to give Anne Frank in death “what her father sought for her in life.” It would be to highlight and admit the mistakes that the U.S. government made during the build up of the second world war.

The detractors of the measure do not oppose this admission of guilt, but see the proposal rather as pointless. On the one hand, they say that Frank wanted to be Dutch, and that her citizenship belongs to the Dutch. Or even that she didn’t want to be a citizen of any country, and that an honorary citizenship anywhere seems arbitrary. On the other hand, some find the initiative pointless—Deborah E. Lipstadt, the director of the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University, finds it “too easy. The way this country turned its back on Jewish refugees in that period is a blot on our country. Nothing will change that.” After all of the work and agony that so many people went through, an initiative like this, according to Lipstadt, would be like erasing the past.

But what this proposal should highlight more than anything, is the difficulty that citizenship itself caused for all of the Jews who were deported during the Holocaust. Hannah Arendt notes in her seminal work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, that it was the inability of the state to protect Jews—precisely because Jews did not belong to the state—that allowed them to be purged en masse with relatively little opposition. The dream of cosmopolitanism—that all men were created equal and that our human connection to one another would overrride our citizenship to any particular state—was shattered by what happened under totalitarian regimes. And so began the Zionist drive to create a Jewish state that would protect all Jews by granting them membership to a state. And all of the complications that followed.

Anne Frank is a reminder, and a good one, of the complications of citizenship. We tend to think that the problems of the Holocaust are behind us, that we learned from what happened and that we will never forget. But immigrants always feel the lingering complications of the problems of citizenship most acutely, especially illegal immigrants who feed into viscious work cycles, and governments who turn a blind eye because they need cheap labor. These non-citizens—who often pay taxes—are not protected under the law, and so, as has happened many times in our country’s history, they can quickly be hunted down and purged from the country in a mass exodus. Not to mention be denied health care, average living and working standards, and education.

But illegal immigration seems like an even cut-and-dry issue when compared to the complications that are raised as we become more global. When Americans, for example, outsource their labor to India, or send their own employees to work in Mumbai. Who protects these workers—both Indian and American? The host country? The home country? The corporation? We have seen relatively few skirmishes in this regard, but it is surely only a matter of time. What about the tourist who was caned in southeast asia a decade or so ago? Inadvertently making cultural mistakes and subject to the host country’s laws and punishments. In comparison to the practical gold rush out of the United States as companies have outsourced their labor, we have done little in the years that have passed to understand how these cultural conflicts arise, and what should be done as global markets expand to even even more far-flung locations.

Anne Frank should raise our consciousness again of the often inadvertent effects of citizenship and non-citizenship. If anything, her story, and the thousands like hers, should cause us to reflect on the subtle and extremely complex issues that arise when people with different cultural lives and histories interact. And there is no more pressing a time to understand these issues than now, as we rely on labor, capital and investments made in places that we will never claim as our own, and who will never claim us, either, as their citizens.

While the violence in Iraq still rages, a handful of American commentators are already thinking about reconciliation and peace.

In The New York Times Magazine (11/26/2006), writer David Rieff argues that Vietnam offers important lessons for the current war and suggests some reasons for hope. Reporting on President Bush’s recent trip to Vietnam for the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic cooperation organization, Rieff notes, “Thirty years after the end of a war that left Vietnam in ruins and America in turmoil and confusion, the issues left over—accounting for the missing in action, reuniting families, and even paying compensation for Agent Orange-induced maladies—are far less central to U.S.-Vietnamese relations than issues of trade and investment.” Indeed, America is now Vietnam’s biggest trade partner, and the exchange of goods (by some measures) has nearly trebled in the last five years alone. Rieff concludes from this, “Even the most deep-seated enmities can evaporate over time.” He adds: “There is no iron law of history that says that bad relations between America and the Islamic world, and even between the United States and radical Shiite groups like the one led by the militant cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, are fated to continue this way indefinitely and immutably.” Of course politics enter the picture, too, as Rieff pushes for near-term disengagement on the part of the U.S. military. Peace will not come easily or even soon, but American forces must withdraw, Rieff reckons, if we are ever to begin down that road.

Does the comparison (Vietnam v. Iraq) which Rieff develops have merit? Although the Cold War context entailed its own complexities, the conflict of civilizations (Rieff’s assessment) currently being waged in Iraq does not exhibit the same neat, bi-lateral character. In other words, fostering peace in the Middle East is by now, no longer a question of merely improving U.S.-Iraqi relations. That is only one dimension among many others. Also, does premature discussion of reconciliation not somehow magnify the wounds which parties to the conflict have suffered? Can the proposition of peace deepen resentment in the short-term? It is tempting for some to look thirty years down the road for reassurance, but what does this perspective do to the conflict while blood is freshly spilled? Does anyone living through the violence really believe that one day this will be “only a bump in the road?” One might answer Rieff with something like the pragmatism of piety, i.e., the usefulness of not looking past the wounds which are presently opened.

Full-text for the piece by Rieff is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26wwln_lede.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

While Rieff’s short essay begs the question of etiquette and timing, it is noteworthy reconciliation has already entered into the current debate on Iraq. Five years ago, few would have predicted that the apology equation in Iraq would have highlighted American misdeeds and failures, but a recent essay in Harper’s by George McGovern and William Polk (October 2006, “The Way Out of War”) shows us how things have changed. Adapted from their forthcoming book, Out of Iraq, the piece by McGovern and Polk offers a detailed plan for immediate withdrawal. The two authors suggest that leaving Iraq is “not only a political imperative but a strategic requirement.” And while the costs of withdrawal are considerable, they maintain, they pale in comparison to the costs of continued engagement. According to one of the studies they cite, the costs of staying in Iraq for another four years: $1 trillion.

This kind of cost analysis would be mostly unremarkable except for the attention the authors pay to the anticipated costs of reconciliation. According to McGovern and Polk, the Americans will have to make a whole range of reparations if they want to salvage any of the moral authority they once enjoyed. These payments would cover reconstruction costs for damaged property and infrastructure, the dismantling and demolition of American installations (i.e., no long term bases), the refurbishment of cultural patrimony and new initiatives to protect what is left of the same, new engineering projects (after voiding contracts entered into with American firms) to repair/rebuild the petroleum and energy sectors, compensation for civilian deaths and casualties, compensation for the victims of torture and extrajudicial imprisonment, funds for the training of civil society professionals, a new public health system, etc. Total costs for the proposed programs equal roughly $17.5 billion, which, as the authors note, represents immense savings as compared to the anticipated costs of continued engagement. More valuable, they venture, are “the savings to be measured in what otherwise are likely to be large numbers of shattered bodies and lost lives.” This extends both to Iraqis and Americans, the latter having fought “for meager pay and with inadequate equipment.”

Most remarkable, however, is the authors’ last proposal, which costs nothing at all. “[W]e should find a way to express our condolences for the large number of Iraqis incarcerated, tortured, incapacitated, or killed in recent years.” Expanding on this, the authors add:

“This may seem a difficult gesture to many Americans. It may strike them as weak, or as a slur on our patriotism. Americans do not like to admit that they may have done wrong. We take comfort in the notion that whatever the mistakes of the war and occupation, we have done Iraq a great service by ridding it of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Perhaps we have, but in the process many people’s lives have been disrupted, damaged, or senselessly ended. A simple gesture of conciliation would go a long way toward shifting our relationship with Iraq from one of occupation to one of friendship. It would be a gesture without cost but of immense and everlasting value—and would do more to assuage the sense of hurt in the world than all of the actions above.”

Of course, the call for apology has not yet entered into the American mainstream. This comes from the fringes, and probably the authors underestimate the resistance which such a call would encounter were it to be raised from anywhere but the highest echelons of power (unlikely). But it is impressive, nonetheless, that we can entertain such a notion, even on the pages of a “lefty-academic” publication like Harper’s. While many are convinced that the “go big, go long, or get out” calculus is more or less true, McGovern and Polk have gone a long way toward envisioning what “getting out” might entail and what it might cost and what it might salvage. The fact that apology and reconciliation have made it into the debate on Iraq in this particular configuration is both interesting and encouraging. Maybe it is overly optimistic? The reference to “friendship” seems both premature and pan-Glossian. But the equation of peace with payback here is important nevertheless.

Injecting Rational Discussion into the Clash of Civilization

Towards a shared view of the past?

How we understand the past and in particular the belief systems that incite contemporary conflicts has great impact on public life, but receives little attention in public discussion. This is particularly true as far as the clash of civilizations goes. This dispute is animated by reciprocal myths from both sides. What are these myths? Much of these myths seem to be background noise to war mongering, with little efforts at conducting a conversation.

Last week it seems that the increased tension between Christians and Muslims and the conflict and intolerance, both in religious and secular garb, has encountered a new challenge: rational discussion. While the response to the cartoon controversy had been widespread violence, and Muslim public reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s depiction of Islam as violent was a mixture of demonstrations and the burning of (few) churches, and there has been little constructive conversation across the cultural and religious divide. Indeed, the Pope’s explanations in lieu of apologies (to paraphrase: “I am sorry you misunderstood what I said”) diminished the vehemence of the outcry. Yet everyone is waiting for the next round, which most likely will take place during the visit of the Pope to Turkey. It’s a mass spectacle where the public is both the performers and the audience. France in the meantime, as the first act meant to warm the audience before the main performance, has just angered Turkey by passing a law that made the denial of Armenian genocide a crime. While not directly related, it is pitched just right to inflame the clash of civilizations crowd. It is against this background that the effort of Muslim scholars to challenge the Pope on his own terms ought to be big and welcome news. (“Muslims find errors in Pope's presentation of Islam” Sat Oct 14, 2006)

“Senior Muslim scholars, taking up Pope Benedict's call for a frank dialogue, have written him an open letter listing factual errors in his recent speech on Islam that sparked protest across the Muslim world.” The scholars included grand muftis of Egypt, Oman, Uzbekistan, Istanbul, Russia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo as well as a Shi'ite ayatollah, Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad bin Talal and Western-based academics. “The politely worded letter challenged the former theology professor on his own area of expertise” and proceeded to outline their own view on issues of violence, the irrationality of Islam and the role of forced conversion.

The Muslim rejoinder is important because it is an invitation to a dialogue, one in which it can be assumed the Pope will engage. Hopefully this will be done promptly, so it can take on the political significance it deserves. Such a dialogue can create a joint understanding between the two religions and more importantly even, by the west and the Muslim world, of at least a version of understanding Islam in the west in a way that is not limited to a representation of the axis of terror. Certainly this group of Islamic scholars does not represent the entire Islamic world, and in a society that has no centralized hierarchy, everyone only represents himself. Yet a distinguished list of religious authorities advocating a non violent interpretation of Islam must be viewed in the west as good news. Engaging the myths of Islam in the west is difficult, especially when the response in Islamic societies to the defamation that Islam is violent is widespread violence.

The letter by the Muslim dignitaries and an interfaith dialogue is obviously not unprecedented, but it is in short supply. The challenge made to the Pope is to respond in kind, to engage the discussion based on historical and textual analysis, subject to evidentiary debate, not one that is confined to the assertion of beliefs; not a response that is based on infallibility, but rather a rational and scholarly discussion. The details of such a conversation will hardly make news. But the agreement between scholars of both religions to agree and resolve the dispute is newsworthy. This will bring about a shared view of what Islam says about Jihad, first in specific texts and later perhaps by assembling a critical mass of religious opinion backed up by historical documentation, in order to provide both a statement about the past and an interpretation for the present.

Building a shared narrative of the past, of what Islam meant to its followers and how to interpret various sources, can be a crucial way to build bridges of understanding and provide a new opening for dialogue. For non-Muslims, the relative importance and chronology of the Koran verse advocating religious freedom as opposed to jihad may be an obscure and probably secondary issue. If the Pope made a mistake in interpreting the Koran that might be of some interest to believers but would hardly be as important globally if it did not represent a microcosm of the contemporary world.

Much in international relations today has been militarized. Diplomatic negotiation is a vast improvement over force. But actual engagement and attempts to understand the other side have largely been missing from political and official religious discourse. Neither side brings good will to the public negotiation, eager to point out the shortcomings of the other. Within this context such conversations are particularly useful. The Aga Khan recent interview in Der Spiegel, "Islam Is a Faith of Reason" also contributes to the trend, though no one who knows Karim Aga Khan IV associates his views with anything remotely related to violent Islam. In this sense, although he is the spiritual leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims, his tolerance is not news in the same way the grand muftis’ statement is.

Agreeing on shared perspectives of the past in a way that bridges animosities between religions, nations, and ethnicities is harder to achieve than it would seem, and often suffers reversals. Hate is just too appealing. It is therefore particularly good to see such a conversation begin.

Two days ago, October 5, 2006, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, wrote a column in the Lancashire Telegraph in which he told Muslim women that he was uncomfortable when they wore their niqabs (veils) when he spoke to them face to face. He defended his comments on the BBC yesterday, saying, “There is a wider issue here. Communities are bound together partly by informal chance relations between strangers, people being able to acknowledge each other in the street or being able to pass the time of day. That’s made more difficult if people are wearing a veil. That’s just a fact of life.” He goes on to say, “I come to this out of a profound commitment to equal rights for Muslim communities and an equal concern about adverse development, about parallel communities.” The New York Times article that quotes the BBC, and the rest of the fracas that ensued after Mr. Straw’s remarks is entitled, “British Official Criticizes Muslim Veil.” However, as one can see from Mr. Straw’s own testimony, the word “criticizes” is slightly misleading. While Mr. Straw would go on to say that if given the chance he would like not to see the niqab in Britain at all, his comments are tempered by a forty-year history of tolerance in Britain. Communities, he says, are bound together in tolerance—in the ability for people to “acknowledge each other in the street or being able to pass the time of day.” Interestingly, the problem that Mr. Straw says he sees in the veil is not a challenge to traditional British life, but rather to the much newer culture of British tolerance.

The problem with what to do with the niqab has troubled Europe for years. The French government outlawed it and other religious identifiers in schools. The famed and recently deceased Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci had a similar aversion to the niqab, and refused to wear one when interviewing Ayatollah Khomeini. Muslim immigration is relatively new to Europe, and it represents a culture so vastly different from most of Western Europe, that it has been hard for each individual country to know what to do—not so much with the immigrants—but with the immigration of their often incongruous culture. For a country like Italy, for example, whose population is more than 90% Catholic, it’s not just that Islam isn’t the same religion—it’s that the whole country is built around Catholicism and the cultural traditions that Catholics share. And the cities are built around Catholic churches and cathedrals. And everybody takes the same religious holidays. Holidays aren’t just “religious” they’re societal. Sometimes this is impossible for Americans to understand because of the fact that we take holidays for Yom Kippur and Christmas (and depending on our individual communities, sometimes we take more Jewish than Christian holidays or vice versa), but in European countries, for the most part, there are few diversions from the norm.

One may remember that in creating the European Union, the countries that joined had the opportunity to produce their own constitution of what the Union stood for and who it represented. Perhaps one of the most heated debates was precisely over this discrepancy between religious traditions and values. Some people wanted to include Christianity as one of the common cultural and social foundations, and some countries did not. But this debate is only about a hundred years old. Before the late nineteenth century it would have gone without saying that all of these countries considered themselves in some way founded upon Christianity. However, now, as the world becomes more global and immigrants from Africa and the Middle East find their way into daily life with Western Europe, each country is being forced to re-evaluate its own cultural heritage and cultural future.

Which is why it’s so interesting that even though he is against the veil, Jack Straw still asserts the priority of a tolerant Britain. He is certainly not arguing to go back to the days when Muslims would feel like black sheep just by walking on traditional British streets. But at the same time, the two cultural histories and traditions are so different that for some things—in this case, for the British, the primacy of being able to see another person’s face when speaking, and for Muslims, the dishonor of a woman showing her face in public—are essential parts of social contact. So where does one look for ethics about what to do with such wildly diverging cultures in a newly global arena? Does the fact that these Muslims live within the cultural history of Britain take priority? Or does religious freedom for all take priority? Where is a Muslim not a Muslim? The answer to this, as it would be for a Christian, or a Jew, or a Buddhist is nowhere—and that’s the problem. Religion is deeply individual, as well as societal. A religion is carved into its country. And even though you may leave your country, you don’t leave your religion. The question therefore seems to be how do we allow for divergent religions (or extending the discussion beyond religion, for other cultural identifiers) to fit in to societies that are built on other religions? And, for that matter, how do we allow for divergent religious thinking (Evangelicals vs. Atheists) even within our own culture?

What to make of Benedict's gaffe?

The Pope's defenders claim he was simply trying to foster a discussion of intolerenace. But his reference this week to an obscure Byzantine text which characterizes the teachings of Muhammed as "evil and inhuman" has unleashed a storm of resentment in the Muslim world. In Turkey, Salih Kapusuz, the leader of a major Islamic political party, believes that the comments are a product of medieval mindset: "He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world. It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."

What will happen now that the exact wrong person has said the exact wrong words?

What can inter-faith initiatives accomplish where leaders prove so clumsy?

See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060915/ap_on_re_mi_ea/pope_muslims

This evening, PBS stations will air an hour-long documentary: "The Armenian Genocide" written, directed and produced by Andrew Goldberg. Following the documentary, PBS scheduled a panel discussion with experts, including two who defend the Turkish government's claim that the genocide never occured. As described in today's NYTimes article: A PBS Documentary Makes Its Case for the Armenian Genocide, With or Without a Debate as a result of protests waged by Armenian groups and some members of US Congress, about one third of PBS affiliates will not air the panel discussion. Last month, Michael Getler, the PBS Ombudsman presented the reasoning behind the airing of a panel discussion and described the ensuing debate.

How can the revisiting of such events use history and historical facts in a way that promotes reconciliation rather than further division?

Images of Memory: Memoria Abierta Opens New Exhibition on State Terrorism - Buenos Aires, Argentina (March 16 - April 9, 2006) In "Images of Memory," photographs, documents, maps, and testimonies create a tour of the events of Argentina's recent history: from the political and social movements of the 1970s to the military coup of March 24th 1976, to the state violence during the dictatorship, to the social resistance and the search for truth and justice, to the return of democracy. The exhibit offers a space to reflect on the impact this history has on Argentinean society today. Memoria Abierta, a founding member of the Coalition of Sites of Conscience, developed the exhibit because "we believe that a country that knows and is aware of its history can imagine a different future in which respect for human rights is fundamental to State policies and to the social and political behavior of all citizens."

V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler's award-winning play "The Vagina Monologues." There will be over 2500 events taking place around the world around Valentine's Day, 14th February, with the theme for this year aiming to raise awareness and bring justice to 'Comfort Women'. The organizers of V-Day also hope to show the relationship between the story of the Comfort women and modern-day human trafficking.

At each 2006 event, organizers will place a global spotlight on the 'Comfort Women' to raise funds and awareness and to demand an apology from the Japanese Government. On the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II, V-Day joins women and men around the world in calling for justice to 'Comfort Women' survivors. Coinciding with the spotlight, over 21 V-Day events will take place in Asia including China, Fiji, Japan, Saipan, Taiwan, Singapore, and 14 events in the Philippines.

V-Day is working with groups on the ground in Asia to plan a major V-Day event during Summer 2006 to bring maximum attention to this issue. V-Day is also working to raise awareness of human trafficking and to recognize the relationship between the story of the 'Comfort Women' and modern day human trafficking.

To date, V-Day has raised over $30 million and educated millions. Other countries where events will take place: Southern Africa: Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana. Communities and colleges in all Scandinavian countries including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, in countries in Europe and Eastern Europe including Spain, Belgium, Germany, France, Greece, Czech Republic, Kyrgyzstan and Bosnia and Herzegovina will participate. The Latin American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico will be staging benefits this year. Events will also take place in all 50 of the United States, Puerto Rico and Guam, and over 50 events will take place in the United Kingdom alone.

To find events in your area please see: V-Day Events

Source: V-day Site
V-Day Spotlight 2006

George Washington University: The Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies announces the creation of a new lecture series on History, Memory, and the Politics of the Past. History is alive as almost never before in international affairs. War crimes tribunals, truth commissions and other attempts to expose and deal with the past are proliferating. This lecture series will explore how various countries have approached and/or are now dealing with difficult aspects of their past. The series covers the entire globe and will include speakers from GW, the Washington area, the broader U.S. and beyond.
The new series will kick off with a conference on Feb. 16. "De-Stalinization: The First 50 Years After Khrushchev's Secret Speech." For more details on the conference to go to http://ieres.org.

UPCOMING LECTURES:
** Thursday, March 2, 2006
Thomas Blanton, Director of National Security Archives
"The Past is Not What it Used to Be: Truth Commissions and the Recovery of History."
4:30-6 p.m. | 1957 E Street, NW, Lindner Commons (602)

** Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Lily Gardner Feldman, Senior Fellow in Residence, American Institute of Contemporary German Studies
"Germany's Confrontation with the Past: Reconciliation with France, Israel,
the Czech Republic and Poland."
12:30-2:00 p.m. | 1957 E Street, NW, Voesar Conference Room (412Q)

** Monday, March 20, 2006
Jost Dülffer, Konrad Adenauer Visiting Professor, Georgetown University
"Post-1945 Europe: History and Memory," March 20, 12:30-2
12:30-2:00 p.m. | 1957 E Street, NW, Voesar Conference Room (412Q)

**Monday, April 10, 2006
James Loewen, Emeriti Faculty, University of Vermont and the best-selling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and new author of Sundown Towns
"Lies, Taboos and History: The Relationship Between Truth About the Past and Justice in the Present."
12:30-2 p.m |1957 E Street, NW, Lindner Commons (602)

**Wednesday, April 12, 2006
A conversation with a visiting dance troupe from Russia
"What Russia's Young Artists Know and Think about Their Country's Difficult Past"
6:30 - 8:30 pm|1957 E Street, NW, Lindner Commons (602)

**Thursday, April 21, 2006
World Premiere
"Thresholds Crossed"
A dance-theater collaboration with American and Russian dancers exploring the events, ideology and humanistic links between America and the former Soviet Union.featuring GW's Maida Withers' award winning Dance Construction Company
8:00 pm |Lisner Auditorium

For more information on History, Memory and Politics of the Past Project please go to http://ieres.org

Showing at the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, in Theatre Three at 1:00, 3:15. 5:25. 7:35, 9:40

Based on the findings of the Peruvian Truth Commission

How can an open society balance demands for security with democracy? State of Fear dramatizes the human and societal costs a democracy faces when it embarks on a “war” against terror, potentially without end, all too easily exploited by unscrupulous leaders seeking personal political gain. The film follows events in Peru, yet it serves as a cautionary tale for a nation like the United States. Filmmakers Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy, and Paco de Onís masterfully blend personal testimony, history and archival footage to tell the story of escalating violence in the Andean nation and how the fear of terror undermined their democracy, making Peru a virtual dictatorship where official corruption replaced the rule of law. Terrorist attacks by Shining Path insurgents provoked a military occupation of the countryside. Military justice replaced civil authority, widespread abuses by the Peruvian Army went unpunished, and the terrorism continued to spread. Nearly 70,000 civilians eventually died at the hands of Shining Path and the Peruvian military. (Running Time 1:34)

"In this thorough, fascinating depiction of the disastrous, soul-crushing twenty-year Peruvian war, director Pamela Yates probably felt morally obligated to draw parallels with the current U.S. war on terror. But her refusal to do so is a welcome change from the current flock of political docs and makes this eye-opening film well worth a visit." Logan Hill, NEW YORK MAGAZINE.

"STATE OF FEAR does its own moody muckraking...tons of classified video footage, of both Shining Path guerrillas and Fujimori troopers in the process of kidnapping, assaulting, and killing civilians. The pertinent lesson here is how the Peruvian power base, as in Iraq, Chechnya, Turkey, West China, and the Palestinian territories after 9-11, exploited the fact of terror to kick up repression and control by force." Michael Atkinson, VILLAGE VOICE.