Fin de siècle fever of remorse
The era of the nineties seems to be overrun with an irresistible need for confession that has taken on such global proportions as to make one wonder whether the planet has been swept away by the ritual if not the creed of Catholicism.
In 1995, two septuagenarians publicly presented their own private petitions for penitence. In the US, Robert McNamara, in his book entitled "The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," expressed his misgivings for the escalation of the war in Vietnam. And in Argentina, General Martín Balza pondered his repentance for his involvement in the fate of the desapercidos under the military dictatorship 16 years ago.
Many other acts of contrition have poured forth since then, though less personal in nature, regarding a presumed collective responsibility for the errors of the distant past. Perhaps the phenomenon is due to some kind of fin de siècle psychosis that seeks to consign future generations to the new millenium with a clean slate, having confessed to the sins of their forefathers. To mention just a few: In 1997, the Japanese government submitted a formal apology to the Koreans for the many atrocities committed by the Japanese military during their occupations earlier this century. In March of last year the Roman Catholic Church issued a 14-page document called "We remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," in which the Church examined the errors and failures of Catholics during the Holocaust. And during Clinton’s visit to Africa in April, he made a point of expressing regret for U.S. complicity in the slave trade of past centuries.
A number of French intellectuals have been doing some serious soul-searching into their own responsibility for the perpetuation of some of the atrocities that went on for decades in the former Communist countries, particularly in Eastern Europe. Their ruminations were published in a volume entitled "Le livre noir du communisme" in which they examine their own intellectual and moral culpability for having chosen to ignore the crude realities of the socialist systems for the sake of preserving their own ideologies. When the book came out, many liberal Italians (liberal in the European sense of the term) lamented the fact that Italian leftist intellectuals were not participating in this examination of conscience. The debate has become even more lively among Italian journalists and historians since "The Black Book of Communism" was published in Italian at the beginning of last year.
More wood was added to the fire of this debate with the release of yet another book, "Due Fronti," by Eduardo Sogno and Nino Isaia. It tells the story of two Italians who participated on opposite sides in the Spanish Civil War. What is causing the polemic, however, is not so much the stories recounted in the book, but the preface written by historian and former ambassador, Sergio Romano. However, this time instead of another version of the turn of the century craze of self-reproach, it is the perpetual recrimination of the respective guilt and accountability of those who embraced both fascist and communist ideologies that is taking place at the moment in Italian intellectual circles.
Last July the Russians also conformed to the craze of self-chastisement. Exactly eighty years after the execution of the imperial family in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the remains of the Romanovs were buried in the Church of Saint Peter and Paul in Saint Petersburg. Claiming it to be one of the most "shameful pages of our history," Russian President Boris Yeltsin said that by burying the victims Russians hoped to "expiate the sins of their fathers."
Many of the recipients of these apologies appear to be indifferent and unimpressed. The Korean sex slave victims of World War II rejected the sympathy letters and compensation originally put forth by the Japanese government and insisted on a formal apology which they finally received last year.
Although the African American groups which had called for Clinton to issue an official apology for slavery may have been pleased by his remarks, his comments drew criticism from conservatives who found that it was inappropriate for the President to criticize the United States while abroad. (You can’t please all of the people all of the time.)
The report produced by the Vatican was criticized by many Jewish leaders who claimed it didn’t go far enough in holding the Catholic Church accountable for its responsibility to the victims of the Holocaust.
The East Europeans are probably oblivious to the soul-searching of the French intellectuals.
The Spanish were wondering what the fuss was all about in Italy concerning their civil war since they themselves had long come to terms with their 36 years of Franco’s dictatorship. Twenty-three years of democracy had more than reconciled Spanish society, that is, until the Pinochet case came along to rock the boat by drawing parallelisms of the transition from dictatorship to democracy which occurred in both Spain and Chile.
And in Russia, although 60 members of the Romanov family from all over the world showed up for the funeral, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alessio, still doubtful of the authenticity of the genetic tests which had been performed on the remains of the sovereigns, invited the authorities in St. Petersburg to refrain from pronouncing the names of the Czars.
The latest seekers of absolution have been the Catholic Church once again and two leaders of the Khmer Rouge, of all prospects! Two months ago the Vatican announced that is was opening a symposium on the Inquisition as a means of "purifying the memory" of the Church in occasion of the Jubilee of the Holy Year 2000. In December, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea surrendered to the Cambodian government saying that they were profoundly sorry for the genocide of 2 million people which they were both instrumental in perpetrating together with Pol Pot from 1975-1979.
It’s obvious that for the most part the beneficiaries of the apologies are hardly meant to be those offended. The confessors, like all sorry sinners, are seeking their own redemption. In the meantime, who knows how many more collective penitents we will witness jumping on the bandwagon of mea culpas before we reach the portentous year 2000?
January 1999
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