The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices [Paperback]

Elazar Barkan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801868076 | ISBN-13: 978-0801868078 | Publication Date: October 9, 2001

How do nations and aggrieved parties, in the wake of heinous crimes and horrible injustices, make amends in a positive way to acknowledge wrong-doings and redefine future interactions? How does the growing practice of making restitution restore a sense of morality and enhance prospects for world peace? Where has restitution worked and where has it not?

Since the end of World War II, the victims of historical injustices and crimes against humanity have increasingly turned to restitution, financial and otherwise, as a means of remedying past suffering. In The Guilt of Nations, Elazar Barkan offers a sweeping look at the idea of restitution and its impact on the concept of human rights and the practice of both national and international politics. Through in-depth explorations of reparation demands for a wide variety of past wrongs—the Holocaust; Japanese enslavement of "comfort women" in Korea and the Philippines; the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor; German art in Russian museums and Nazi gold in Swiss banks; the oppression of indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. mainland, and Hawaii; and the enduring legacy of slavery and institutional racism among African Americans—Barkan confronts the difficulties in determining victims and assigning blame in the aftermath of such events, understanding what might justly be restored through restitutions, and assessing how these morally and politically charged acknowledgments of guilt can redefine national histories and identities.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The negotiations over Holocaust restitution that have made headlines during the past few years make this philosophical inquiry into the issue a timely monograph. As the author writes, "world morality--not to say, human nature--changed in March 1997," when the Swiss announced they were creating a humanitarian fund for victims of the Holocaust because of profits made from Nazi-looted gold. Indeed, questions of reparations for victims of atrocities erupted all over the globe in the past decade--and Barkan, who teaches history and cultural studies at Claremont Graduate University, takes a chapter-by chapter tour of these questions, covering such topics as Japanese restitution for enslaving Korean "comfort women" during WWII, Australian compensation for Aborigines, even the possibility of U.S. reparations for slavery. This work yields comparative nuggets--e.g., that the Japanese, unlike the Germans, do not feel a strong sense of collective guilt--and any reader who wades through this dense work will become educated about the weights and balances involved in restitution issues. The author also shows how restitution can bring two peoples together. In the case of the Germans and the Jews, restitution enabled "mourning to serve as a way to deal with melancholy, victimization, national repression and self- hate." Although Barkan favors restitution, because "alternative potential resolutions are too often frustrating and less effective," he covers these topics thoroughly and dispassionately. But the author's strength is also a weakness. His mild stance makes this book feel like a fruit that is difficult to open and, once opened, not as sweet as one would like. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Beneath a layer of academic jargon, this is a novel and thought-provoking work. Barkan (historical and cultural studies, Claremont Graduate Univ.) explores the increasingly widespread practice by which nation-states, impelled by "liberal guilt." Strive to make restitution for past injustices. Tragic episodes, such as the Holocaust and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, fuel this guilt, and Barkan attributes the impulse to atone for historical wrongs to an emerging "neo-Enlightenment morality" that augments the classical liberal conception of individual rights with a vaguely defined set of group rights. To redress historical wrongs, the perpetrators (or their descendants) negotiate terms of restitution with aggrieved minorities. Restitution may include an apology, reparations, or the return of cultural treasures. The author suggests that by negotiating an agreed interpretation of history, the parties can transcend festering animosities and ultimately attain true conflict resolution. Recommended for libraries specializing in public policy.
James R. Holmes, Ph.D. candidate, Fletcher Sch. of Law & Diplomacy, Belmont, MA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (October 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801868076
• ISBN-13: 978-0801868078
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #478,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Callous disregard of the vistims, March 8, 2001

By 

"aborigine" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (Hardcover)

"Those who love to feel guilty will applaud the book." How cynical! I'd have let it pass if it weren't for the "17 of 20 people (who) found the following review (by Derek Parker) helpful." Parker, like most white Australians, is totally into denial that the genocide started by invaders 213 years ago is the one and only cause for the abject state of the indigenous peoples who have not ceded sovereignty. Nine out of 10 were wiped out by slaughter, starvation, disease and dispersal from their lands. Massacres were still happening within the life spans of present-day parents and grandparents. Indigenous Australians live 20 years less on average than other people in the country. I could bore you with endless statistics testifying to the continuing devastation of Australia's First Peoples through the ongoing white war on them: deprival of education, health care, jobs, 20 times the normal imprisonment rate, etc., etc. What Parker obviously doesn't like is that the tyranny of distance no longer works and White Australia's crimes are more and more in the world spotlight, including in this book. Australia is getting plenty of stick in international bodies for not living up to human rights agreements it has signed up to. The issue is if not the biggest, then one of the biggest on the national agenda. Parker and his camp would be yelling loudest if present-day Germans were to shirk their responsibility for restitution to the Jews. Yet to him Australian perpetrators are sacrosanct. Parker alleges that "Barkan acts as if there are no difficult questions at all" in regard to the Aborigines, and "Largely, he accepts the claims put forward by the wronged group, dismissing contrary arguments." I would like Parker to back his claims that Barkan's "selection of evidence seems so one-sided as to almost be misleading" and that he's made a "number of straightforward errors." In my view, Barkan, as a non-Australian, has a remarkably accurate take on our country. "He seems to assume that the fact that someone has been wronged makes anything they say automatically correct." - Barkan does not. To speak of a "victim/victimiser methodology" is callous disregard of the pain our indigenous people still suffer and a vicious panning of those who empathize with them. "There are important issues of human dignity here." - You bet! Yet the Australian government is refusing to allow various United Nations human rights sub-bodies into the country to investigate. "How much responsibility can be placed on the shoulders of people who might well have been ignorant, or even born after, the wrongdoing?" - So we don't attone or restitute in any way once our parents and grandparents are no more? Tough luck for those suffering among us if our ancestors wronged theirs? If we're living off the fat of an invasion, and those invaded still suffer the after-effects? "The case he discusses where, in Australia in the 1960s, half-caste Aboriginal children were removed from their families and placed in (white) foster homes is a case in point. It now seems wrong, but at the time was done with benevolent intent." - The stealing of children went on for more than a hundred years. The plan was to "breed the colour out" of the indigenous people, not some benevolent intent. How can removing children from extended families by force ever be benevolent? Merely on the pretext that a traditional lifestyle did not fit in with the growing white settler population's idea of how one had to live? "Historical injustice deserves a great book." - and a better review than Mr. Parker's. "The Guilt of Nations" is good stuff. Hopefully it will reach many readers and put Australia's deniers on notice that more and more of the world is watching.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An admirable effort, but not engaging, November 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (Hardcover)

I hesitate to write a review of this book because I am reluctant to critique a very noble and dilligent effort by Barkan to document reparations movements and issues from throughout the world; I can only imagine the time and effort it took to write this. It's very well documented, and I cited it in my research. I just didn't find it very engaging personally, but that doesn't mean that others won't find it meaningful.

19 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not proven, July 7, 2000

By 

Derek Parker (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (Hardcover)

Barkan has to be commended, at least, for taking on a huge subject: the attempts of groups, seen increasingly over the past quarter-century, who have been the victims of government policies and wrongdoing to seek recognition and redress. The Guilt of Nations has introductory and concluding sections that thoughtfully discuss the issues involved, trying to establish a general framework. Philosophically and practically, it's a tough subject. There is, in liberal societies, an ongoing tension between individual and group rights, and limits on government resources. The particular circumstances of the wrongdoing also have to be examined. Barkan, as a means of illustrating the problems, looks at the post-war restitution by Germany to Jews; and, in a concluding section, examines the difficulty of compensating Black Americans for slavery. These parts of the book are well-considered and well-argued. The problem of The Guilt of Nations lies with the case studies that make up the middle section of the book, especially in the chapters dealing with indigenous groups. Here, Barkan acts as if there are no difficult questions at all. Largely, he accepts the claims put forward by the wronged group, dismissing contrary arguments. Indeed, in the chapter on Aboriginal issues in Australia ( a subject this reviewer happens to know something about ) his selection of evidence seems so one-sided as to almost be misleading. There is (in this same chapter) a number of straightforward errors that make one wonder whether his agenda is not more important to Barkan (who is an academic historian) than the facts. He seems to assume that the fact that someone has been wronged makes anything they say automatically correct. This is not to say that victims should be blamed for what might have happened to them: it is to say that human events can be much more complicated than a victim/victimiser methodology. This is a great pity, because there are important issues of human dignity here. The cases of the "comfort women" used by the Japanese army in World War II and the internment of Japanese-Americans by the US government in 1942 are undeniably affecting, especially insofar as a recognition of the wrong done to them was more important to those involved than monetary compensation. Yet Barkan, in what seems to be a rush to condemn the perpetrators (as he refers to those he doesn't like) seems to miss a crucial dilemma: how much responsibility can be placed on the shoulders of people who might well have been ignorant, or even born after, the wrongdoing? (Actually, Barkan does mention this question. But he doesn't answer it in a meaningful form; he sort of assumes it away.) There is another question he skips around: to what extent can the morality of 2000 being applied to quite different social circumstances? True, there are cases where evil is so obvious as to have no defence in circumstances; equally, there are cases where what now seems wrong seemed right, even necessary, at the time. The case he discusses where, in Australia in the 1960s, half-caste Aboriginal children were removed from their families and placed in (white) foster homes is a case in point. It now seems wrong, but at the time was done with benevolent intent. It might have been wrong, but it cannot be called evil if evil requires intent. But Barkan fails to makes such a distinction, and does not even seem interested in trying. Historical injustice deserves a great book. The Guilt of Nations isn't it. Parts of it have interesting things to say, but it veers between seriousness and silliness. Those who love to feel guilty will applaud the book. The rest of us will, and should, treat it with caution.