Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective: Power Relations in a Global World 9780367445416, 9781003014324, 9781032023229

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Notes on Contributors
Foreword
The Task of Intercultural Philosophy
Our Volume
Notes
Bibliography
Part I: Interculturality as the Basis for a Philosophy of Coexistence
Chapter 1: Intercultural Philosophy as Philosophy for Better Human Conviviality
1.1 Introductory Remarks
1.2 For Better Human Co-Habitation: Considerations from the Perspective of Intercultural Philosophy
1.3 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 2: Responses to Past Injustice in Democratizing Societies and the Universalization of Human Rights
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Are Experiences of Injustice Paradigmatic for the Normative Justification of Human Rights?
2.3 The Universality and Transculturality of Human Rights
2.3.1 The Idea of a Human Rights Universalism
2.3.2 The Global Institutionalization of Human Rights
2.3.3 The Factual Status of Ratification
2.3.4 Transcultural Universality of Human Rights
2.3.4.1 Neutral Approaches to Justification
2.3.4.2 Different Approaches to Intercultural Justification
2.3.4.3 Transcultural Justification Approaches
2.4 The Concept of a Life of Dignity against the Backdrop of the Experience of Injustice
2.4.1 A Human Rights Approach
2.4.2 The Active-Democratic Approach
2.4.3 The Decolonial Approach
2.5 Conclusion: Toward a Transcultural Perspective
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 3: Negotiating African Identity in Times of Globalization: A Comparative Approach to Afropolitanism and Negritude
3.1 Theoretical Background
3.2 Framing the Concept of Afropolitanism
3.2.1 Selasi and Afropolitanism
3.2.2 Mbembe and Afropolitanism
3.2.3 African Aesthetics and Sensibilities
3.2.4 Afropolitanism as the Expression of African Modernity
3.3 Negritude as a Discourse of African Identity
3.4 Convergencies and Divergencies
3.4.1 A Mutual Concern
3.4.2 Worldview
3.4.3 Epistemological Paradigms
3.5 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Part II: Human Being in Times of Displacement
Chapter 4: The Value of Home in a Global World: On Migration and Depopulated Landscapes
4.1 Introduction or the Question of the Meaning of Home
4.2 What is Home ( Heimat)?
4.2.1 Conceptual Approximation via Loss or Evaluating Home via De-localization
4.2.1.1 Language as Home
4.2.1.2 Spirituality as a Home in Motion
4.2.1.3 Endangering the Home in Exile and in Return
4.2.2 Home (as Place and Un-Place)
4.2.2.1 Home as Place
4.2.2.2 “Home” as Un-place
4.2.2.3 Home as a New Place
4.3 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 5: A Genealogy of Displacement in the South African Land Question
Part One: The Displacement Mechanism of Ideology and Its Critique
Part Two: English Settlers Lose the Plot
Part Three: Restoration of Title to Territory, Absolute Sovereignty, and Reparations
Part Four: Invisible Land
Notes
Bibliography
Part III: Being with Others: Applied Dimensions and Real-World Problems
Chapter 6: The Public Legitimacy of Minority Claims in Eastern Europe
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Why Public Deliberation?
6.3 Minority Claims and Cultural Differences
6.4 Minority Groups as Publics
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 7: Cultural Impoverishment: The Hidden Dimension of Global Injustice
7.1 Introduction
7.2 What is Cultural Impoverishment?
7.3 Cultural Impoverishment: A Hidden Dynamic of Injustice
7.4 Cultural Impoverishment and Democratic Transition in Tunisia
7.4.1 As Regards Education
7.4.2 As Regards the Process of Modernization
7.5 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 8: “Detention and Torture Centers” in Latin American Dictatorships: Places of Subjective and Social Reconfiguration
Notes
Bibliography
Part IV: Intercultural Approaches to Reconciliation
Chapter 9: Confucian Remonstrance in the Dialectics of Self-Conscious Identity between the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong
Introduction
Historical Overview
Conflict, the Other, and Self-Conscious Identity
Conflict, the Other, and Self-Conscious Identity: Considering the PRC and Hong Kong
Political Unrest in Confucianism
Authoritarianism and Remonstrance in Confucianism
Conclusion: Authoritarianism and Remonstrance in Hong Kong
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 10: Politics and Reconciliation: The Issue of Comfort Women in the Dynamics of Political Reconciliation between Japan and South Korea
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Political Reconciliation
10.3 The Beginning of the Issue of Comfort Women
10.4 South Korea
10.5 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 11: Political Reconciliation in Liberal States
11.1 Divides in Liberal Societies
11.2 The Agency-based Approach to Political Reconciliation
11.2.1 Reconciliation as Peacebuilding
11.2.2 Reconciliation as Forgiveness
11.2.3 Reconciliation as Political Inclusion
11.2.4 Narrative Reconciliation
11.2.5 The Agency-Based Account of Reconciliation
11.3 Principles of Political Reconciliation
11.4 Refuting Objections
11.4.1 Betrayal of Justice
11.4.2 False Harmonism
11.4.3 Perverted Direction of Fit
11.5 Outlook
Notes
Bibliography
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective

The objective of the following collected volume is to encourage a critical reflection on the relationship between “power” and “non-power” in our contemporary “world” and, proceeding from various philosophical traditions, to investigate the multifaceted aspects of this relationship. The authors’ respective investigations proceed from an intercultural perspective and fall predominantly in the domain of political theory and philosophy. This volume takes an intercultural political perspective, which means, on the one hand, involving non-European philosophies in a global debate about power relations and their effects in the world and, on the other hand, confronting local traditions of thought with a global inquiry in order to enter into a philosophical-political dialogue with these traditions. An intercultural approach of this type to political philosophy seeks not only to join others in reflecting upon global problems, but also to decenter of our understanding of the world, drawing attention to new ways of thinking. Insofar as the authors of the planned volume deal with “concrete” philosophical-political problems unfolding in various regions of the ­ world, they seek to shed light on burning issues like migration, human rights violations, dictatorship and language, global poverty, power asymmetries, experiences of injustice with the further goal of offering a particularly intercultural analysis of these problems along with approaches to resolving them. To date, there is no book that collects various essays from different countries and perspectives and poses political-philosophical problems from an intercultural point of view. Bianca Boteva-Richter is Lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Vienna (Austria). Sarhan Dhouib is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim (Germany). James Garrison is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Baldwin Wallace University (USA).

Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy Concepts in Thought, Action, and Emotion New Essays Edited by Christoph Demmerling and Dirk Schröder Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture Naturalism, Reflectivism, and Skepticism Kevin M. Cahill Examples and Their Role in Our Thinking Ondřej Beran Extimate Technology Self-Formation in a Technological World Ciano Aydin Modes of Truth The Unified Approach to Truth, Modality, and Paradox Edited by Carlo Nicolai and Johannes Stern Practices of Reason Fusing the Inferentialist and Scientific Image Ladislav Koreň Social Trust Edited by Kevin Vallier and Michael Weber Green Leviathan or the Poetics of Political Liberty Navigating Freedom in the Age of Climate Change and Artificial Intelligence Mark Coeckelbergh The Social Institution of Discursive Norms Historical, Naturalistic, and Pragmatic Perspectives Edited by Leo Townsend, Preston Stovall, and Hans Bernard Schmid Epistemic Uses of Imagination Edited by Christopher Badura and Amy Kind Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective Power Relations in a Global World Edited by Blanca Boteva-Richter, Sarhan Dhouib, and James Garrison For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Contemporary-Philosophy/book-series/ SE0720

Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective Power Relations in a Global World Edited by Bianca Boteva-Richter, Sarhan Dhouib and James Garrison

First published 2021 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Bianca Boteva-Richter, Sarhan Dhouib, and James Garrison to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Boteva-Richter, Bianca | Dhouib, Sarhan, editor. | Garrison, Jim, 1951- editor. Title: Political philosophy from an intercultural perspective : power relations in a global world / edited by Bianca Boteva-Richter, Sarhan Dhouib, and James Garrison. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020058216 (print) | LCCN 2020058217 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367445416 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003014324 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Political sociology. | Political science--Philosophy. | Political science--Cross-cultural studies. | Power (Social sciences) | Globalization--Political aspects. Classification: LCC JA76 .P592825 2021 (print) | LCC JA76 (ebook) | DDC 320.01--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058216 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058217 ISBN: 978-0-367-44541-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-02322-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-01432-4 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by SPi Global, India

Contents

Notes on Contributors vii Foreword xii SARHAN DHOUIB

PART I

Interculturality as the Basis for a Philosophy of Coexistence

1

1 Intercultural Philosophy as Philosophy for Better Human Conviviality

3

RAÚL FORNET-BETANCOURT

2 Responses to Past Injustice in Democratizing Societies and the Universalization of Human Rights

13

SARHAN DHOUIB

3 Negotiating African Identity in Times of Globalization: A Comparative Approach to Afropolitanism and Negritude

33

ALBERT KASANDA

PART II

Human Being in Times of Displacement

59

4 The Value of Home in a Global World: On Migration and Depopulated Landscapes

61

BIANCA BOTEVA-RICHTER

5 A Genealogy of Displacement in the South African Land Question CHRISTOPHER ALLSOBROOK

79

vi Contents PART III

Being with Others: Applied Dimensions and Real-World Problems 6 The Public Legitimacy of Minority Claims in Eastern Europe

103 105

PLAMEN MAKARIEV

7 Cultural Impoverishment: The Hidden Dimension of Global Injustice

125

MONGI SERBAJI

8 “Detention and Torture Centers” in Latin American Dictatorships: Places of Subjective and Social Reconfiguration

149

JOSÉ SANTOS HERCEG

PART IV

Intercultural Approaches to Reconciliation 9 Confucian Remonstrance in the Dialectics of SelfConscious Identity between the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong

167

169

JAMES GARRISON

10 Politics and Reconciliation: The Issue of Comfort Women in the Dynamics of Political Reconciliation between Japan and South Korea

196

NAOKO KUMAGAI

11 Political Reconciliation in Liberal States

218

HENNING HAHN

Afterword

241

JAMES GARRISON

Index

245

Notes on Contributors

Christopher Allsobrook, ORCiD: 0000-0001-7701-0811, PhD, is the Director of the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa (CLEA), at the University of Fort Hare (UFH). At UFH he leads the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Niche in “Democracy, Heritage and Citizenship.” He is a founding member of the African Political Theory Association and an editor for the journal Theoria. Dr Allsobrook’s research focus is on African Political Theory and Ethics, with a basis in South African Intellectual and Cultural History. His current research projects include “Genealogy and Ideology,” “Imperial Trusteeship in the Political Philosophy of Jan Smuts,” (with Camilla Boisen, NYU Abu Dhabi) and “Africanist Education in the Late Colonial Eastern Cape.” He has recently published “Consensual Recognition of Universal Rights in African Custom,” in Angelaki (2019) and co-edited a collected volume with Motsamai Molefe, Towards an African Political Philosophy of Needs (Palgrave 2021). Bianca Boteva-Richter, ORCiD: 0000-0001-9674-9910, PhD, is lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria. She is assistant editor in chief of the journal “Polylog – Journal for Intercultural Philosophizing,” Vienna; member of the editorial board of the journal Filosofskij Polylog – Journal of the Intern. Center of the State University of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg; board member of WiGiP (Viennese Society of Intercultural Philosophy) and member of EIFI (Escuela International de Filosofía Intercultural), Barcelona. Her current publications include several articles on intercultural and modern Japanese philosophy: “Affectivity and Knowledge. On the Importance of Affectivity for the Creation and Transmission of Knowledge,” in Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Affection and Knowledge. Intercultural Views for a New Cognitive Culture, 77–97; “Inter as metamorphosis of thinking,” in Filosofskij Polylog, Journal of the State University of St. Petersburg; as well as the monograph: Der Methodentransfer nach Watsuji Tetsuro. Ein abendländisch-asiatischer Vorschlag für das Arbeiten im interkulturellen Bereich [The method transfer after

viii  Notes on Contributors Watsuji Tetsuro. A Western-Asian proposal for working in the intercultural area]. Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz Verlag 2009. Her published biography is to be found In Information Philosophie: http:// www.information-philosophie.de/?a=1&t=576&n=2&y=2&c=8 Sarhan Dhouib, ORCiD: 0000-0003-2553-1150, studied philosophy at the University of Sfax (Tunisia) and Paris 1 Sorbonne. He holds his PhD on Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity (Universities of Bremen, Germany and Tunis, Tunisia). In 2011, he was the recipient of the Interculture Award in Philosophy of the Goethe Institute. Currently he is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim in Germany, where he specializes in German idealism, philosophy in the modern Arab world, intercultural philosophy and political philosophy. He recently received the Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His current publications include several articles on modern and contemporary Arab philosophers. In: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Überweg): Philosophie in der islamischen Welt, Bd. 4: 19.–20. Jahrhundert, Ed. von Kügelgen, A. Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2021. Erinnerung an Unrecht. Interdisziplinäre Zugänge, Ed. Dhouib, S. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2021. Toleranz in transkultureller Perspektive, Ed. Dhouib, S. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2020. Academia in Transformation: Scholars Facing the Arab Uprisings, Eds Kohstall, F. et al. Baden-Baden: Nomos 2018. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt is considered to be one of the leading figures in the liberation philosophy of Latin America and intercultural philosophy. He is Professor of philosophy in Bremen and Professor Emeritus at the University of Aachen. He has been a Guest Professor in Spain, Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador, and Austria. In 2008 he was awarded the international Karl-Otto-Apel Prize for Philosophy. His main areas of research are North–South philosophical dialogue and issues within the field of interculturality. He is currently Chairman of the Institut zur interdisziplinären und interkulturellen Erforschung von Phänomenen sozialer Exklusion e.V. in Eichstätt, Germany; publisher of Concordia: International Journal of Philosophy; founder of the Escuela International de Filosofia Intercultural (School of IC Philosophy) in Barcelona; and coordinator of both the Dialogue Programme North– South and the International Congresses for Intercultural Philosophy. He is the author of more than 50 books and 200 scientific articles, including: Transformación del marxismo: Historia del Marxismo en América Latina (Madrid: Plaza y Valdés, 2013); Interculturalidad, crítica y liberación (Aachen; Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Mainz, 2012); Justicia, restitución, convivencia. Desafíos de la filosofía intercultural en América Latina (Aachen: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Mainz, 2014); Interkulturalität und Menschlichkeit (Aachen: Wissenschaftlicher

Notes on Contributors  ix Verlag Mainz, 2013); “El humanismo solidario de Sartre como anticipación de la Filosofía intercultural” (in Logos. Revista de Filosofía, vol. 39, 116–117/2011, pp. 65–78) ; “L’humanisme solidari de Sartre com a anticipció de la filosofia intercultural” (in: Comprendre: revista catalana de filosofia, vol. 8, 1/2006, pp. 35–44), etc. His published biography (in German) is to be found at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ra%C3%BAl_Fornet-Betancourt James Garrison, ORCiD: 0000-0002-9173-9075 is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Baldwin Wallace University. He has previously served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Puget Sound, Consortium for Faculty Diversity fellow at Scripps College, and Teaching Fellow at the University of Bristol. He obtained his master’s from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and his doctorate from the University of Vienna, after having undertaken exchange fellowships at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at Peking University. His work focuses on ethics, aesthetics, social and political philosophy, and intercultural philosophy, all of which he brings to bear in his book, Reconsidering the Life of Power (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021). Henning Hahn, ORCiD: 0000-0001-7410-787X, studied philosophy at the universities of Tübingen and Hildesheim (Germany). He holds a master’s degree from University College London and a PhD degree on foundations of justice. His works focus on questions of global justice and global ethics, from both a Kantian and a critical perspective, broadly understood. More lately, he started to replace the paradigm of justice with the rationale of political reconciliation. Until recently, Henning served as Professor at Freie Universität Berlin, teaching ethics and political philosophy and was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship for a research stay at McGill University. His publications include: Dimensions of Poverty (co-editor, Springer: 2020) and “Politischer Kosmopolitismus: Praktikabilität, Verantwortung, Menschenrechte” (in Political Cosmopolitanism: Practicalities, Responsibilities, Human Rights DeGruyter, 2017). Albert Kasanda, ORCiD: 0000-0001-9119-4135, PhD, is currently a researcher at the Centre of Global Studies of the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He has an expertise in intercultural and comparative philosophy, as well as Latin American and African philosophy. His current research focuses on African youth and civil society as well as on African intercultural philosophy. His publications include: Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy: Trends, Debates and Challenges (Routledge 2018);

x  Notes on Contributors Dialogue interculturel. Cheminer ensemble vers un autre monde possible (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2013); John Rawls: Les bases philosophiques du libéralisme politique (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 2005); Pour une pensée africaine émancipatrice (Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 2004). Naoko Kumagai, ORCiD: 0000-0001-6429-5248, is Professor of International Relations at the School of Global Studies and Collaboration at Aoyama Gakuin University. She received her PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her main field of study is in ethics and international politics. Her recent research interests focus on the issue of comfort women and postwar reconciliation in East Asia. Her recent publications include The Comfort Women: Historical, Political, Legal, and Moral Perspectives, Tokyo: I-House Press, 2016; “Chōsenjin ‘Ianfu’ wo meguru Shihaikenryokukōzō” (The Analysis of the Issue of Comfort Women with Japan’s Structural Colonial Power), in Toyomi Asano, Kizō Ogura, Naruhiko Nishi eds., Wakai no Tameni –“Teikoku no Ianfu” toiu Toi wo Hiraku (For Reconciliation: Exploration of the Comfort Women of the Empire), Tokyo: Crane, 2017; and “Jinken no Fuhensei to sono Ranyō no Kikensei” (Geopolitics and Human Rights), in Shinichi Kitaoka and Yuichi Hosoya eds., Atarashii Chiseigaku (New Geopolitics), Tokyo: Toyo Keizai, 2020. She received the Nakasone Yasuhiro Award Incentive Award in July 2016. Plamen Makariev, ORCiD: 0000-0003-2762-5847, is Doctor Habil., Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sofia University. He held teaching courses in Political Philosophy at the BA Program in Philosophy of Sofia University, as well as at the MA programs “Virtual Culture” and “Middle Eastern Studies.” From 2002 to 2006 he ran a course on Basic Categories of Intercultural Communication at the German–Bulgarian MA Program “Media and Intercultural Communication” for journalists from the Balkan countries. From 2003 to 2006 he offered a course in Philosophy of Religion at the Higher Islamic Institute in Sofia and in 2009 he offered one-semester course on Political Communication at Hacettepe University in Ankara. He is also a member of the Board of the Center for the Study of Religions at Sofia University; a member of the Editorial Board of the Balkan Journal of Philosophy; and Chairman of the Expert Council on Religion at the Ministry of Education and Science. He is the author of The Public Legitimacy of Minority Claims: A Central/Eastern European Perspective (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), three other monographs, and numerous articles in edited books and in international and Bulgarian journals. Mongi Serbaji, ORCiD: 0000-0002-6129-6998, PhD, is currently teaching the philosophy of education at the Higher Institute of Human Sciences, Gabes University in Tunisia. His researches focus

Notes on Contributors  xi on the global justice and the human rights from a cross-cultural perspective. He was awarded the Arab Prize for Social and Human Sciences awarded by the Arab Center for research and policy studies in 2016. His main publications are: “Pour une convivialité heureuse: Miskawayh et la raisonnabilité du vivre ensemble” (Toward a Happy Conviviality: Miskawayh and the Reasonability of Living Together), in the Arab Journal for the Humanities, Vol. 38, N. 151, 2020; “Legitimationsprozesse im transnationalen öffentlichen Raum”, in Sarah Schmidt und Gérard Raulet (eds.), Wissen in Bewegung. Theoriebildung unter dem Fokus von Entgrenzung und Grenzziehung, LIT Verlag, Berlin, 2014; “Intoleranz verstehen: Kulturelle Armut als Exklusion,” in Toleranz in transkultureller Perspektive, Ed. Dhouib, S. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2020. José Santos Herceg, ORCiD: 0000-0001-5425-2340, is Doctor habil. and Professor, at the Instituto de Estudios Avanzados (IDEA) of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. He held teaching courses in: LatinAmerican Studies, Latin-American Culture, Pedagogy and Philosophy, Polit. Philosophy. In 2016 he was guest professor at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Among his publications are the books Conflicto de Representaciones. América Latina como lugar para la filosofía, Santiago de Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica , 2010; Cartografía Crítica. El quehacer profesional de la filosofía en Chile, Santiago de Chile: Libros de la Cañada, 2015; Lugares espectrales. Topología ­testimonial de la prisión política en Chile, Santiago de Chile: Editorial USACH, Colección Idea, 2019, and Tiranía del paper, De la mercantilización a la normalización de las textualidades, Valdivia: Ediciones Universidad Austral de Chile, 2020.

Foreword* Sarhan Dhouib

The aim of this collected volume is to shed light on current issues in political philosophy from an intercultural perspective. In particular, this volume focuses on analyzing asymmetrical power relations which manifest themselves at both the local and global levels and which must be examined against the background of issues such as migration, displacement, human rights violations, and poverty. This shows that the complexity of power relationships ultimately reflects the fact that local and global dimensions can no longer be separated. With regard to globalization, the question cannot come down to becoming an ardent advocate or a radical opponent, because globalization cannot be stopped, and it inevitably determines our current conditio humana. Rather, it is advisable to take a critical look at its positive and negative dimensions. The complexity of local and global entanglements requires increased cooperation in reflection, i.e., merging different philosophical traditions and approaches and decentering prevailing (Eurocentric/Western) ideas. If one looks at globalization in connection with the digital revolution, there is undoubtably the groundbreaking possibility of worldwide networking, (rapid) information, and communication. It thus represents a central technical prerequisite for the coming together of different nations and cultures, and this also applies to scientific transfer. The basically positive idea of a global communication network is highly dependent on the controllability of personal data, asymmetrical access to technology, and economic monopolies; and this is perhaps the area that as of now most urgently needs legal regulation supported by democratic legitimacy. If one looks at globalization from the point of view of a promise of mobility connecting all continents, then it is not only virtual encounters, but also face-to-face encounters, and thus lively participation in other ways of life and ideas, that are possible. One might think that, with this * Sarhan Dhouib, writing on behalf of the editorial team of himself, Bianca BotevaRichter and James Garrison ORCiDs—Dhouib: 0000-0003-2553-1150, BotevaRichter: 0000-0001-9674-9910, Garrison: 0000-0002-9173-9075.

Foreword  xiii exercise of mobility, the horizon of experience would also be broadened and that an image of the “stranger” would no longer emerges as phantasmagorically exotic or threatening. This is no doubt the case. However, freedom of movement between poor and rich, between residents of the so-called “Global South” and “Global North,” is anything but equal. And mobility not only brings the possibility of temporary encounters, but also presents us with the challenge of long-term life together with each other. As far as the concepts of the alien or the “Other” are concerned, it can be observed that a dichotomous configuration of the “alien” emerges in distinguishing between a “good alien” (the technical-economic or academic elite) and an “evil,” “illegal” alien as those who could not possibly ever be citizens or who have not yet attained this status. This shows a paradoxical logic of globalization, where in certain areas the borders are falling and people enjoy freedom of movement, while in other areas walls are being built and controls tightened. Although globalization opens up new avenues for trade and the exchange of goods around the world and thus leads to a liberalization of international markets, it brings with it numerous economic and ethical problems. These problems are to be viewed not individually, but in their entirety and their mutually affective condition. The overexploitation of natural resources, pollution, and the destruction of local traditions and industry are each closely related to issues of justice, environmental ethics, and poverty. In addition, with large supranational corporations, new global players emerge who raise questions as to the limits of economic, political, and cultural actions taken by nation-states, thereby raising questions of democratic legitimacy. In short, globalization can be interpreted as “access to” or “denial of,” which is, in turn, reflected in different economic, political, and cultural forms of asymmetrical power relations that need to be examined from an intercultural perspective. But how can intercultural philosophy contribute to analyzing asymmetrical power relations on a global and local level? Moreover, what solutions does it provide? How can it leave the hegemony of a NorthSouth divide behind and enable a mobility of ideas more broadly?

The Task of Intercultural Philosophy Intercultural philosophy can primarily be characterized as an open and critical approach to philosophy. On the one hand, it clearly distances itself from closed metaphysical systems of thought and from dogmatic totalitarian structures, be they political or religious, on the other. It focuses on the conditions of the possibility of peaceful coexistence. Persecution, neocolonialism, and various forms of exclusion are the order of the day. Intercultural philosophizing questions global and local power structures and works to bring not just various philosophical traditions, but also

xiv  Sarhan Dhouib (life) experiences from different regions of the world, into conversation with one another. It draws its critical potential from precisely this confluence. Intercultural philosophy clears the way for an epistemic transformation of philosophy by demanding that we no longer think, speak, and act about others, but rather with others. No longer an object of reflection, but an actor, the other should be discussed in a comprehensive way; i.e., standing up for the concerns of the “other,” elaborating the “other’s” own approach and the terminology of the “other” up for discussion. This process of getting up to speed is lengthy and full of obstacles. It presupposes political and social conditions that permit speaking, but also a willingness to listen and to receive. It is important to use both the fundamental renewal of philosophical methodology and the philosophical vocabulary resulting from this intercultural dialogue in assessing and addressing common problems. An example of an approach in intercultural philosophy is the polylog model. In order to enable a de-centering of Western philosophy and encourage multi-centrality in philosophical exchanges, Franz Martin Wimmer suggests the term “polylog,” based on the concept of dialog. The philosophical problems in our global world today should be analyzed by means of interculturally oriented polylogs. Wimmer presents three conditions for philosophizing in this way: (1) The definition/concept of culture should make clear which differences are relevant for philosophy; (2) the rules for interpreting philosophies that differ culturally require clear definitions; and (3) it must be clear what the criteria are for a philosophical hypothesis that can be rightly deemed to be intercultural and transcultural.1 The concept of a “double criticism,” for example, which can be traced back to the Moroccan intellectual Abdelkebir Khatibi, is extremely promising for intercultural philosophizing. This approach combines a decolonization of thought in the Maghreb context with a deconstructivist reading style. In doing so, Khatibi puts closed metaphysical thinking to the test and attaches great importance to a criticism that is directed towards both Western, Eurocentric philosophy and the Arab-Islamic tradition (i.e., his own tradition).2 Double criticism in intercultural philosophizing can be elaborated further, deepening Khatibi’s approach. In addition to the various facets of criticism that need to be explored in terms of their complexities and interactions (such as rhetorical, religious, and social criticism), double criticism can be understood as a condition for open inter- and transcultural philosophizing. The idea of double criticism demands constant self-criticism of thought, preceding from dialog/ polylog with others, thereby promoting a common search for new forms of universalization. Additionally, the method of the Japanese philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji, which draws from different traditions, offers useful tools for working interculturally. Drawing from Western but also from

Foreword  xv Buddhist-Confucian traditions, Watsuji not only carried out a cross-cultural analysis and presented a new, intercultural ethic. Going beyond this, he created new terms, such as the term “ningen [人間],” (human-between) which he reinterpreted, thus enabling an expansion of the Western subject. This new extension of the subject offers undreamt-of possibilities for reflection, because it enables all people to be considered in terms of beingwith (Mitsein) and to use this for philosophical reflection.3 Intercultural philosophy can also be described as a “philosophy of visiting” (une philosophie de la visite), which promises us humans a new being-with without any exclusive normative content. The Latin verb “visitare” is derived from “visiere” (to visit) and associated is with benevolence and a will to explore.4 The mutual relationship of visited/visitor is based on an interest in a different philosophical corpus, other intellectual traditions and languages. However, the will to visit is much more fundamental, because, without this will, any intercultural philosophical debate would be doomed to failure. Thinking-with is an invitation to all old and new forms of contemporary humanity’s explicit and implicit “we”—those who style themselves as speaking on behalf of “the West,” “Islam,” “the African soul,” “Asian peoples/values,” “the liberation movement of Latin America,” or the “we” of a coming “de-territorialized” (digital) population—to go beyond their political and cultural boundaries and seek out other forms of human becoming or human decline. Intercultural philosophizing, understood as a philosophy of visiting, promises a new type of being with/togetherness that is based on an act of hospitality—or, to use an old German word, sociability (Geselligkeit)— and cultural openness. The philosopher slips into the role of the host who brings guests into conversation and lets them share in their intellectual property. However, this promise of peaceful coexistence, both locally and internationally, is challenged by many historical, political, cultural, and economic conflicts that need to be contextualized philosophically and examined critically. It is not only questions about the conditions for good coexistence that are important for intercultural philosophizing, but critical reflection on the obstacles that hinder such coexistence is a priority as well.

Our Volume In the treatment of contemporary issues such as migration, persecution, human rights violations, and poverty—all of which can be classified locally, but also have global dimensions—the contributions in this volume bring different philosophical traditions into conversation with one another and offer insights into philosophical reflections taking place on different continents under different political backgrounds and cultural contexts. These pieces all in their own way show that global political

xvi  Sarhan Dhouib problems call for a pluralistic, a decentralized, comparative, and so too an innovative political philosophy. The contributions by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Sarhan Dhouib, and Albert Kasanda, with which the volume begins, deal with intercultural philosophizing as the principal topic. These pieces address concerns, conditions, and possibilities for forming intercultural philosophy, but certainly without ignoring the difficulties of such an endeavor. The question regarding the conditions and forms of coexistence between different cultures is of great relevance. Here, this question is dealt with in a way that goes beyond essentialization from different philosophical traditions, as is the case, for example, with the humanistic terms of convivence and sociability (“muʾānasa” [‫ ]مؤانسة‬and “taʾānus” [‫ ]تآنس‬in Arabic).5 In addition to a demand for a political anthropology, normative issues are dealt with, such as the importance of recognition and the justification/implementation of human rights. With methodical approaches like terminological comparison and highlighting/elaborating similarities and parallels in argumentation, intercultural philosophizing gains more dynamism. Against this methodological background, an attempt is made here to grasp the complexity of the problem of identity. And so, working on this basis, the next five contributions are problem-oriented. While Bianca Boteva-Richter and Christopher Allsobrook focus on migration and displacement in the second section, Plamen Makariev, Mongi Serbaji, and José Santos Herceg deal with minority claims, cultural poverty, and torture and its consequences. These contributions reflect on the loss of home—the loss of one’s place of birth or place of abode, with human dignity, and with status, addressing various forms of injustice and exclusion, all of which are examined using individual paradigmatic examples in Eastern Europe, South and North Africa, and Latin America. These contributions offer something of a diagnosis of the fragility of human existence in different parts of our planet. Meanwhile, the reflections from James Garrison, Naoko Kumagai, and Henning Hahn, with which the volume concludes, are solution-oriented and deal with the possibility of (re-)harmonization or reconciliation. In particular, such considerations arise against the background of authoritarian regimes or violent conflicts. Reconciliation of this sort can take place within a single society or between societies and it can address various forms of trauma and demands for reparation. In order to deal with these conflicts, constant contextualization is required that does justice to the various perpetrator/victim constellations (not simply dividing parties dichotomously into good/bad groups) and that takes into account differing or conflicting social and political demands. In the various contexts examined here, diverse philosophical traditions are called upon in order to test the scope of philosophical terms and to develop theoretical

Foreword  xvii solutions. Therefore, intercultural philosophizing functions as a dynamic “laboratory” of thinking. We hope that what we’ve cooked up in our laboratory and presented to you counts as a successful effort. More to the point, we sincerely hope that this volume will appeal to audiences around the world with all of the diversity of interest that that entails. And finally, we heartily thank Andrew Weckenmann, his colleagues, and this project’s anonymous reviewers for their constructive support to us in realizing our vision.

Notes 1 Cf. Franz Martin Wimmer, Interkulturelle Philosophie: Eine Einführung (Vienna: WUV, 2004). 2 Cf. Abdelkebir Khatibi, Maghreb pluriel (Paris: Denoël, 1983), 43–112; Abdelkebir Khatibi, Plural Maghreb: Writings on Postcolonialism (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 19–72. 3 Cf. Tetsuro Watsuji, Watsuji Tetsuros Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996). 4 Cf. Fethi Meskini, “Excuses, pardons et justifications ou Politiques monothéistes,” in Justice, droit et justification. Perspectives transculturelles, ed. Jacques Poulain et al (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010), 121–141. 5 Cf. Fathi Triki, Philosopher le vivre-ensemble (Tunis: L’Or du Temps, 1998).

Bibliography Khatibi, Abdelkébir. Maghreb pluriel. Paris: Denoël, 1983. Khatibi, Abdelkebir. Plural Maghreb: Writings on Postcolonialism. Translated by P. Burcu Yalim. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Meskini, Fethi. “Excuses, pardons et justifications ou Politiques monothéistes.” In Justice, droit et justification. Perspectives transculturelles. Edited by Jacques Poulain et al. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010. Triki, Fathi. Philosopher le vivre-ensemble. Tunis: L’Or du Temps, 1998. Watsuji, Tetsurō. Watsuji Tetsurōs Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan. Translated by Yamamoto Seisaku and Robert E. Carter. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Wimmer, Franz Martin. Interkulturelle Philosophie: Eine Einführung. Wien: 4, 2004.

Part I

Interculturality as the Basis for a Philosophy of Coexistence

1 Intercultural Philosophy as Philosophy for Better Human Conviviality* Raúl Fornet-Betancourt

1.1 Introductory Remarks A long time ago, the French sociologist Alain Touraine raised the question as to whether we would be able to live with one another, given the cultural differences that pervade humanity.1 This unsettling question is more relevant today than it was when Alain Touraine posed it at the end of the 1990s, since current processes of the so-called “globalized world” do not appear to lead to an improvement human cohabitation, but rather to things worsening. When I speak of “human coexistence” in the context of the present essay, I do not mean the mere “being together” in the sense of cohabitation, which would be synonymous with the simultaneous life of people in a social space without any real interaction between them. Rather, the communicative practice among different groups grants their “being together” in the same society the quality of “conviviality.” *  “There is nothing closer and more essential to human beings, men and women, than “our own life.”… Human life is essentially, coexistence. [And even more: it is conviviality. Moving from co-existence to conviviality] signals the idea that the true challenge of a regulatory discussion regarding the fact of human coexistence in its ambivalent factuality, lies in the search and the establishment of the conditions that can make possible a transformation from coexistence to a space of conviviality… Here, conviviality is proposed with more precision from a horizon that opens up with the practice of “agape-love” as an alternative principle of organization of human society as in the primitive Christian communities, and also with ways more or less equivalent condensed in the concept of “al-ouns,” developed in the classical Arab philosophy, and specified in a humanism of sharing. Inscribed in the horizon of this plural tradition the proposal to transform coexistence into conviviality recovers the valuable contributions of the current theories of recognition as well as the ethics of friendship and hospitality, and points to the complementary vision of those positions with a new requirement of an “extra,” a “plus,” of a “gratifying element,” of something “good” for coexistence, more than what is due by justice alone;” see Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, “From Coexistence to Conviviality. An Introduction,” in Living Together: Problems and Possibilities in Today’s World. An Intercultural Approximation. Documentation of the IX. International Conference of Intercultural Philosophy (Aachen: Wissenschaftsverlag Mainz, 2011), 27–30.

4  Raúl Fornet-Betancourt This question is taken up by intercultural philosophy precisely in the sense of the challenge, which—to put it briefly—consists in a transition from “coexistence” to “convivance”/“conviviality” into effect in societies in the so-called globalized world.2 Before I go into more detail about how philosophy or, put more precisely, intercultural philosophy, can contribute to the task at hand, I would like to be allowed a brief note on the premises of the belief mentioned in the title of this chapter. Here I mean the conviction that philosophy can and must contribute to improving human cohabitation in the world today. In other words, it is assumed here—as can already be taken from the title—that philosophy must in no way flee from the horrors of the world and retreat to its famous “ivory tower.” Instead, philosophy must deal with this horror of the world that presents itself to us in the “wrong” type of coexistence, in order to show that this is not an inconceivable fate, but a historical reality that can be transformed. With that said, I can explain these requirements in more detail: First of all, I proceed on the assumption that we obviously live together, i.e., cohabitate, as humanity; an assumption which - to name just one example—therefore explains or justifies what we call the “migration crisis” today—a “technical term” that actually hides the meager will to promote a policy of welcoming reception of migrants. In my view, this fact alone makes it sufficiently clear that, as already mentioned, we do poorly when it comes to cohabitating. We live in a world that calls itself global, but is actually a world that does not universalize the general welfare, instead universalizing functional structures and habits that globalize “general evil.” Using drastic and harsh words, the liberation philosopher Ignacio Ellacuría (murdered by the military in El Salvador in 1989) diagnoses the poor state of coexistence, characterizing it as devastating for humanity today.3 Secondly, it is assumed, as was already anticipated above, that this also concerns the task of philosophy. This means that philosophy qua philosophy can contribute to the process of improving human conviviality in the contemporary world. So I presuppose that philosophy is not resigned to resisting the frustrating feeling of powerlessness of thought and reason against the “spectacle” of irrationality and cynicism and to taking sides against this course of the real world insofar as it tries to reverse its inhuman and self-destructive direction. In other words, I trust in the good power that philosophical reflection can and should develop in the historical world and in people. But how can this trust in philosophy be explained? From my perspective and by its insight I think that philosophy is not determined by belonging to any school or by defending any system. Rather philosophy is above all and fundamentally defined by loyalty to the search for a knowledge that realizes the “tender relationship”4 and is expressed as an obligation in the Greek term “philo-sophia.” So

Intercultural Philosophy  5 understood, this represents the real reason for philosophy’s characteristic search over time; more precisely, it represents the soul of its historical course as a constantly renewed declaration of love of wisdom as a companion to humanity’s struggle for its best self. To be true to this story of “passion” for wisdom means, more specifically, being true to a memory of veracity and goodness, in which “obligation” also takes command, giving a present to the history belonging to philosophy’s identity, and doing this under the given conditions of the prevailing epoch. Therefore, in our times and in view of the subject that concerns us in this chapter, this allegiance means an “obligation” to contextualize and continue the story of the “tender relationship” we have spoken of by making a determined effort to define human conviviality through relationships, to bring forth truth and common good, which is to say, goodness. To underline the importance of this moment in the second premise of our contribution, I would like to add that, in my opinion, awareness of this memory of love for truth and goodness is what nourishes the sensibility for philosophy. So understood, this sensibility exacerbates the rupture, torn-ness, and division of the human race, “empathizing,” like an evil that destroys us in our own human substance by generating people with no sense of humanity, in the punishing world of absurd violent struggle with the life of “the Other.”5 Nor can we keep silent about the fact that this implies an obligation for us who practice philosophy to ask ourselves self-critically whether or not the philosophy that we are doing today acts as guardian of this millennia-old memory. Are we who practice philosophy, us so-called “philosophers,” aware of this memory, or are we already part of the troupe of the “great world theater”?6 Do we perceive the memory of philosophy as an inheritance of an ethical reason that makes us aware of the “necessity” of the task of overcoming humanity’s gap here, which means bad cohabitation? Or, on the other hand, do we nourish such bad coexistence with our habits and vanities? In my opinion, this self-critical questioning is of crucial importance because our answer to these questions depends not only on the meaning and direction of our philosophical reflection, but also on the possibility of the beginning of philosophy as part of our life. By this I want to say that philosophy, as I understand it, neither arises from scholarship nor is it realized as an argument about ideas. Rather, philosophy stems from the experience that the “tender relationship” that is supposed to encompass all beings in the historical world has been broken, or, if we prefer the metaphor of Octavio Paz to the concept of Hölderlin, the experience of the “broken jug.”7 Not to mention that Hegel too—to refer to a “worldrenowned philosopher”—assumed that the “need” of philosophy consists in one feeling that human life lacks unifying and reconciling power.

6  Raúl Fornet-Betancourt To put it in his words: “Divisiveness is the source of the need for philosophy… When the power of unification disappears from people’s lives and the opposites have lost their living relationship and interaction and become independent, the need for philosophy arises.”8 Philosophy thus should arise from this experience of contradictions that threaten to destroy the possibilities from harmony and balance in a diverse world. This is to say that philosophy should develop from the experience of the wounds and humiliations created by the arrogance and presumption of a hegemonic civilization that replaces tenderness in dealing with the world with bargaining and military engagement and at the same time closes the horizon of dialogue for human cohabitation today. Philosophy should spring from this experience today; and it should arise from it not as a specific form of entertainment for experts in knowledge, but as a need for the world and for humanity. It is this “broken jug” that our societies and our world in general which show that philosophy is needed; it is the wounded reality, the memory of truthfulness and goodness, that the balsamic action of philosophical reflection9 is urgently needed in order to put what is broken back together again as a whole. Finally, there is a third requirement worth mentioning, against the background of which the following considerations can be seen. It is the belief that interculturality offers the method to recognize the healing memory of humanity in all its diversity. And in this sense we assume here that it is intercultural philosophy that looks at humanity in terms of memory and therefore is set on that memory becoming real in today’s divided world.

1.2 For Better Human Co-Habitation: Considerations from the Perspective of Intercultural Philosophy Against the background of the premises mentioned, I will now present a summary of my considerations with the following points: When I speak of human cohabitation in this chapter, I do not emphasize its political or legal dimensions; in other words, attention is not focused on the formal legal framework that regulates social cohabitation among groups and communities of different cultural or religious origins. This is because we want to speak above all about the relationships between forms of living that are carried by cultural worlds/traditions in which people try to realize themselves in the fullness of human being. Therefore, I further assume that any effort to improve human cohabitation must deal primarily with the question of the human quality of the relationships between biographies and cultures in everyday life. Improving human coexistence does not mean

Intercultural Philosophy  7 designing better theories or models for it. The real challenge lies more in trying to improve concrete relationships in direct encounters “on the street.” To improve human conviviality, be it on an individual, biographical level or on a social level as an interaction between cultures (well understood here as forms of life lived by concrete people in their everyday life), it is therefore necessary to enter into the lifestyles and traditions of those who in fact share a living space in which we try to make this “shared social space” a communal “living world” (Lebenswelt). The deeper reason for this is if we are not mistaken in this assessment that human coexistence, be it good or bad, is an encounter of cultural situations, or, more precisely, a convergence of contextual ways of life from their cultural differences or memories. Human life opens up to life in a culturally mediated way and in this sense life experiences are always inseparable from the experience of a cultural situation. The previous note is central in order to grasp the deep meaning that is hidden in conviviality and also therefore in order to understand what really fails or breaks down when human coexistence is bad. This means that human cohabitation, in reality, does not deserve such a name, if “we are not doing well,” and living together in this case deserves at most the term “co-existence,” as I asserted in the introductory remarks. My thinking here is as follows: The idea of life experience as an experience that is inextricably linked to a cultural situation leads us to realize that the experience of life, even if it presents itself as a personal and even individual, is an experience that nobody can call “their own experience” in an exclusive sense, since it always goes beyond the limited participation in life that each individual experiences as their “own life.” In other words, speaking exclusively in this individual sense is faulty because life is an experience that indicates conditions that lie “outside” of what each of us can call or identify with as “their personal life.” The experience of life, as José Ortega y Gasset aptly saw on the basis of the Spanish philosophical tradition, is an experience of participation in life; an experience of “being in” or becoming present in the presence and through the presence of others. In other words, basically there is no experience of life for people except in the form of an original con-viviality. Life, therefore, is “living together.”10 Everyone’s life is interwoven from this basic conviviality. And it is precisely this pre-political basis of conviviality as a condition of the real possibility of a completely personal life that constitutes its deep meaning. This deep meaning, which we can call ontological meaning, is also the horizon, in light of which it is understandable that poor conviviality, or, more precisely, a failure in the order or in the forms of coexistence is not just a political failure—a situation that

8  Raúl Fornet-Betancourt only might only reveal deficiencies in civic or politeness, but a situation that affects life substantially. Bad coexistence leads to a life that is damaged at its core. Therefore, this is not just about damage on a social, political, and cultural level. It is also and fundamentally an anthropological damage to the human existential condition itself. Therefore, as is already indicated in the first point, actions to improve human coexistence must be understood as radical actions that go beyond the required readjustment of the “social contract” in the multicultural societies of the so-called globalized world. Actions that agitate for a revolution in our relationship with life are required for a sense of the common “fabric of life” that establishes us as a “community of peers” even before we contractually recognize ourselves as a community of different people. However, it should be clear that this radical proposal for actions that improve cohabitation does not seek to underestimate political or social actions. Rather, it should be pointed out that these actions in favor of a fairer “social contract” among diverse parties can only achieve its true goal—human and personal communication among diverse parties—if they are added to a horizon of action that makes the precedence of the irreplaceable and inalienable “fabric of life” visible, which, as a tie of a participative unit in life, must embrace all politics that really want to promote a good conviviality. An immediate consequence of this very idea is the recommendation for a critical addition to the theories of recognition that contemporary political philosophy has developed from different perspectives in order to put conviviality within the cultural and religious diversity of contemporary societies on a fairer basis.11 Undoubtedly, these theories of recognizing the other as different make a great contribution to solving the many problems that plural coexistence in the world poses today. However, at the same time it must be said that they are inadequate and need to be transformed interculturally, especially with regard to the liberal and individualistic anthropological basis from which they proceed.12 My argument in defense of the need for this critical review would, putting it briefly, emphasize the following: If the problem of not recognizing the other basically follows from the logic of an anthropology that breaks the “vital connection”— the original “community of life”—then a theory must exist that seeks to improve human cohabitation from its own roots. This theory would work through the reversal of the logic of individualistic anthropology, competition, and conflict (an anthropology that we could collectively call “bourgeois”) in order to think anew about recognizing the common sense of this “vital connection.” All of this means precisely reversing the question or transitioning from the

Intercultural Philosophy  9 model of conflict with demands recognition to a model of grateful acceptance of the other. Because with this changed logic one regains the “naturalness” of the feeling that the first thing that one owes to “the Other” is gratitude, because “the Other” enables human life with their participation. In order to deepen this perspective, it should also be pointed out that the improvement of human coexistence in the world today, as a direct consequence of the reversal of the logic of individualistic anthropology, requires that experience of cultures be regained, which, due to its memory of humanity, still has the recognizes and conveys the idea that the reaffirmation of differences and the corresponding demand for their recognition are secondary moments, especially since the former is presumed ahead of every social contract, i.e., the accommodating acceptance of “the Other” in the “connectedness of life.” In summary, we can assert that even before the contractual recognition of the rights to their difference and the resulting presence as a citizen in the public space of the host society, we owe the other person dedication to their unconditional acceptance as a co-habitator. This means that the legal recognition of the other person is ultimately a consequence of the original recognition necessary for life, especially insofar as there is no “encounter” with life without it. And finally, in order to clear up any misunderstandings beforehand, it should be pointed out that the term “accommodation” does not mean politeness in any way, shape, or form. It denotes an attitude of the human heart, its warmth. In other words, it names the attitude whereby conviviality loses the ambivalence that shapes it as the reality of factual coexistence in order to turn it into a quality of life, or said better, to turn it qualitatively into conviviality,13 i.e., into a shared celebration of the first common good of the human race: life. At this level—and we consciously emphasize this—conviviality is not merely coexisting cohabitation, but rather participative reciprocity. This means the quality of life that makes unity visible and perceptible in diversity, because the identities of life - be it personal or collective—reflect the signature of the community that lives in it as co-habitating differences. This is also why no difference can say “I am” without acknowledging in this statement the presence of “the Other” as those others who always already participating in one’s own life.

1.3 Conclusion From the considerations in the previous section it should have become clear that for philosophy and especially for intercultural philosophy, the task of improving human cohabitation (as conviviality) implies the

10  Raúl Fornet-Betancourt anthropological challenge of promoting a radical transformation of human affectivity. Indeed, the moments listed in the previous section make it clear that the improvement of human cohabitation is not a question that concerns merely a cognitive change or a change in mentality, i.e., a change in the way we understand the other is required. It is also and perhaps fundamentally the challenge of affective change, especially since human coexistence cannot be improved without an appreciative and benevolent assessment of “the Other,”14 without affirming that one “gladly” accepts “the Other,” in the proposed sense, such that it becomes a locus for the real and full humanization of people. Ultimately, it will be good affectivity that will determine whether we as humanity regain the strength for reconciliation referenced above and direct the course of history toward a new humanization - a humanization that we designate as new because it is the result of a patient process of listening and of solidarity with others in our corresponding lifeworlds. Therefore, I would like to conclude this brief presentation with a few questions as suggestions for an in-depth dialogue: How do we ourselves perceive the split of the conviviality of mankind, both on epochal terms and as people? Do we feel bad when, for example, when dealing with migrants or refugees, we observe a lack of recognition that is owed to others as human beings? Can we hope, or better said, both in epochal terms and as people, can we want to activate the politics of conviviality, which, beyond what is legally owed to others as citizens, promotes a warm relationship with the alterity of “the Other” as a dimension that we urgently need, in order to be born together within a new human universality? Can we, in other words, be born together anew within the universality that is interpreted and lived in every human being as a way to restore the wholeness of human life?

Notes 1 Cf. Alain Touraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Égaux et différents (Paris: Fayard, 1997). 2 For paradigmatic examples for this discussion in intercultural philosophy, cf. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt (Ed.), Das menschliche Zusammenleben: Probleme und Möglichkeiten in der heutigen Welt. Eine interkulturelle Annäherung/Living Together: Problems and Possibilities in Today’s World. An intercultural Approximation/La convivencia humana: Problemas y posibilidades en el mundo actual. Una aproximación intercultural, Denktraditionen im Dialog: Studien zur Befreiung und Interkulturalität, Vol. 32 (Aachen: Verlag Mainz, 2011). 3 Cf. Ignacio Ellacuría, “El mal común y los derechos humanos,” in Escritos Filosóficos, Vol. III (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2001), 447–450. 4 Cf. Martin Heidegger, Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung, in Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 4 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1981), 155–157.

Intercultural Philosophy  11 5 For more on the repugnance of our epoch, see the descriptions in the chapter “La función cultural de la filosofía en tiempos de crisis” in my book: Filosofía y espiritualidad en diálogo, Concordia Reine Monographien, Vol. 68 (Aachen: Verlag Mainz, 2016), 11–24; as well as the chapter “Meditación intercultural sobre la adversidad de la época” in my book: Justicia, Restitución, Convivencia. Desafíos de la filosofía intercultural en América Latina, Concordia Reine Monographien, Vol. 62 (Aachen: Verlag Mainz, 2014), 125–140, and the Bibliography given therein. 6 For more on the classical Spanish literary giant Calderón de la Barca’s use of the great “metaphor,” cf.. Calderón de la Barca, “El gran teatro del mundo,” in Piezas maestras del teatro teológico español, Vol. 1 (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1968), 426–454. 7 Octavio Paz, “El cántaro roto,” in Poemas (1935–1975) (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1979), 255–259. 8 G.W.F. Hegel, Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie, in Werke in zwanzig Bänden, Vol. 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), 20–22 [emphasis preserved from the original]. 9 The expression “balsamic action of philosophical reflection” is inspired by José Martí’s idea of the “balsamic solution of love.” See, for example, José Martí, “Discurso en el Liceo Cubano, Tampa”, in Obras Completas, Vol. 4 (La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1975), 267–279; and “La procesión moderna”, in Obras Completas, Vol. 10, op. cit., 75–89. In other words, José Martí could be cited as another example to support the idea that there is a need for philosophy that basically breaks out of this painful feeling in the face of the division of the human race. 10 Cf. José Ortega y Gasset, La rebelión de las masas, in Obras Completas, Vol. 4 (Madrid: Alianza editorial, 1983), 117–119. 11 See, for example, the theories of Paul Ricœur, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, or Axel Honneth. 12 Please see the discussion of this question using the relevant bibliography in my work “¿Basta el reconocimiento para vivir en justicia y sin exclusión?” in my book: Justicia, Restitución, Convivencia. Desafíos de la filosofía intercultural en América Latina, Concordia Reihe Monographien, Vol. 62 (Aachen: Verlag Mainz, 2014), 47–60. 13 See the work in the volume cited in footnote 2. 14 In the sense of the above-mentioned critical dialogue with theories of recognition, the debate with Axel Honneth and the perspective of his love/ appreciation that developed in connection to the early work of Hegel would be of particular interest here as a central dimension of recognition of the other.

Bibliography de la Barca, Calderón. “El gran teatro Chapter 1 del mundo.” In Piezas maestras del teatro teológico español, Vol. 1, 426–454. Edited by Nicolás González Ruiz. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1968. Ellacuría, Ignacio. “El mal común y los derechos humanos.” In Escritos Filosóficos, Vol. III, 447–450. San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2001. Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl (Ed.). Living Together: Problems and Possibilities in Today’s World. An intercultural Approximation. Documentation of the IX.

12  Raúl Fornet-Betancourt Intern. Conference of Intercultural Philosophy, Vol. 32. Aachen: Verlag Mainz, 2011. Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl. “From Coexistence to Conviviality. An Introduction.” In Living Together: Problems and Possibilities in Today’s World. An Intercultural Approximation. Documentation of the IX. Intern. Conference of Intercultural Philosophy, 27–31. Edited by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt. Aachen: Wissenschaftsverlag Mainz, 2011. Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl. “La función cultural de la filosofía en tiempos de crisis.” In Filosofía y espiritualidad en diálogo, Concordia Reine Monographien, Vol. 68. Edited by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt. Aachen: Wissenschaftsverlag Mainz, 2016 Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl. “Meditación intercultural sobre la adversidad de la época.” In Justicia, Restitución, Convivencia. Desafíos de la filosofía intercultural en América Latina, Concordia Reine Monographien, Vol. 62. Edited by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt. Aachen: Wisenschaftsverlag Mainz, 2014a Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl. “¿Basta el reconocimiento para vivir en justicia y sin exclusión?” In Justicia, Restitución, Convivencia. Desafíos de la filosofía intercultural en América Latina, Concordia Reihe Monographien, Vol. 62, 47–60. Edited by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt. Aachen: Verlag Mainz, 2014b. Heidegger, Martin. “Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung.” In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 4. Edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1981. Hegel, G.W.F. “Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie.” In Werke in zwanzig Bänden, Vol. 2. Edited by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970. Martí, José. “Discurso en el Liceo Cubano, Tampa.” In Obras Completas, Vol. 4. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1975a. Martí, José. “La procesión moderna.” In Obras Completas, Vol. 10, Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1975b. Ortega y Gasset, José. “La rebelión de las masas.” In Obras Completas, Vol. 4. Madrid: Alianza editorial, 1983. Paz, Octavio. “El cántaro roto.” In Poemas (1935-1975). Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1979. Touraine, Alain. Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Égaux et différents. Paris: Fayard, 1997.

2 Responses to Past Injustice in Democratizing Societies and the Universalization of Human Rights Sarhan Dhouib The Declaration of 1789 suited me perfectly; she heightened my revolt by the brilliance of her rhetoric. […] The French Revolution belonged to us through a transmittance which was not yet clear, but which stirred the heart of the anti-colonialist. We were late disciples of our enemies. For how could man speak of human rights, if not of us, since man, should no longer suffer any attempt aimed at his race, his nation, his religion? It was our birthright.1 ‘Le chemin de la dignité’ (‘The Path to Dignity’) was revealed to us by the victims of exclusion, female and male, through torture, defamatory police propaganda, by marginalized parties, but still standing, because of the independent figures resisting tyranny.2

2.1 Introduction Human rights are rights that should be granted to everyone regardless of a person’s qualities and held solely by virtue of one’s being human. The granting of human rights is not contingent on a set of facts, but is a normative requirement.3 In considering the evolution of conceptions of human rights and taking a closer look at the histories of their particular implementation within individual cultural groups, one notes, however, considerable differences in the definition of what is considered human in debates over human rights. These differences must be acknowledged at the outset instead of being ignored.4 They require differentiation of the notion of human being and call for a historically informed approach to understand the development of a universalistic notion of human rights. In juxtaposing norms and facts, the question arises as to which mode of human being can be used as the basis for a normative claim. Which rights should people be granted, and to what extent? And at what level should the attribution of rights be negotiated? Does it concern the individual or the person, or is it about people as legal subjects within a constitutional state? My contribution does not question the universality of human rights but rather problematizes their universality within an intercultural discourse

14  Sarhan Dhouib and attempts to reorganize the problem of the universality of human rights from a transcultural viewpoint. A critical reflection on the experience of injustice—e.g., under authoritarian regimes in Arab states—plays a central role in my line of argument. My approach moves the critical function of the normative claim of human rights back to the fore, while at the same time (as I see it) freeing us from unproductive comparisons between Islam and the West. Being interested less in normative stances than in process, my approach focuses less on the concept of universality than on the process of universalization. The first part of my chapter examines the experience of injustice as it was articulated conceptually in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the Tunisian Pact on Rights and Liberties from 2012. I am not interested in historical arguments, for example, the assertion that demands for human rights are always associated with an experience of injustice. And no more is it my aim to argue that an experience of injustice necessarily leads to the emergence or realization of human rights. A closer look at the two declarations of human rights makes it clear that the development and formulation of human rights are often related to experiences of injustice. The second part of my chapter is dedicated to explicating the concept of universality. My main aim therein is to illuminate a notion of transcultural universality, in which criticism arising from an experience of injustice plays a decisive role. The question is whether, and if indeed, human rights might be operationalized from the experience of injustice, which can in turn lead to human rights claims with transcultural potential. The third part will examine the question of dignity; more specifically, what does it mean to be “living with dignity” within the context of Tunisia’s process of democratization. Working from a philosophical basis, the processes which can contribute to a universalization and thus to a transculturality of human rights will thus be analyzed.

2.2 Are Experiences of Injustice Paradigmatic for the Normative Justification of Human Rights? Human rights are justifiable claims addressed by people to the public, political order.5 They are also rights that must be struggled for. They offer an opportunity to stand against exploitation and oppression as well as an opportunity to reflect on the experience of being subject to political crimes committed by the state and of having one’s rights violated. Writing in this context, Heiner Bielefeldt emphasizes how the experience of injustice is constitutive for the emergence and development of human rights: Human rights are a response to experienced injustice. In every experience of injustice there is suffering and the interpretation that people inflict and allow this suffering. Thus, human rights have a dimension

Responses to Past Injustice  15 of experience as well as elucidation. A space for articulation must be created in order to work through these experiences of injustice, a space which however is not tied to a specific culture. While human rights were initially developed largely in Europe, they should not be interpreted in a Eurocentric way. Rather, the articulation of what human rights means should be a process of bringing different traditions and patterns of thought into contestation. For me, the experience of injustice is the elementary form of human rights education.6 Constant, daily violations of human rights in various parts of the world undercut any claim that humanity is on a linear and ascending path to the full implementation of human rights. Reflecting on the significance of, and prospects for, human rights means, above all, taking the fragility of human existence seriously. The experience of powerlessness profoundly shapes humans and pushes us to our limits. Can experiences of injustice form an “epistemic foundation”7 for an understanding of human rights? To what extent can experiences of injustice be transformed into normative and at the same time universalistic commitments?8 The backdrop to these questions is not only shaped by the debate about the “affirmative genealogy”9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—as it is laid out, for example, in the US by Johannes Morsink and in Germany by Hans Joas—but also by contemporary debates about human rights unfolding in the context of processes of democratization in Arab countries such as Tunisia. Here, discussions about experiences of injustice under authoritarian regimes play an increasingly important role, as, for example, in the current debate about the Tunisian Pact on Rights and Liberties. A look at different declarations of human rights can serve at the outset as an indicator of how the conceptual and legalistic formulation of human rights is often spurred by experiences of injustice. This phenomenon raises the question as to whether and how experiences of injustice give rise to conceptions of human rights that criticize existing institutions and practices. The close-knit relationship between violations of and declarations of human rights seems especially clear in regard to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the explicit backdrop of which is the catastrophic experience of Nazi barbarism. The preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes how “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, […].”10 The massive human rights violations that occurred during World War II and that are characteristic of the operation of totalitarian regimes form the background for this declaration. Human rights are protected by the “rule of law” so that “man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression […].”11 The historical experience of “tyranny and

16  Sarhan Dhouib oppression”12 is the main driver in the emergence and formal recognition of human rights. Initiated mainly in the aftermath, and under the impression, of the mass suffering caused by the crimes committed under the auspices of National Socialism, fascism, militarism, and Stalinism, postwar affirmations of human rights encompassed values such as human dignity, equality, justice, and freedom of all people.13 In the following, I will take a closer look at a more contemporary example, the Tunisian Pact on Rights and Liberties, which was established as an initiative of the Arab Institute for Human Rights and other organizations for Tunisian civil society, and which has been recommended for inclusion within the Tunisian constitution. Publicly released on July 25, 2012 in Tunis, the Tunisian Pact consists of a preamble and nine articles divided into various subsections.14 The first eight articles refer to the following rights: Article 1: The right to a dignified life, Article 2: The right to protection and security, Article 3: The right to free elections, Article 4: The right to equality and non-discrimination, Article 5: The right to citizenship and participation, Article 6: The right to development and progress, Article 7: Intellectual, cultural, and creative rights, and Article 8: The right to a sustainable, healthy environment. The ninth and last article suggests measures to protect the aforementioned rights. The Tunisian Pact also highlights the experience of injustice and it is important to point out that as a major motivation for the document’s standardization of rights, it recognizes “that the People’s Revolution rose against a despotic regime that disgraced human dignity, disturbed fair development, and disrupted the values of equality, justice and freedom.”15 In addition to the reference to the despotic abuse of power, two other forms of injustice are discussed briefly: slavery and colonialism. The language also emphasizes the importance of marking a break with the painful human rights violations carried out by agents of the authoritarian regimes: Dignity, equality, freedom and justice, the principles of the Revolution are the real foundations that must be laid down through the process of democratic transition. These are dedicated to citizenship, liberties, pluralism and democratic participation, which must break with the past heritage of tyranny through the endorsement of principles of Rule of Law, independence of the judiciary and transitional justice.16 Paradoxically, however, it appears that the experience of injustice is not only central in the debate about the universality or universalization of human rights, but also plays a constitutive and paradigmatic role. The claim for human rights that arises from a painful experience of human negation and rights violation has a strong normative impulse. It does

Responses to Past Injustice  17 not matter whether the violated rights have already been formulated or ratified; rather, these rights announce themselves in the very infliction of painful injuries to human life and dignity. The constitutive and paradigmatic function of the experience of injustice consists in this self-declaration of rights in their violation. The normative power of human rights emerges from the experience of injustice. Insofar as people are denied their rights, they become aware of their humanity. Before 1956, the Tunisian people liberated themselves from the colonial rule of France and aimed to establish a sovereign and republican state. The independent state (daulat al-istiqlāl ‫)دولة االستقالل‬, which arose during the struggle against the injustice of colonial rulers, came quickly to be dominated by a single party which established a leadership cult around the president. Expressions of dissent and opposition were stifled immediately.17 Exemplifying the post-colonial state’s early transformation into an authoritarian regime was the treatment of people’s right to establish free associations and to found political parties.18 After the country achieved political independence, the right freely to organize oneself politically and culturally represented an important claim of the Tunisian national movement and was therefore reflected in the constitution of June 1, 1959 (Article 8).19 Promulgated for the sake of organizing the new political sys��tem, however, a law passed on November 7, 1959 prevented the implementation of the constitutional right to free political organization. This law categorized political parties as associations whose establishment was subject to the approval of the Interior Minister. As the lawyer and intellectual Mohamed Charfi notes, decisions made by the Interior Minister cannot be appealed.20 It is also important to note that this law was postdated (to November 7, 1959), i.e., two days before the first meeting of the new Tunisian parliament, and thereby came into force in the interim phase in which Bourguiba had absolute power. It was not published until 1960 in the Journal officiel de la République tunisienne, when it was finally made public.21 With this law, which contradicts Article 8 of the 1959 constitution, political opponents in the post-colonial state could be persecuted and accused of being members of an illegal organization.22 Of particular interest in this context is the clear demand of the Tunisian Pact to break with past despotism. What does this demand mean in relation to the human rights debate? Does a break with a despotic (political) regime or system of injustice mean that all parameters should be set to zero and that one needs to start over again? Would people really want to start from scratch (which, from a cultural-historical point of view, is impossible)? Would we have to go back to that point as part of an abstract normative requirement? And would that mean that the constitutive experience of suffering would also be lost, an experience, which could serve as a guide in the process of universalizing human rights? My argument is that we should not advocate for a radical break from the past but rather critically examine the power structures of authoritarian

18  Sarhan Dhouib regimes as drivers in the process of universalizing rights. “‘Universalizing’ means […] a hypothetical procedure for testing moral or juridical norm proposals to see whether they can apply as meaningful, universally valid applicable norms—i.e., that they can either be conceptualized or at least be seriously intended to be conceptualized.”23 What does this mean in terms of the debate about the transculturality of human rights?

2.3 The Universality and Transculturality of Human Rights To answer this question, the following section will engage the idea of the universality of human rights and distinguish between four levels of universality that are often blurred together.24 The last level, which is called the transcultural universality of human rights and in which the critical function of normative claims plays a crucial role, is especially important. 2.3.1 The Idea of a Human Rights Universalism The normative claim that human rights have universal validity is inherent in the very idea of human rights. This essentially means that the universality of human rights stands for those fundamental rights that people are entitled to simply because they are human. This universality presupposes a normative claim to the validity of the same basic rights for every human being based on human dignity. In this context, Heiner Bielefeldt emphasizes: “Within this linguistic usage, universality of human rights describes the inner quality of a category of fundamental rights which are given on the basis of human existence and which are therefore equally due to everyone.”25 The opposite of universality in this context would be particularity. Human rights differ from certain legal positions, namely those which are connected to particular characteristics, e.g., acquired status positions, social roles and functions, memberships in associations and professional groups, particular nationalities, etc. Therefore, human rights are not to be seen as the result of achievement or merit; everyone is entitled to them because everyone is human. 2.3.2 The Global Institutionalization of Human Rights In this context, universality refers to the project of a global standardization and implementation of fundamental rights at the level of the United Nations. This second meaning of the universality of human rights is found primarily in the international literature of human rights law. Thus, universal human rights are often considered separate from regional human rights. The opposite of universality here would be regionality. One example to mention regarding the concept of regional human rights is the debate about “Asian values” in the 1990s. “Asian values” can be

Responses to Past Injustice  19 understood to mean concepts of virtue or moral norms which are so strictly demarcated from “Western values” that they call into question the idea of the universality of human rights. They offer a so-called “counterprogram” or a declaration of human obligations against the claim of universal human rights, which have been connected with a “Western way of life.”26 Other examples come from the various Islamic and Arab regional declarations on human rights. The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam from 1990 and the Arab Charter on Human Rights from 1994 as well as their updated versions from 2004 emphasize the primacy of Sharia in different ways. They subordinate different human rights content to the primacy of the Islamic legal tradition without critically examining the relationship between such content and that tradition. 2.3.3 The Factual Status of Ratification The universalism of human rights is occasionally measured by the ratification behavior of states vis-à-vis international human rights conventions and the recognition of their transnational validity. Bielefeldt rightly observes: “From such an exclusively positivistic understanding of human rights universality, one would have to come to the conclusion that, strictly speaking, not a single human rights convention is currently really universal.”27 Those who advocate for such a concept of universality of human rights make universality dependent on the factual procedure of ratification. They therefore miss the normative meaning of universality since this meaning is made dependent on the consent of authoritarian states and the economic and political interests of various states including democratic ones. 2.3.4 Transcultural Universality of Human Rights Against the backdrop of the great tension between the universal claims of human rights and the particular claims of cultural pluralism, the question of how the universality of human rights should be understood is once again raised in the field of intercultural philosophy.28 In view of the global debate about the universality of human rights and the pluralism of cultures, at least three methodological approaches regarding justification claims can be outlined in the intercultural discussion on human rights.29 The main concern of these methodological approaches is to do justice to the pluralism of cultures without, however, questioning the universality of human rights. In the following, based on Lohmann’s model of differentiation, neutral, intercultural, and transcultural approaches are briefly discussed while also touching on the critical role of human rights in those respective approaches.

20  Sarhan Dhouib 2.3.4.1 Neutral Approaches to Justification The neutral justification “highlights commonalities that can be found in all cultures and justifies human rights on this common basis.”30 Hans Küng’s Global Ethic Project (Weltethos) pursues a similar goal and tries to work out similarities between cultures descriptively.31 Karl Josef Kuschel sums up an interim assessment of his extensive Global Ethic Project as follows: Even in the future there will be no conflict-free ethics; tensions between different ethical approaches will continue to determine humanity in the future. This tension, however, reveals an expression of respect for cultural plurality and religious diversity in human history. The search for a minimum of ethical consensus between the various religions, a core set of different ethical convictions, is by contrast, not u ­ nrealistic. It is highly desirable to look for areas of overlap and intersection, where ethical convictions of different cultures and religions can meet.32 However, it remains questionable whether the descriptive-ascertainable similarities are sufficient to justify the universalism of human rights and whether interreligious dialogues will accept a non-religious justification.33 Another approach is revealed in Otfried Höffe’s undertaking to promote human rights in a culture-neutral way, i.e., to justify human rights from an anthropological and transcendental point of view. In his book Vernunft und Recht: Bausteine zu einem interkulturellen Rechtsdiskurs [Reason and Law: Steps to an Intercultural Discourse on Law] Höffe pursues the following goal: Because it comes down to conditions of possibility, one can use an expression that has been relevant since Kant and speak of a— relatively—transcendental interest. Relying on these interests, that is, through the connection of anthropology and transcendental philosophy, distrust of the moment-of-perpetual-sameness in anthropology should be dispelled. Aside from that, the legitimation of human rights is once again given a practical meaning. A vote on the debate about the project of modernity is added to the function of intercultural legal discourse.34 Höffe refers to cultural similarities as culturally neutral and as general anthropological requirements. According to him, as “transcendental interests,” they precede all concrete cultural forms and should be able to justify the universality of human rights in terms of a sort of contract theory in the form of a “transcendental exchange.” In my opinion, however, this neutral justification strategy only looks for the

Responses to Past Injustice  21 lowest common denominator between different cultures and offers only a minimalist understanding or a minimal ethical consensus of human rights. Against the background of culturally relativistic criticism, this approach, above all, inquires into the conditions of the possibility of the universality of human rights. In doing so, the critical role of human rights regarding one’s own and other cultures is thereby either ignored or greatly reduced. 2.3.4.2 Different Approaches to Intercultural Justification According to Lohmann, the intercultural justification approach aims to “construct something common between the cultures based on the different peculiarities of the different cultures [and] only redeems its justification claim through dialogue, comparison or mutual agreement, and in this sense, proceeds interculturally.”35 Intercultural approaches “based on different cultural premises [search] for a normative, overlapping consensus between cultures. To this end, the fight against western culturalimperialist appropriation and paternalism is just as much a fight for an equal dialogue between different cultures.”36 Heiner Bielefeldt’s approach as outlined in in his book Philosophie der Menschenrechte. Grundlagen eines weltweiten Freiheitsethos [Philosophy and Human Rights: Foundations of a Global Ethos of Freedom] 37 is an example of this position. Building on Kant’s formulation of a “political and legal ethos of freedom” of Western modernity, Bielefeldt tries to establish human rights “as the core of an intercultural ‘overlapping consensus’” with other cultures. He makes it clear that this discourse, which is limited to human rights, is not about intercultural acquisition of a common and comprehensive doctrine of salvation, but rather about justifiability of an independent, secular legal system. He tries to win an intercultural consensus, for example, by tying himself to the critical rational theological voice within Arab-Islamic culture. However, the intercultural justification approach is only partially critical and applicable only to a limited extent.38 2.3.4.3 Transcultural Justification Approaches Transcultural justification “wants to maintain cultural diversity with regard to justification and thus achieves plural justification for the universal claim of human rights.”39 This enables a plural justification of human rights based on the plurality of cultures. In my view, transcultural justification goes beyond neutral and intercultural modes of justification.40 Transculturality offers individuals or groups the opportunity to deal with one another critically. It consists of a horizontal movement, which should lead to a search for common values and norms between cultures, and a

22  Sarhan Dhouib vertical movement, which aims to develop concepts that go beyond the empirical diversity of cultures. ‘Transculturality’ […] takes up the critical aspect of all cultures again in order to determine what can be universalized in a transversal and transcendent way to construct a critical and constantly renewable corpus of values, applicable to all of humanity, thereby.41 At this point the critical role of human rights takes on an important role since the transcultural justification of human rights is based on a “double criticism.” The term “double criticism” was first developed by the Moroccan intellectual Abdelkebir Khatibi in a literary and sociological context. It primarily refers to the type of criticism that is capable of transforming our structures of perception and knowledge.42 She critically examines her own cultural tradition as well as the tradition of others— here, the colonial history of Europeans. In the following, this term will be used in a philosophical context and made fruitful for the critical conception of human rights. In intercultural discourse on human rights, “double criticism” is to be understood in the first place as a self-criticism that deals with one’s own authoritarian social, political, and cultural structures, and thereby sets the stage for critique of the authoritarian social, political, and cultural structures of another. This move enables the “universalizability” of human rights.43 “Double criticism” is therefore generally located in the realm of cultural and legal criticism. Criticism of other(s) focuses on the disregard and instrumentalization of human rights of other states and organizations, including Western ones. This is where criticism arising from experience of injustice emerges as particularly important. Lohmann summarizes this idea as follows: “The goal of the ‘transcultural approach’ is to establish and review the universalism of human rights from the critical reassurance of one’s own culturally anchored philosophical tradition via intercultural mediation.”44 And so, by means of double criticism the following section will illustrate how we can think of life with dignity.

2.4 The Concept of a Life of Dignity against the Backdrop of the Experience of Injustice 2.4.1 A Human Rights Approach Article One of the Tunisian Pact deals with the “right to a dignified life” or a “life with dignity.”45 Here the concept of dignity is brought into direct connection with people’s lives. The article emphasizes that this right is to be determined by a positive “law” and protected institutionally. The law is no longer defined by transcendent or metaphysical authority

Responses to Past Injustice  23 but understood as an expression of human will. The conditions and circumstances of a life with dignity are articulated. The right to a life with dignity is formulated normatively in Article One and in this context, it distinguishes, for example, between requirements and prohibitions. The normative claims that are made include, above all, the right to identity, to nationality, and physical integrity, while torture, slavery, and human trafficking are prohibited because they make a life with dignity impossible. Concluding the programmatic claims of the Article One, there is a demand for the abolition of capital punishment.46 The various imperatives and prohibitions as well as the demand for the abolition of the death penalty reference various forms of injustice and degradation. The affirmation of physical integrity, for example, also rules out any form of sexual abuse. This shows that the conception of dignity in the Tunisian Pact is based on a dialectic that raises normative claims of dignity on one side, but, on the other side, makes clear the constant threats to a life with dignity posed by various forms of degradation. The threat lies not just in past practices but in the evolution of new forms of degradation. This permanent sense of threat to human rights from past and from possible experiences of injustice makes apparent the struggle for a life with dignity within civil societies. The demand for a “a life with dignity” in the Tunisian Pact can be characterized as a human rights approach to dignity that follows the guidelines of the international human rights declarations and conventions. It ascribes a universal value to the concept of dignity and is primarily focused on human beings as individuals. As to the question of how this universal claim can be implemented or applied in concrete socio-political contexts, I would like to distinguish between two philosophical positions: an active-democratic and a decolonial one. Each position takes a different approach with regard to experiences of injustice and these differences illuminate the debate about living with dignity during Tunisia’s process of democratization. While following these two lines of argument, the transcultural position I arrive at also goes beyond them. 2.4.2 The Active-Democratic Approach The active-democratic idea of a life with dignity can be situated in the context of a philosophy of living together.47 A representative of this position is the Tunisian philosopher Fathi Triki. According to Triki, human dignity has to be fought for continuously within a world that is ruled by three rationalities: a computational/calculative rationality of economic exchange; an instrumental rationality of technology; and a violent rationality of politics.48 Triki indeed sees globalization as an opportunity to promote democratization through more communication and exchange in

24  Sarhan Dhouib the form of protests and sit-ins. However, his concept of the three types of rationality also provides a tool critically to diagnose current situations in a globalized world. In addition, Triki also distinguishes between “nominal,” “procedural,” and “active” democracy. A nominal democracy is a democracy in name only. A nominal democracy has a democratic constitution, but the application of democratic principles is constantly disregarded. In a nominal democracy the opposition is controlled, and civil society is paralyzed.49 A procedural democracy pays much more, if not an excessive amount of, attention to procedure and loses sight of democratic substance. Bureaucratized and formalized procedures can therefore lead to the derailment of democratic substance in a populism that bases its legitimacy in the so-called “will of the people,” media- or resource-manipulated though it may be.50 In an active democracy, however, a life with dignity is continuously contested through protests and criticism. This contest, this struggle exhaustively employs all democratic means, from sit-ins to artistically creative possibilities of protest such as political street art.51 Characteristic of this type of democracy is a four-dimensional self-correcting dynamic according to which the effects of political, social, economic, and cultural activities on human rights are questioned and injustices are exposed. The first dimension of the self-correcting dynamic is in the area of ethics and it assesses whether the outcomes of democratic processes are actually democratic and warns against the abuse of democracy by pseudo-democratic forces. A second corrective exists on the social level and fights for the right of individuals to be protected economically from falling below a minimal level of subsistence. Only the universal guarantee of an economic safety net enables every citizen to participate independently and freely in the democratic process. This second corrective requires more than state guarantees; it requires, according to Triki, solidarity between citizens and the personal responsibility of citizens. The third corrective operates on the political level: It consists in the citizens’ demand that political processes remain transparent and political decisions be publicly justified. This means that citizens have the right to be informed about the motives behind decisions and to engage in public discussion before political decisions are made. A fourth dimension of the self-corrective dynamic is philosophical and is based on developing and maintaining a consensus about the universal values that guarantee people their humanity. This consensus must constantly ensure that adequate scope be given to difference and cultural diversity.52 It is especially so that, in an active democracy, a life with dignity can take on a special role: “In any case, the philosophy of living together (which is done) in conviviality (at-taʾānus ‫ )التآنس‬is also a philosophy of the daily struggle of man to regain his/her dignity, to give life back to the wretched of the earth.”53

Responses to Past Injustice  25 2.4.3 The Decolonial Approach In carrying out a decolonial analysis of the concept of dignity, it is important, on the one hand, to criticize Eurocentric terminology and, on the other, to practice “epistemic disobedience,”54 with the end goal being the development of an alternative conception of dignity which makes use of local explanations. One representative of this point of view is the Tunisian philosopher Salah Mosbah, who takes a decidedly decolonial position55 and interprets the struggle for a life with dignity from a socialphilosophical perspective.56 Examining various “Western” philosophical perspectives on the revolution, he develops his analysis of the concept of dignity (karāma ‫ )كرامة‬against the backdrop of the Tunisian revolution of 2011. A distinction is made between three positions. The first, alarmist, position, represented by Slavoj Žižek, among others, saw or only wanted to see the specter of Islamism in the Tunisian revolution.57 The second position, a critical-theoretical position building on the late Habermas, attempted to mediate between politics and religion through forms of public sphere. Seyla Benhabib is an important representative of this position.58 As Mosbah points out, Benhabib, following Habermas’ theory of the unfinished project of modernity,59 puts this theory to use as a tool to analyze the political events in Tunisia, and raises the possibility of a reconciliation between democracy and Islam.60 According to this approach, the representatives of the Tunisian revolution are defined as “good students” of European modernity who, while not being of the West, nevertheless strive for the values of western modernity. Mosbah describes this view as a “version soft of Eurocentrism”61 in line with the unreservedly supportive positions expressed by, among others, Antonio Negri, Alain Badiou, and Noam Chomsky. While these authors express political solidarity with the Tunisian Revolution, an analysis of their approaches reveals, however, significant Eurocentric dimensions. To give an example, Badiou characterizes what is happening in Tunisia as “émeutes” (unrest) and considers it an illustration of his theory of the event (l’événement). On this view, these movements of unrest have no political form and are unable to offer a new political program. Mosbah sees Badiou’s classification as closely related to the European distinction between “real” and “fake” revolutions.62 The feeling of unworthiness (indignité), which initially manifests itself in a passive negative state, evolves into an active negative state, which, according to Mosbah, takes the form of indignation (indignation). Mosbah sees revolutionary demonstrators as effecting the transformation of a passive feeling of unworthiness into active outrage. Following Spivak, Mosbah understands the revolutionary demonstrators, i.e., the indignant, as a “subaltern” group in a broader sense. He refers to a statement made by the first Tunisian president of the post-colonial state

26  Sarhan Dhouib in which he defines Tunisians as “the dust of individuals” (poussière d’individus) from whom he would like to create a nation.63 In his reconstruction of the struggle for dignity, Mosbah distinguishes between two phases: an anti-colonial and a post-colonial phase. Both Tunisian trade unionists and nationalists in the 1940s understood a life with dignity predominantly in a collective sense: living with dignity was linked to the Tunisian people’s collective struggle against French colonialism and for Tunisian independence. In a post-colonial context, dignity takes on two new dimensions. The first dimension is linked to the process of postcolonial economic and social development and is particularly prominent within the post-colonial state. However, this dimension has become radicalized by several different oppositional left-wing groups who are attempting to endow a life with dignity with a political dimension—namely that of freedom—alongside the economic one. To the extent that the demand for dignity in the Tunisian revolution was embedded in these social movements, it encompassed both the political and the economic dimension.

2.5 Conclusion: Toward a Transcultural Perspective Can a transcultural universality of human rights be justified against the backdrop of experiences of injustice? An affirmative case can be made. The paradigmatic or epistemic role of the experience of injustice is closely linked to the universalization of human rights because the historical experience of human rights violations paradoxically contributes to the reinforcement of normative claims of human rights and triggers a process of universalization of these rights. During this process, a transcultural perspective comes into play which aspires to mediate cultural differences in ways that promote universalistic human rights claims.64 By contrast, approaches of cultural relativism and essentialism are limited to the extent that they declare cultural differences to be insurmountable or that they essentialize identities. The methodology of “double criticism” is well positioned to understand the process of universalizing human rights. Not only does it enable an intercultural critical discourse, but it also allows a decentralized and transcultural justification of human rights. In juxtaposing the active-democratic and decolonial approaches to theorizing dignity, various aspects of the “double criticism” method come into view. On the one hand, this method highlights an intrinsic or culturally immanent critique of the hegemonic and authoritarian power structures of the post-colonial state that are linked to global power relations, drawing attention as well to a profound critique of Islamist views on law and coexistence. On the other hand, this method reveals an extrinsic criticism of those hegemonic power structures that go hand in hand with colonial and Eurocentric forms of thought, of instrumental, and computational reason, and of the Eurocentric formal notion of democratic coexistence.

Responses to Past Injustice  27 In utilizing the method of “double criticism,” the approach taken here remains decentralized and shows to what extent a universalization of norms is possible. The transcultural perspective makes use of this form of criticism and adapts active-democratic and decolonial approaches that take the effects of political and historical processes on the conceptualization of dignity seriously. However, this transcultural perspective critically indicates that the active-democratic view would not be possible without a foundation of human rights, i.e., without the rule of law/a constitutional state, because this approach neglects the relevance of the concept of dignity in various declarations of human rights. In addition, the transcultural perspective emphasizes that the project of decolonization cannot come together without a minimum of consensus because it runs the risk of ignoring the universalizing potential of human rights due to its strong focus on social and historical processes. These various processes illustrate the emancipatory function of the struggle for human dignity. It is precisely here that there is a possibility of universalizing dignity, the claim of which arises within a context shaped by injustice, but which understands universality as a process with which one must critically wrestle.

Notes 1 Hélé Béji, Nous décolonialisés. Essai (Paris: Arléa, 2008), 29–30. 2 Yadh Ben Achour, La deuxième Fâtiha. L’islam et la pensée des droits de l’homme (Tunis: Cérès éditions, 2011), 1. 3 Cf. Hans Jörg Sandkühler, “Menschenrechte,” in Enzyklopädie Philosophie, in 3 vols, Vol. 2, (Hamburg: Meiner, 2010), 1530–1553. 4 Cf. Georg Mohr, “Sind die Menschenrechte auf ein bestimmtes Menschenbild festgelegt? Plädoyer für eine Umkehr der Beweislast,” in Menschenrechte in die Zukunft denken. 60 Jahre Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechte (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009), 65–78. 5 Cf. Christoph Menke and Arnd Pollmann, Philosophie der Menschenrechte zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius, 2008), 42. 6 Heiner Bielefeldt, “Interview,” in Junge Akademie Magazin. Wendepunkte 10 (2009), 4. 7 Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Origins, Drafting, and Intent (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1999), 36; cf. Johannes Morsink, “World War Two and the Universal Declaration,” in Human Rights Quarterly 15/2 (1993), 357–405. For Morsink, the Nazi barbarism is the main reason for the genesis of 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “The motif running throughout their [delegations] adoptions and rejections ist that the war and the ideology of National Socialism as practiced by Hitler were in themselves enough to convince them of the truth of the rights of the Declaration. They did not need a philosophical argument in addition to the experience of the Holocaust. […] For each of the rights proclaimed, they went back to the experience of the war as the epistemic foundation of the particular right in question” (Johannes Morsink, “World War Two and the Universal Declaration,” in Human Rights Quarterly 15/2 [1993], 358).

28  Sarhan Dhouib 8 Cf. Hans Joas, Die Sakralität der Person. Eine neue Genealogie der Menschenrechte (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011), 108–146. 9 Cf. Hans Joas, Die Sakralität der Person. Eine neue Genealogie der Menschenrechte, 147–203 and 251–281. 10 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, preamble, [https://www.un.org/en/ universal-declaration-human-rights/, accessed on December 12, 2020]. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Cf. Hans Jörg Sandkühler, “Menschenrechte,” in Enzyklopädie Philosophie, 1531. 14 International Federation for Human Rights, The Tunisian Pact on Rights and Liberties, May 6, 2013, https://www.refworld.org/docid/518ceec716. html, accessed on December 12, 2020; cf. the Arabic version at http://www.­ calameo.com/read/00158535200d7b99bad30, accessed on December 12, 2020. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. Emphasis added. 17 Cf. Mohamed Charfi, Mon combat pour les Lumières (Tunis: Éditions Elyzad, 2015), 47–57. 18 Ibid. 19 Article 8: “Freedom of opinion, expression, the press, publication, assembly and association are guaranteed and exercised according to the terms defined by the law. The right to organize in trade unions is guaranteed. Political parties contribute to supervising citizens, in order to organize their participation in political life, and they should be established on democratic foundations. Political parties must respect the sovereignty of the people, the values of the republic, human rights, and the principles pertaining to personal status. Political parties pledge to prohibit all forms of violence, fanaticism, racism and discrimination. No political party may take religion, language, race, sex or region as the foundation for its principles, objectives, activity or programs. It is prohibited for any party to be dependent upon foreign parties or interests. The law sets the rules governing the establishment and organization of parties.” The Constitution of Tunisia, 1959, accessed December 12, 2020. www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/tn/ tn028en.pdf. 20 Cf. Mohamed Charfi, Mon combat pour les Lumières, 47–57. 21 Ibid. 22 Cf. Muḥammad aṣ-Ṣāliḥ Flīs, Saǧīn fī waṭanī. Ṣuwar min yaumīyāt muʿtaqal siyāsī (Tunis: Arabesques 2016), 206. 23 Heiner Bielefeldt, “Universalismus/Universalisierung,” in Enzyklopädie Philosophie, Vol. 3 (Hamburg: Meiner, 2010), 2831–2836. 24 Cf. Heiner Bielefeldt, “Menschenrechtlicher Universalismus ohne eurozentrische Verkürzung,” in Gelten Menschenrechte Universal? Begründungen und Infragestellungen (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 98–141. 25 Heiner Bielefeldt, “Menschenrechtlicher Universalismus ohne eurozentrische Verkürzung,” 99. 26 Gregor Paul, “Der Diskurs über ‘asiatische Werte‘,” in Menschenrechte. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2012), 248–252. 27 Heiner Bielefeldt, “Menschenrechtlicher Universalismus ohne eurozentrische Verkürzung,” 102. 28 Cf. Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent.

Responses to Past Injustice  29 29 Cf. Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” in Menschenrechte. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2012), 210–215. 30 Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” 211. 31 Cf. Hans Küng, Projekt Weltethos (München: Piper, 2008); Hans Küng, Der Islam. Geschichte, Gegenwart, Zukunft (München/Zürich: Piper, 2006), 663–667. 32 Karl-Josef Kuschel, “Wie Menschenrechte, Weltreligionen und Weltfrieden zusammenhängen,” in Weltfrieden durch Religionsfrieden. Antworten aus den Weltreligionen (München: Piper, 1993), 211. 33 Cf. Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” 210–215. 34 Otfried Höffe, Vernunft und Recht. Bausteine zu einem interkulturellen Rechtsdiskurs (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996), 67. 35 Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” 211. 36 Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” 212. 37 Cf. Heiner Bielefeldt, Philosophie der Menschenrechte. Grundlagen eines weltweiten Freiheitsethos (Darmstadt: WBG 1998). 38 Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” 212. 39 Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” 211. 40 Cf. Wolfgang Welsch, “Transkulturalität,” in Enzyklopädie Philosophie, Vol. 2 (Hamburg: Meiner 2010), 2771–2777. 41 Fathi Triki, Ethique de la dignité. Révolution et vivre-ensemble (Tunis: Arabesques, 2018), 129. 42 “Everything remains to be thought in dialogue with the most radical thoughts and insurgencies that have shaken the West and still do, in ways themselves different. Let us look straight away at what is realized before us and try to transform it according to a double critique—that of this Western legacy and of our very theological, very charismatic, and very patriarchal heritage. Double critique—we believe only on the revelation of the visible, the end of all celestial theology, and mortifying nostalgia.” Plural Maghreb. Writings on Postcolonialism (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 2. 43 Heiner Bielefeldt, “Universalismus/Universalisierung,” 2831–2832. 44 Georg Lohmann, “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture,’” 213. 45 International Federation for Human Rights, The Tunisian Pact on Rights and Liberties, May 6, 2013, https://www.refworld.org/docid/518ceec716.html. 46 ibid. 47 Cf. Fathi Triki, Philosopher le vivre-ensemble (Tunis: L’Or du Temps, 1998). 48 Fathi Triki, Ethique de la dignité. Révolution et vivre-ensemble (Tunis: Arabesques, 2018), 88. cf. Max Horkheimer/Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment [Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente] (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972). 49 Fathi Triki, Ethique de la dignité. Révolution et vivre-ensemble, 92–93. 50 Fathi Triki, Ethique de la dignité. Révolution et vivre-ensemble, 93–94. 51 Fathi Triki, Ethique de la dignité. Révolution et vivre-ensemble, 95; cf. Rachida Triki, “Kunst und Widerstand,” in Sprache und Diktatur. Formen des Sprechens, Modi des Schweigens (Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2018), 461–466. 52 Fathi Triki, Ethique de la dignité. Révolution et vivre-ensemble, 96. 53 Fathi Triki, Ethique de la dignité. Révolution et vivre-ensemble, 150. 54 Cf. Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of The Renaissance (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003), 10–25; Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2000),

30  Sarhan Dhouib 314–316; Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 27–74. 55 Salah Mosbah, “Die Frage nach der Toleranz im modernen arabischen Denken. Ein dekolonialer Ansatz,” in Toleranz in transkultureller Perspektive (Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft 2020), 51–69. 56 Cf. Salah Mosbah, “Les valeurs de la Révolution tunisienne ou La longue histoire de la lutte pour la Dignité/«karāma»” EU-topías 4 (2012), 106. 57 Cf. Isabelle Mayault, “La révolution égyptienne selon Žižek,” Interview in Al-Jazeera, February, 7, 2011. 58 Cf. Seyla Benhabib, “The Arab Spring: Religion, Revolution and the Public Square,”Transformations of the Public Sphere (2011) [https://publicsphere.ssrc. org/benhabib-the-arab-spring-religion-revolution-and-the-public-square/]. 59 Cf. Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures [Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen] (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987). 60 Salah Mosbah, “Les valeurs de la Révolution tunisienne,” 107. 61 Ibid. 62 Salah Mosbah, “Les valeurs de la Révolution tunisienne,” 108. 63 Salah Mosbah, “Les valeurs de la Révolution tunisienne,” 110. 64 Cf. Sarhan Dhouib, “Von der interkulturellen Vermittlung zur Transkulturalität der Menschenrechte,” in Transkulturalität der Menschenrechte. Arabische, chinesische und europäische Perspektiven (Freiburg: Karl Alber Verlag, 2013), 173–198.

Bibliography Achour, Ben Yadh. La deuxième Fâtiha. L' islam et la pensée des droits de l' homme. Tunis: Cérés editions, 2011. Béji, Hélé. Nous décolonialisés. Essai. Paris: Arléa, 2008. Benhabib, Seyla. “The Arab Spring: Religion, Revolution and the Public Square.” In Transformations of the Public Sphere (2011). Accessed December 9, 2020. https://publicsphere.ssrc.org/benhabib-the-arab-spring-religionrevolution-and-the-public-square/. Bielefeldt, Heiner. “Menschenrechtlicher Universalismus ohne eurozentrische Verkürzung.” In Gelten Menschenrechte Universal? Begründungen und Infragestellungen, 98–141. Edited by Günter Nooke, Georg Lohmann and Gerhard Wahlers. Freiburg: Herder, 2008. Bielefeldt, Heiner. “Antwort auf erfahrenes Unrecht.” In Junge Akademie Magazin. Wendepunkte 10 (2009): 4–7. Bielefeldt, Heiner. “Universalismus/Universalisierung.” In Enzyklopädie Philosophie, Vol. 2, 2831–2836. Edited by Hans Jörg Sandkühler. Hamburg: Meiner, 2010. Bielefeldt, Heiner. “Universalität und Gleichheit.” In Menschenrechte. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, 348–352. Edited by Arnd Pollmann and Georg Lohmann. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2012. Charfi, Mohamed. Mon combat pour les Lumières. Tunis: Éditions Elyzad, 2015. Flīs, Muḥammad aṣ-Ṣāliḥ. Saǧīn fī waṭanī. Ṣuwar min yaumīyāt muʿtaqal siyāsī. Tunis: Arabesques, 2016. Dhouib, Sarhan. “Von der interkulturellen Vermittlung zur Transkulturalität der Menschenrechte.” In Transkulturalität der Menschenrechte. Arabische,

Responses to Past Injustice  31 chinesische und europäische Perspektiven, 173–198. Edited by Philipp Brunozzi, Sarhan Dhouib and Walter Pfannkuche. Freiburg: Karl Alber Verlag, 2013. Habermas, Jürgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve lectures [Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen]. Translated by Frederick G. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. Höffe, Otfried. Vernunft und Recht. Bausteine zu einem interkulturellen Rechtsdiskurs. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment [Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente]. Translated by John Cumming. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972. International Federation for Human Rights. The Tunisian Pact on Rights and Liberties. 2020. Accessed December 7, 2020. [https://www.refworld.org/ docid/518ceec716.html] (Arabic version. Accessed December 7, 2020. http:// www.calameo.com/read/00158535200d7b99bad30). Joas, Hans. Die Sakralität der Person. Eine neue Genealogie der Menschenrechte. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011. Khatibi, Abdelkebir. Plural Maghreb: Writings on Postcolonialism. Translated by P. Burcu Yalim. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Küng, Hans. Der Islam. Geschichte, Gegenwart, Zukunft. München: Piper, 2006. Küng, Hans. Projekt Weltethos. München: Piper, 2008. Kuschel, Karl-Josef. “Wie Menschenrechte, Weltreligionen und Weltfrieden zusammenhängen.” In Weltfrieden durch Religionsfrieden. Antworten aus den Weltreligionen, 171–216. Edited by Hans Küng and Karl-Josef Kuschel. München: Piper, 1993. Lohmann, Georg. “Interkulturalismus und ‘cross-culture.’” In Menschenrechte. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, 210–215. Edited by Arnd Pollmann and Georg Lohmann. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2012. Mayault, Isabelle. “La révolution égyptienne selon Žižek.” Interview in Al-Jazeera. February, 7, 2011. Menke, Christoph and Arnd Pollmann. Philosophie der Menschenrechte zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius, 2008. Mignolo, Walter D. The Darker Side of The Renaissance, 10–25. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003. Mignolo, Walter D. The Darker Side of Western Modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Mignolo, Walter D. Local Histories/Global Designs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Mohr, Georg. “Sind die Menschenrechte auf ein bestimmtes Menschenbild festgelegt? Plädoyer für eine Umkehr der Beweislast.” In Menschenrechte in die Zukunft denken. 60 Jahre Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechte, 65–78. Edited by Hans Jörg Sandkühler. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009. Morsink, Johannes. “World War Two and the Universal Declaration.” In Human Rights Quarterly 15/2 (1993): 357–405. Morsink, Johannes. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Origins, Drafting, and Intent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1999. Mosbah, Salah. “Les valeurs de la Révolution tunisienne ou La longue histoire de la lutte pour la Dignité /«karāma».” In EU-topías 4 (2012): 105–115.

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3 Negotiating African Identity in Times of Globalization A Comparative Approach to Afropolitanism and Negritude Albert Kasanda In the current era of globalization, identity issues have attracted a great deal of attention from both individual thinkers and institutions. On the one hand, most of them have focused on the homogenization of cultures; on the other hand, they shed light on the revitalization of individual identities and cultures.1 This chapter aims to explore the extent to which African identity is negotiated in this context through Afropolitanism and negritude theories. This chapter seeks to discern the features that characterize African singularity according to relevant theories. Therefore, it relies on a comparative approach to both theories. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section concentrates on the theoretical framework of Afropolitan discourse, including a critique of Western universalist claims—the epistemological shift in black diaspora studies. The second section examines the idea of Afropolitanism according to the writings of Taiye Selasi2 and Achille Mbembe.3 The former addresses Afropolitanism on basis of the experience of newer African emigrants within G8 countries, while the latter relies on African historical experience to define Afropolitanism. Both thinkers mentioned here emphasize multiple affiliations and cultural hybridity. The third section concentrates on negritude identity discourse as developed by Senghor. Senghor defines a very controversial approach to African identity. He perceives African specificity on the basis of antagonism between white and black people. For him, white people are marked by reason and technological aptitude, while black people are characterized by emotion and rhythm. The fourth section concentrates on convergences and divergences between Afropolitanism and Negritude. It sheds light on their respective contexts of emergence, epistemological backgrounds, and their philosophical worldviews. To conclude, this chapter observes that both Afropolitanism and negritude fundamentally struggle for the same purpose—human dignity. They

34  Albert Kasanda both require a permanent critical renewal to negotiate African identity, particularly in the current era of globalization.

3.1 Theoretical Background The concept of Afropolitanism does not emerge ex nihilo. It grows in the fertile soil of contemporary critical theories and debates, including, for example, critiques of Western claims of universalism,4 frameworks of black diasporic studies,5 transnational migration, and African diasporic literature,6 to mention but a few. The critique of Western universalism presents a complex debate, the roots of which can be found within the framework of Western philosophy. Martin Heidegger (1889–1978), a seminal Western thinker of the twentieth century, can be viewed as the person who opened the critical breach in the self-proclaimed creed of Western universalism thanks to his critique of industrial civilization and his preference for the local over the universal.7 Various Western scholars have relied on this split to denounce both Western-centered epistemology and pretensions of universalism. This calls to mind the work of scholars such as Foucault (1926–1984), Derrida (1930–2004), and Deleuze (1925–1995). A French scholar, Amselle, observes that It is indeed a common attitude of contestation of both the Western thought and philosophy as a meta-narrative of the origins that brings together these three philosophers, a contestation or deconstruction that is carried out… from a purely internal point of view toward Western thought.8 It is worth mentioning also that scholars in the Global South have been addressing issues such as the provincialization of Europe9 and epistemologies from their own domains. For them, people from the Global South are not simply victims of a system, but should instead be seen as subjects and bearers of both the speech (la parole) and culture (une culture autre) worthy of consideration. Works of scholars such as Said (1935–2003),10 Mudimbe,11 Bhabha,12 Mbembe,13 to mention but a few, are illuminating in this respect. Additionally, this line of critique extends to the epistemological turn in cultural studies, particularly in black diasporic studies.14 As regards black diasporic studies, for example, new researchers privilege alternative approaches to culture in denouncing postulates of cultural purity and biological determinism. They reject the naturalization of differences and they support the idea of multiple affiliations.15 They highlight the advent of hybrid cultures and new identities. For them, the idea of identity refers to a changing construct. In this respect, Awondo observes that

Negotiating African Identity  35 Following Stuart Hall, [Paul Gilroy] shows that there is no culture that is specifically African, American, Caribbean, but rather all of this at the same time, it is the “black Atlantic culture” whose themes, techniques and uses transcend ethnicity and nationality to create a new entity.16 The literature of black African diaspora is recognized as a privileged field where Afropolitanist thought is expressed.17 It should be noted that the interest in African literature on identity started even before globalization. Creative writers such as Kane,18 and Achebe,19 for example, testify to this concern. Most of them find it somewhat difficult to live between two cultures at the same time. So, they engaged in a search for African authenticity, claiming nostalgia for African (pre-colonial) culture that they perceive as the symbol of cultural purity. Opposing that, Afropolitan creative writers focus on cultural pluralism and hybridity. As Pucherová has observed, the difference between colonial, post-colonial novels, and Afropolitan ones consists in considering [that] Africa and the West are no longer seen in stark binary opposition to each other. Instead, they are perceived as part of one world, complementary rather than in irreconcilable cultural conflict, operating with the same or similar references, world views and values.20 As I have already mentioned elsewhere,21 globalization affects our economic, political, social, and cultural life. It is perceived according to two opposite perspectives. On the one hand, it is viewed as a threat to cultural diversity. Protagonists of this postulate maintain that globalization implies homogenization of cultures according to the dominant paradigm. They regard the cultural model of the USA, for example, as being the strongest, and subsequently as something that swallows up weaker cultures. On the other hand, various thinkers regard globalization as favorable to the emergence of cultural pluralism, with multiple consequences, including the awakening of a variety of types of nationalism. In sum, I argue that even though it was only recently established, the concept of Afropolitanism is not rootless. It relies on a complex set of theories and debates regarding shifts in cultural theory and regarding African peculiarity.

3.2 Framing the Concept of Afropolitanism Authorship of this word is variously attributed to Taiye Selasi22 and Achille Mbembe.23 The former turns to the newer generation of African emigrants to sketch her perception of Afropolitanism, while the latter relies on the moving reality of African continent to do so. This initial impetus has been enriched by various commentaries, critiques, and new

36  Albert Kasanda theoretical proposals.24 Without ignoring this set of contributions, I will concentrate on Selasi’s and Mbembe’s respective proposals, as both of them are recognized as the founders of this concept. 3.2.1 Selasi and Afropolitanism Taiye Selasi is a well-known black British writer of Ghanaian-NigerianScottish descent.25 In 2005 she published an article titled “Bye-bye Babar” in which she sketched a “border-defying, liminal perception of her generation,”26 which she described as Afropolitan. She sheds light on a perception of African identity that values both African cultural diversity and complexity. For her, this perception stands as a critique of paradigms that simplify African identity. She notes that What distinguishes this lot and its like… is a willingness to complicate Africa—namely, to engage with, critique, and celebrate the parts of Africa that means most to them. Perhaps what most typifies the Afropolitan consciousness is the refusal to oversimplify; the effort to understand what is ailing in Africa alongside the desire to honor what is wonderful, unique… We seek to comprehend the cultural complexity.27 This self-consciousness implies a paradoxical experience that consists of embracing cultural diversity, and subsequently promoting cultural hybridity. Through this postulate, Selasi supports the predominance of the multiple over the one. For her, identity is not reducible to the convergence of the identical; it is a matter of pluralism and diversity. Describing her Thursday-night experience at Medicine Bar in London, she notes: The whole scene speaks of the Cultural Hybrid… Were you to ask of these beautiful, brown-skinned people that basic question—where are you from?—you’d get no single answer from a single smiling dancer… Home for this lot is many things: where their parents are from; where they go for vacation; where they went to school; where they see old friends… They belong to no single geography, but feel at home in many.28 The quote cited here insists on the idea of multiple affiliations. Afropolitans have several anchors, including nations, races, and cultures. The idea of nation, for Selasi, applies to both the nation-state and to habitat. For her, home seems disconnected from geography. Without enjoying an aptitude for ubiquity, Afropolitans nevertheless belong to several communities at a time—imagined communities and the real ones—to make use of Anderson’s expression.29 In addition to that, the

Negotiating African Identity  37 Afropolitan is an active agent making significant choices for his or her self. Selasi herself observed: the Afropolitan must form an identity along at least three dimensions—national, racial, cultural—with subtle tensions in between. While our parents can claim one country as a home, we must define our relationship to places we live;… Often unconsciously, and over time, we choose which bits of national identity… we internalize as central to our personalities.30 From the same perspective, it can be observed that Selasi describes the Afropolitan as being tied to both Africa and Europe. She insists that this position does not imply a reality that is torn between both continents, but instead to something that refers to a harmonious experience of social integration and a successful professional career. In this respect, she reminds us that there is at least one place on the African continent to which Afropolitans attach a sense of self: be it a nation-state (Ethiopia), a city (Ibadan), or an aunt’s kitchen. Then there is the G8 city or two (or three) that we know like the backs of our hands.31 The idea of race is also fundamental to Afropolitan theory. Selasi uses this concept to reject racist rhetoric, biological determinism, and nativistinspired ways of thinking. She considers race to be a “political matter” that calls for an open debate regarding the ability of human beings to live together while being different. I agree with this intuition as it applies to societies that are beset by multiple cleavages, including political, ethnic, economic, and religious diversity. I argue that the human condition is not reducible to skin color. It depends on both our mutual recognition and our political decision to “set up a society” (faire société).32 In this respect, Selasi observes that So, too, the way we see our race—whether black or biracial or none of the above—is a question of politics, rather than pigment; not all of us claim to be black…Finally how we conceive of race will accord with where we locate ourselves in the history that produced “blackness” and the political processes that continue to shape it.33 Culture is also part of Afropolitan consciousness. For Selasi, one must decide what is meaningful to oneself according to the context in which one evolves. She seems to take issue with essentialist views of culture where culture represents a reality that is defined once and forever and that remains valid regardless of changes of space and time—that is, the historical experience of human beings. She notes that Then there is that deep abyss of Culture, ill-defined at best. One must decide what comprises “African culture” beyond pepper soup and

38  Albert Kasanda filial piety. The project can be utterly baffling—whether one lives in an African country or not. But the process is enriching, in that it expands one’s basic perspective on nation and selfhood. If nothing else, the Afropolitan knows that nothing is neatly black or white: that to be anything is a matter of being sure of who you are uniquely.34 Finally, who can concretely benefit from such a self-consciousness? Following Ede,35 I note that Selasi’s approach to Afropolitanism addresses first and foremost the newer generation of African emigrants, i.e., the “new African diaspora, that is, the one which possesses a global geospatial and cultural mobility—and black metropolitan agency.”36 On this basis, Selasi sketches the following identity manifesto, writing: [W]e are Afropolitans—the newest generation of African emigrants… You’ll know us by our funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics, and academic successes. Some of us are ethnic mixes,… others merely cultural mutts: American accent, European affect, African ethos. Most of us are multilingual: in addition to English and a Romantic or two, we understand some indigenous tongue and speak a few urban vernaculars… We are Afropolitans: not citizens, but Africans of the world.37 This view led to various critiques regarding neglected areas within Selasi’s approach. Works by creative writers such as Adichie,38 Atta,39 Eze,40 Santana,41 to mention but a few, can be viewed as illustrative in this respect. They denounce consumerism, the elitist propensity of Afropolitan protagonists, and their neglect of social justice.42 I personally support the constructive aspect of these critiques; they help in setting up a realistic African self-perception that responds to the current challenges facing Africa. I think that the ideas of cultural diversity and mixture are important features to be considered, because neither people nor cultures live in a vacuum. We are all interconnected and our lives depend both on exchanges and on mutual recognition. 3.2.2 Mbembe and Afropolitanism Mbembe used the concept of Afropolitanism for the first time as the title of a column published simultaneously in a local Cameroonian magazine named Le Messager (Douala) and the Senegalese journal Sud Quotidien (Dakar) in December of 2000.43 This piece was taken up and disseminated on a large scale by the magazine Africultures shortly thereafter.44 The success of this paper relies less on the neologism of its title than on its innovative content concerning African self-perception in a globalized and multipolar world. However, it should be kept in mind that this paper does not emerge ex nihilo. It takes up a range of premises already analyzed by Mbembe in

Negotiating African Identity  39 some of his previous publications, including his programmatic paper “The African Modes of Self-writing”45 and his book On the Postcolony,46 to mention but a few. He defines Afropolitanism as an African way of being and inhabiting the world. This mode of being is characterized by a range of traits, including a lack of borders, cultural interconnection, cultural intermixture, and an embrace of the foreign, to mention but a few. For him, this spirit always characterized Africa. In this respect, he notes that [Afropolitanism is] our way of being in the world, our way of “beingworld,” of inhabiting the world—all of this has always been achieved through cultural mixing, at least of the intertwining of the worlds, in a slow and sometimes incoherent dance with signs that we hardly and freely chose, but that we have managed, as best we could, to domesticate and put at our service.47 This quote informs about the starting point of Mbembe’s analysis. Mbembe relies on the history of Africa as a whole. For him, this history is hardly understandable without taking into consideration dynamics such as people’s mobility and multiplicities of affiliations. Those factors shaped African pre-colonial communities over time. Mbembe subsumes this experience through the expression of “worlds in movement” (la circulation des mondes). Standing on this premise, Mbembe regards African pre-colonial communities as being nomadic and unhindered by borders or other man-made obstacles. This state of things allowed different actors to play multiple roles and to move according to their own needs and professional interests. In this context, identities and cultures are not static realities48; on the contrary, these results are shaped by mutual collision, concatenation, and superposition. As Mbembe himself notes In fact, African pre-colonial history was, most of the time, a process of people constantly moving across the continent. It is a process of cultures in collision, locked into the maelstrom of wars, invasions, migrations, mixed marriages, diverse religions that one makes their own, techniques that are exchanged, and goods that are being distributed. The cultural history of the continent is hardly understandable outside of the paradigm of homelessness, mobility, and displacement.49 The notion of “worlds in movement” develops according to two opposite trends, namely those of dispersion and of immersion. The former applies to the mobility of African people inside the continent as well as to their exportation out of Africa. Mbembe thinks that this movement did not end up with the abolition of slavery and the triangular trade. Rather, for him, it continues up to our modern day through large-scale migration due to a variety of social, political, and economic circumstances. The latter, in

40  Albert Kasanda contrast, refers to the fact that various minorities from different parts of the world took up residence in Africa. Examples include Afrikaners, and people from India, Syria, and Lebanon who, after having settled in Africa for a long time, can also claim their own African-ness. Mbembe observes that [The] immersion constitutes the other aspect of this circulation of worlds. It applies, at varying degrees, to minorities who came from afar and have settled in the continent.50 The effect of this “worlds in movement” theory consists of a double statement. On the one hand, Mbembe stands out from the logic defining African identity exclusively by the color of skin; and on the other hand, he maintains that an idea of hybridity is formative of identities at global level. In doing so, Mbembe denounces the attitude establishing an equivalence between Africa as a geographical entity and black people. For him, if the majority of Africans are black, that implies neither that all black people are African nor that all African people are black. There are black African, but also white African people. Skin color is one matter and another is one’s self-perception. For Mbembe, the terms “Africa” and “black” are not synonymous with each other. It would be a reductionist and truncated attitude to make them coincide. I share this way of qualifying things. I think that the idea of Africa applies geographically to a continent whose history is full of twists and turns,51 while the concept of black evokes a different narrative, particularly the tragedy of racial discrimination and exploitation.52 Secondly, Mbembe regards cultural collision and imbrication as shaping the Afropolitan approach to the world. He argues for the predominance of cultural hybridity.53 This statement makes clear that, for him, African identity is far from being a homogenous reality, or a kind of “unique and unifying metaphysical substance”54 that is supposed to be the same all over the continent despite the individual trajectories of every African person and institution. As has already been observed concerning Selasi’s approach to African identity, I can note that Mbembe also asserts the triumph of the multiple over one, the rule of change over permanence. My view is that it would be erroneous to perceive African identity in terms of the principle of cultural purity and the duplication of the same. To think in this way would imply supporting fundamentalist theories including, for example, xenophobia, supremacism, and nativism, to mention but a few. 3.2.3 African Aesthetics and Sensibilities For Mbembe, the term Afropolitanism refers to the way in which Africa inhabits the world, communicating and negotiating with it. This process relies on a double consciousness, which is embodied in the already

Negotiating African Identity  41 mentioned principle of “worlds in movement” and the notion of hybridity. On this basis, I can point out that Mbembe is fully aware that Africa is neither an autarkic entity nor a microcosm called to live in isolation. He views Africa as part of a wider world made up of various cultures and people. This world is present in Africa through various historical processes including, for example, colonization, political domination, and economic exploitation. In turn, Africa is in the world thanks to processes such as migratory flux as well as economic and cultural exchanges, to mention but a few. This double movement brings to mind the two kinds of movement characterizing the principle of “worlds in movement”—the dynamics of dispersion and of immersion. These dynamics better express this peculiarity while recognizing what is foreign (alterity), assuming its presence and accepting its contribution to new entanglements and ways of imagining African identity. In this respect, Mbembe observes that The consciousness of this intertwining between both the here and the elsewhere, the presence of the elsewhere in the here and vice versa, this kind of moderation of the primary roots and identities and this way of supporting, knowingly, the strange, the foreign, and the distant, the capacity to recognize his face in the face of the foreigner and to value the traces of the distant in the near, to domesticate the unfamiliar, to work with what seems to be opposite—it is this cultural, historical, and aesthetic sensibility that the term “Afropolitanism” expresses.55 3.2.4 Afropolitanism as the Expression of African Modernity As already mentioned, for Mbembe, people’s mobility and cultural diversity are part of the pre-colonial African mindset. This mentality survived Africa’s division between colonial powers and the subsequent establishment of national borders. It is still active today and catalyzes the economies of African cities such as Dakar, Nairobi, and Johannesburg. For Mbembe, those cities are spaces that are emblematic of the circulation of people and cultures. More than that, they are spheres where alternative African self-perception is continuously being negotiated. They somehow are spaces where African modernity is being created. Mbembe formulates this idea as follows: A limited number of [African] metropolises can be viewed as “Afropolitan.” In West Africa, Dakar and Abidjan played this role during the second half of the twentieth century… In Eastern Africa, Nairobi was the business centre and the regional headquarters of several international institutions. But the center of excellence of Afropolitanism is, today, Johannesburg, South Africa. In this

42  Albert Kasanda metropolis, forged through the iron of a brutal history, an unpublished type of African modernity is developing.56 This quote draws attention to Mbembe’s perception of African modernity and its relationship with Afropolitanism. It would be worth examining the peculiarity of this concept of modernity in comparison to Western approaches. In other words, the question at stake is to determine precisely whether there is any added value in speaking of African modernity. In case the answer is “yes,” what would such a statement imply? At first, it is worth keeping in mind that Mbembe’s approach counts among Africa’s more rigorous critiques of modernity.57 He regards (Western) modernity as the expression of a project of unlimited Western expansion that is based on both the discrimination and the exclusion of non-Western people. Standing on categories such as reason and race, this project denied the status of being human to African and other non-Western people. Mbembe observes that Modernity is… just another name for the European project of unlimited expansion undertaken in the final years of the eighteenth century… Given the technical development, military conquests, commerce, and propagation of Christianity that marked the period, Europe exercised a properly despotic power that one can exercise only outside of one’s own borders and over people with whom one assumes one has nothing in common.58 Following Lynn Thomas,59 I note that the concept of (Western) modernity ushered in dark times for both black people and the African continent. It can be viewed as the starting point as regards the legitimization of the suffering, hatred, want of recognition, and the subsequent denial of the humanity of black people. Thomas recapitulates the main features of this concept as follows: Africa has long been foundational to discussions of the modern. For many Enlightenment thinkers, “Negroes” embodied the antithesis of modern reason. In the nineteenth century, Georg Hegel posited Africa as outside of “universal history.” Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud ironically deployed “fetish,” a term developed by European travellers and traders to gloss West Africans’ seemingly irrational beliefs, to diagnose the ills of modern life. In a somewhat more positive vein, Pablo Picasso, at the height of Europe’s imperial conquest of the continent, found inspiration for his modern art in “primitive” African sculpture… Throughout, popular discourses generated by imperial and international reformers, politicians, and journalists tended to figure Africa as the inverse of all things modern: a bastion of backwardness, or at best, tradition.60

Negotiating African Identity  43 Mbembe proposes an alternative paradigm of modernity that matches African aesthetics and sensitivity while also appearing able to face challenges of globalization. He notes that This modernity has very little to do with what is known up to now. It is anchored in multiple racial heritages, a vibrant economy, a liberal democracy, and a consumerist culture that participates directly in globalization. An ethic of tolerance able is able to revive African aesthetic and creativity unlike Harlem and New Orleans in the United States.61 The debate on modernity is so broad and complex that it cannot be exhausted within the framework of this analysis. To be brief, I personally share Mbembe’s concern for an alternative concept of modernity that should be shaped by principles of inclusion and tolerance and be founded on a shared struggle for everyone’s excellence. I argue that Afropolitanism is still in process as a theory of African identity. As such, it can be viewed as a perfectible paradigm that has to learn from the errors of previous theories regarding African identity and self-determination, e.g., pan-Africanism, negritude, authenticity, African Renaissance, to name but a few.

3.3 Negritude as a Discourse of African Identity The founding fathers of negritude perceived it as being concerned with the rehabilitation of black people’s cultural values, with identity, and with emancipation.62 For Senghor, for example, negritude expresses consciousness of being oneself/being authentic. This awareness arose in the situation of despair, contempt, and powerlessness in which the founding fathers of this line of thought were restricted and without any alternative than to free themselves from loaned articles of assimilation and to assert their own being. This consciousness brings to the fore the question as to what precisely makes up the peculiarity of black people. Subsequently, it calls attention to how this singularity negotiates its relationship to the world. Concretely, for Senghor, the issue at stake is consciousness of being black along with acceptance and being proud of this fact. His purpose consists in emancipating black people from assimilation and all kinds of alienation. Sartre counts among thinkers who better grasped Senghor’s intuition,63 as he observes: The negro cannot deny that he is a negro nor claim for himself this abstract colorless humanity: he is black. Thus he is cornered with authenticity: insulted, enslaved, he stands up, he picks up the word “negro” that has been thrown at him like a stone, he claims to be black, in front of white, with pride.64

44  Albert Kasanda Pursuing his observation, Sartre notes: As the oppression is based on the race, it is important to be aware of one’s race… This anti-racist racism is the only path that can lead to the abolition of racial differences.65 As will be explained later, Senghor does not fully agree with the way in which Sartre interprets his thinking. For Senghor, negritude is above all consciousness of one’s race. Race—the color of skin—serves as a grid to reading African history. Tragedies such as slavery, colonization, and subsequent economic exploitation can be analyzed on the basis of racial discrimination. The category of race also serves as a mobilizing resource to fight against oppression and to rehabilitate both black people’s authenticity and their pride. In this regard, Senghor develops an idyllic image of Africa that ignores the vicissitudes of the continent. In other words, his perception of African peculiarity is fully essentialist and romanticized. It is with emotion that he describes black beauty, the harmony of the African universe, and the invisible bonds connecting people sharing the same black sensibility.66 Another postulate of Senghor—obviously the most-debated one— consists of his perception of black people as a singularity. Senghor defines black people on the basis of comparison and antagonism with white people. This definition is noticeable, for example, in his poem entitled “Prayer to Masks,” in which black people are described as mystical artists whose task is to contribute to the renaissance of the world through emotion and rhythm, while white people are depicted as creators of world (destructive) technologies. Concluding this poem, Senghor notes that For who else would teach rhythm to the dead world of machines and canons?… They call us cotton heads, and coffee men, and oily men… We [Africans] are dancing people whose feet gain power when they beat the hard soil.67 Senghor expresses even more clearly his perception of black people’s peculiarity through his famous aphorism according to which “emotion is to Negro as reason is to Hellenic.”68 This statement provoked a general outcry among African intelligentsia. Scholars such as Adotevi, for example, holds that By regarding black people as mystic and emotional beings, Senghor’s biologically based perception of black people… impedes all possibility of competition between black people and white people about science and reason… Insofar as black people are like that, they cannot

Negotiating African Identity  45 be considered equal to white people in a world which is regulated according to reason and scientific criteria.69 Senghor replies to this set of critiques as follows: Some… negro intellectuals… have reproached me for having reduced the knowledge of the African negro to pure emotion, and for having denied that the African negro is endowed with reason and technical knowledge. They have read me absent-mindedly… Reason has always existed… The reason of classical Europe is analytic through civilization, the reason of the African negro, intuitive through participation.70 I personally take issue with Senghor’s attitude opposing reason and emotion, as both modes of knowledge and being are inherent in every human being regardless of skin color. The debate on this antagonism uncovers Senghor’s thinking about race and racism. It is worth remembering that Europe was under the deep influence of racist theories during the first half of the last century.71 As was already mentioned, the negritude movement aimed at emancipating black people from racism and domination. In this respect, Sartre’s already-mentioned observation that negritude is both the “anti-racist racism” and the “spearhead of the liberation of black people” should be remembered. As the oppression is based on the race, it is important to be aware of one’s race… This anti-racist racism is the only path that can lead to the abolition of racial differences.72 As has already been suggested, Senghor does not fully agree with this statement. He argues that What then is this Negritude which scares people, which has been presented to you as a new racism?… How would you like us to be racists, we who have been, for centuries, the innocent victims, the black victims of racism? Jean-Paul Sartre is not quite right when, in Black Orpheus, he defines Negritude as “an anti-racist racism,” he is surely right when he presents it as a “certain affective attitude towards the world.”73 It should be noted that Senghor’s attitude appears ambivalent regarding Sartre’s statement. With a little hindsight, a double objective leading Senghor’s attitude can be seen. This objective consists of accepting the idea of race while rejecting racist feeling. Senghor first calls for the recognition of racial diversity and required tolerance. Secondly, he denounces hatred and rejection of other people because of their skin color. Senghor

46  Albert Kasanda makes a distinction between race as a fundamental mode of being human and racism as a discriminatory attitude. In doing so, he stands out from the racist discourse of his time. Paradoxically, on the basis of his passion for authenticity’s black people, Senghor made such extensive use of the concept of race that he created an inextricable mess. Through his poetry and theoretical work, he used this concept to refer to a variety of targets including, for example, physical qualities, moral virtues, aesthetic traits, ethnic groups, literature, social class, and biological mixture, to mention but a few. Ouattara notes that in his poetic work and even more in his theoretical works, [Senghor] makes abundant use of the notion of race and its derivatives: “race is a reality,” “race with its physical qualities,” “the purity of the race,” “the ethnic group is the race,” “pure negroes,” “the race of Saba,” “black race,” “the race, daughter of geography and history,” “Blood, land, land,” “the most racial literature,” “the whole peasant race,” “immortal race,” “noble must have been your race,” “mixed blood.”74 Concern for identity and cultural intersections remains at the heart of Senghor’s thought. He articulates this worry through his famous expressions of “cultural interbreeding” and “civilization of the universal.” Senghor relies on a double postulate to address the issue. On the one hand, he supports the idea of complementarity between Europeans and negros— African civilizations. On the other hand, he sets forth the principle of nonassimilation. For him, Africa and Europe are linked by an umbilical cord fating them to promote a world without racism. Both civilizations are called upon to contribute to establish a cultural symbiosis of humanity, each according to its own skills. This symbiosis does not imply the annihilation of stakeholders. On the contrary, it is an invitation for each civilization to highlight its originality in overcoming the imperfection of the current world. Senghor describes the duty of every civilization as follows: Now while the Africa of empires is dying… Just like Europe to whom we are connected through the Sea… We may be present at the rebirth of the world Like the leaven that the white flour needs. Who else would teach rhythm to the dead world of machines and canons?… Who else could give back to desperate people the memory of life?75 Relying on this part of Senghor’s poem, my view is that Senghor’s concept of interbreeding by no means addresses the interweaving of cultures and civilizations. Rather, he affirms the persistence of singular cultural roots and their participation in a common duty to set up a new (cultural)

Negotiating African Identity  47 world in which everyone remains as the same as before the encounter. That means no assimilation, no change at all. Senghor’s approach reveals two things. First, I note a kind of static and almost purist concept of the negro, of African culture. Second, I observe here the persistence of antagonism between cultures and civilizations. I argue that this way of thinking can be viewed as being unable to process to new emerging social, political, and cultural configurations. It can be seen as insensitive to the challenges currently facing Africa. My argument is that criticisms raised by supporters of Afropolitanism about the relevance of negritude for our time can be explained on this basis. The following section of the chapter analyzes convergences and divergencies between Afropolitanism and negritude in their respective approaches to African identity.

3.4 Convergencies and Divergencies 3.4.1 A Mutual Concern From the outset, it is worth keeping in mind that Afropolitanism and negritude’s protagonists have the same concern: Africa. The two approaches struggle for its proper perception, identity, and balanced relationship with the world. What does the idea of Africa refer to for each one of them? To support a comparative exploration, I turn to Mbembe’s definition of Africa according to which The term “Africa” generally points to a physical and geographic fact—a continent. But the geographic fact of Africa in turn signifies not only a state of things but a collection of attributes and properties—and a racial condition.76 As has already been mentioned, negritude first appeared in the 1930s, in the context of colonial exploitation and cultural domination of black people. Following Senghor’s version of this movement, I have pointed out that this theory insists on awareness of being black, acceptance of this fact, and struggle for the rehabilitation of the values and cultures of black people. In other words, the quest for negro-African authenticity constitutes its basic concern. Following Boele van Hensbroek,77 I note that the negritude supports both the beauty and unity of the African mode as being in opposition to the Western mode. Negritude is concerned with defining and enhancing blackness from a very essentialist perspective.78 Most of Senghor’s poetry and his theoretical works concentrate on this purpose. Mabana attests the following about Senghor’s poetry: In his poetry, Senghor proclaims with intense emotion the idyllic Africa, the black beauty, the harmony of the African universe,

48  Albert Kasanda the invisible bonds common to all peoples sharing the same black sensibility.79 The idea of Afropolitanism appeared early at the beginning of the 21st century. This era has been marked by the electronic revolution which has enabled people’s mobility as well as quicker and more intense communication between cultures. The process of globalization is credited with two opposing trends of thought—the homogenization of cultures and the exacerbation of cultural pluralism. This context allows the emergence of new configurations calling for new approaches to African self-perception. Like defenders of negritude, protagonists of Afropolitanism are concerned with defining the essence of African people amidst the present era of globalization. Works by Selasi and Mbembe that have already been mentioned here shed light on the complexity of African identity. They subsume this consciousness through the concept of hybridity. Selasi dissects it on basis of the experience of younger African emigrants in the West, while Mbembe explores it on basis of his “worlds in circulation” principle. In sum, I argue that both the negritude and Afropolitanism are concerned with the quest for African peculiarity. Even if both trends have concentrated on different modes of self-affirmation—searching for African authenticity and for hybrid identity respectively—I think that they are still perfectible insofar as identity is far from being a static reality, but is rather an endless process. The era of globalization calls for new configurations and challenges.80 3.4.2 Worldview Relying on his experience as a black student in Paris in the 1930s, Senghor believes that it was this time when he discovered that the Western world was imperfect, being based on racial discrimination and exploitation. Contempt for Negro-African values and cultures also characterized this world. Subsequently, black people were required to assimilate to the dominant and Western culture. Senghor was so shocked by this world such that he set up an opposing African worldview, which, according to him, is made of harmony and beauty. This project of self-assertion and cultural rehabilitation punctuates whole of his work. Art constituted one of his preferred means to express such a view. In this respect, Diagne attests that The question of art was not of purely academic interest but was embedded in the context of the colonial negation, in which access to freedom had the very concrete sense of the affirmation of the equal dignity of all cultures, thus removing all legitimacy from imperial domination.81

Negotiating African Identity  49 Senghor’s poem, “Prayer to Masks,” already mentioned here, reveals an antagonistic and totalizing worldview. On the one hand, Senghor evokes the world of white people, which is dominated by both reason and technology; and, on the other hand, he mentions the Negro-African world, which is marked by emotion and rhythm. For Senghor, both worlds are connected by a mystical link and subsequently they are fated to evolve together towards a cultural symbiosis.82 Senghor’s postulate concerning the complementarity of cultures and civilizations constitutes the background of his project regarding the “civilization of the universal,” which, according to his own view, will be a common or shared work of all races and civilizations—or will not be.83 Hybridization is, for Senghor, a sign of freedom and of overcoming the divisions ruling the world. But his theory of hybridization turns out to be ambiguous, and thus it is difficult to articulate with this feature kept in place.84 Two notions of hybridization overlap in Senghor’s thought: biological and cultural. But given the context of the emergence of these intersections of identity and culture, there is seemingly little doubt concerning the applicability of Senghor’s postulate. From a cultural point of view, the mestizo is regarded as a being without roots. The mestizo is described as an assimilate, as a non-authentic being, whose identity appears unfinished. As for the biological mestizo, it should be noted that this person struggles mightily to obtain recognition within any racial community. In this respect, Nouss reminds us that The conditions of emergence of interbreeding would prevent his recognition because he is marred by both imperialist and colonial stigma. The Western world is used to this kind of good conscience.85 Protagonists of Afropolitanism support the idea of a changing and nomadic world. They describe the world as a borderless space, open to the mobility of people and cultures. More than a geographical space, it is a tenacious state of mind that has survived the binds of colonization, including the imposition of national borders through the Berlin Conference (1884–1885). This nomadic world develops according to two principles: exodus and immersion. The nomadic spirit is open to the principle of multiple belongings. It allows what I might call “uprooted identities.”86 These are identities that do not proceed from any kind of Kantian decision, i.e., a metaphysical principle stated outside of time and space, once and forever. They emerge from multiple existential experiences including, for example, exodus, exile, post-exile, and diaspora experiences, to name but a few. Both Mbembe and Selasi’s narratives can be considered as illustrative in this respect. In short, I argue that Senghor supports a holistic and essentialist worldview. For him, the (Western) world is initially an imperfect reality that is marked by racial discrimination and antagonism. For him, every race

50  Albert Kasanda should contribute to changing this world through cultural symbiosis— white people doing this through reason, and black people by means of rhythm and emotion. The notion of culture is central to Senghor’s postulate. It includes many things, but it also pays very little attention to African cultural diversity. As such, Senghor’s approach is far from an idea of culture being a compound of multiple factors, a hybrid and changing construct. 3.4.3 Epistemological Paradigms Relying on ideas developed within negritude as a discourse of identity, my feeling is that this discourse relies on a monocultural epistemological paradigm. This paradigm rests on a double statement: on the one hand, it considers cultural, social, and/or ethnic identities as static and objective data of the social field. As such, and this is my second postulate, these data are viewed as homogenous regardless of the particular time and space in which they might be examined. In other words, this paradigm conceives of identities as being free from all historicity, as a kind of metaphysical substance that ignores all social, political, and economic contexts in which human life develops. Like a tidal wave, this paradigm looms in Senghor’s narrative on negritude. As already noted, Senghor stubbornly defends the idea that emotion constitutes the peculiar character of Negro-African people. He sees rhythm as the essential contribution of black people to the reconstruction of the world that has been degraded by technology of white people. He sets all of this forth without paying much attention to potential for new social and cultural configurations to emerge. Even the advent of “the civilization of the universal” is conditioned on the rejection of assimilation that somehow might lead to the idea of cultural purity. A relevant observation by Diagne allows me to identify the ambiguity of Senghor’s thought, and, subsequently, to re-adjust my opinion concerning Senghor’s essentialism. Diagne recognizes this trait of Senghor’s thought, which he rapidly developed, calling to mind the fluidity of Senghor’s own thought and his back-and-forth strategy. While sharing Diagne’s point of view, I personally insist that a permanent dichotomy characterizes Senghor’s thought. Building on Diagne’s expression, I note that it is precisely not that simple, which is to say that there has never existed, with Senghor in particular, a pure essentialism, all of a piece, to be taken of to be left… Hybridity is always at work deconstructing his essentialist assertions and the Senghorian obsession with mixture is a Penelope ceaselessly making sure to undo fixed differences: “the humanism of hybridity” could very well have been one of the poet’s slogans.87

Negotiating African Identity  51 The narratives that both Selasi and Mbembe present concerning Afropolitanism rest on a multicultural view of identity and value systems. For defenders of this paradigm, every identity—including African identity—does not fall from the sky. It is a result of historical development—the political and/or economic choices of the entities concerned. Identity is hardly an effect of a metaphysical decree. As such, it develops through continuous interactions between cultures. The postulate of existential experience—be it related to exodus, exile, and/or other existential contexts—contributes to freeing this paradigm from the tyranny of essentialism. I argue that the discourses on Afropolitanism analyzed here rely on a multicultural epistemological paradigm. Selasi and Mbembe employ their existential experience to approach African identity. The former refers to the phenomenon of African migration in G8 countries, while the latter develops the principle of “worlds in movement.” For both thinkers, as a moving reality, African peculiarity is an issue of permanent negotiation, since it involves a variety of parameters including, for example, time and space, economy, politics, ethnicity, and culture, to mention but a few.

3.5 Conclusion I would like to conclude this reflection with the point that should have been the beginning, namely Mbembe’s observation that “Afropolitanism is not the same thing as Pan-Africanism or Negritude.”88 This statement accompanied every step of my exploration of the similarities and differences between Afropolitanism and negritude. Concluding this analysis, I note that both theories face the same challenge, i.e., defining what African identity is today. They both struggle to shed light on what negroAfrican peculiarity is made of amidst the current era of globalization. In my opinion, simply conceiving of such a topic in terms of both sides already constitutes an important point of convergence, even if differing prospects for response result. My analysis of African identity in light Afropolitanism relied on the narratives of both Selasi and Mbembe. Beyond their different starting points and respective points of emphasis, both thinkers shed light on principles of cultural mobility, hybridity, and multiple affiliations, to mention but a few. For each of them, African identity is far from being a metaphysical substance; instead, it is a continuously negotiated process regarding an African way of being in and relating to the world. My approach to negritude focused on Senghor’s theory. For him, negritude is awareness of being black and the determination to embrace this fact. He conceives of the particular character of Africans in terms of opposition to white people. For him, black people distinguish themselves from white people through both emotion and rhythm. White people define themselves by both reason and technology. I have argued that

52  Albert Kasanda Senghor relies on a monocultural epistemological paradigm and that he perceives African identity as a reality that is defined once and forever as a kind of essence. Coming back to my initial question, I note that, for both Afropolitanism and negritude, the search for African identity is not an end in and of itself. Beyond this quest there is a supreme claim of equal human dignity. As Ana Julia Cooper wrote: The cause of freedom is not a cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class—it is the cause of humankind, the very birth right of humanity.89 Facing this objective, I argue that both lines of thought analyzed here are still perfectible. They both need a permanent critical renewal to face globalization’s challenges regarding African identity.

Notes 1 Albert Kasanda, Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy. Trends, Debates and Challenges (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 128–133. 2 Cf. Taiye Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” The Lip Magazine (2005). 3 Cf. Achille Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” Africultures (2005). 4 Cf. Jean-Lou Amselle, L’Occident décroché. Enquête sur les postcolonialismes (Paris: Stock, 2008). 5 Cf. Paul Gilroy, Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 6 Cf. Suzanne Gehrmann, “Cosmopolitanism with African Roots. Afropolitanism’s Ambivalent Mobilities,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 28, no. 1 (2016). 7 Amselle, L’Occident décroché. Enquête sur les postcolonialismes, 171. 8 Amselle, L’Occident décroché. Enquête sur les postcolonialismes, 231. (Author’s translation. Emphasis added). 9 Cf. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2007). 10 Cf. Edward Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (London: Penguin Classics, 2003). 11 Cf. Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988). 12 Cf. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2007. 13 Cf. Achille Mbembe, De la postcolonie. Essai sur l’imagination politique dans l’Afrique contemporaine (Paris: Karthala, 2000). 14 Albert Bastenier, “Provincialiser l’Europe,” La revue nouvelle 7-8 (2010); Armand Mattelart and Erik Neveu, Introduction aux Cultural Studies (Paris: La Découverte, 2003), 54-59. 15 Cf. Bastenier, “Provincialiser l’Europe,” 2010. 16 Patrick Awondo, “L’afropolitanisme en débat.” Politique africaine 136 (2014): 108. (Author’s translation). 17 Gehrmann, “Cosmopolitanism with African Roots: Afropolitanism’s Ambivalent Mobilities,” 61.

Negotiating African Identity  53 18 Cf. Hamidou Kane, C. L’aventure ambigue (Paris: Union Générale de l’édition, 2003). 19 Cf. Chinua Achebe, Le monde s’éffondre (Paris: Présence Africaine, 2000). 20 Dobrota Pucherová, “Afropolitan Narratives and Empathy: Migrants identities in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Sefi Atta’s a Bit of Difference,” Human Affairs 28, (2018): 410. 21 Kasanda, Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy: Trends, Debates and Challenge, 129-140. 22 Cf. Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 23 Cf. Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. 24 See special issue of Journal of African Cultural Studies 28, no. 1 (2016). Also, see Jennifer Wawrzinek and J.K.S. Makokha, Negotiating Afropolitanism: Essays on Borders and Spaces in Contemporary African Literature and Folklore (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2011). 25 Gehrmann, “Cosmopolitanism with African Roots. Afropolitanism’s Ambivalent Mobilities,” 62. 26 Amatoritsero Ede, “Afropolitan Genealogies,” African Diaspora 2 (2018): 36. 27 Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 28 Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 29 Cf. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, New York: Verso, 2006). 30 Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 31 Cf. Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 32 Cf. Hannah Arendt, La condition de l’homme moderne (Paris: Pocket, 1994). 33 Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 34 Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 35 Cf. Ede, “Afropolitan Genealogies,”2018. 36 Ede, “Afropolitan Genealogies,” 37. 37 Selasi, “Bye Bye Babar,” 2005. 38 Cf. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (New York: Random House, 2013). 39 Sefi Atta, A Bit of Difference (Northampton: Interlink Books, 2013), 11. 40 Chielozona Eze, “Rethinking African Culture and Identity: The Afropolitan Model,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 24, no. 2 (2014): 114–119. 41 Stephanie Bosch Santana, “Exorcizing the Future: Afropolitanism’s Spectral Origins,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 28, no. 1 (2016): 122. 42 Emma Dabiri, “Why I Am (still) Not Afropolitan,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 28, no. 1 (2016): 104–108. 43 Cf. Achille Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” Africultures. Les Modes en Relation (2005) 44 Cf. Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. 45 Achille Mbembe, “African Modes of Self-Writing,” Public Culture 14, no. 1 (2002): 239–273. 46 Cf. Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony: Studies on the History of Society and Culture (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2001). 47 Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. Author’s translation. 48 Adeshina Afolayan, “African Philosophy, Afropolitanism, and Africa,” in The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 397. 49 Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. Author’s translation. 50 Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. Author’s translation. 51 Cf. Achille Mbembe, Critique de la raison negre (Paris: La Découverte, 2013).

54  Albert Kasanda 52 Christian Delacampagne, Une histoire du racisme (Paris: Librairie générale francaise, 2000), 132–139. 53 Cf. Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. 54 Godefroid Bidima, La philosophie négro-africaine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1985), 3. 55 Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. Author’s translation. 56 Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. Author’s translation. 57 Cf. Mbembe, Critique de la raison negre, 54–55. 58 Mbembe, Critique de la raison negre, 54. 59 Lynn Thomas, “Modernity’s Failings. Political Claims, and Intermediate Concepts,” American Historical Review 116, no. 3 (2011): 727. 60 Thomas, “Modernity’s Failings. Political Claims, and Intermediate Concepts,” 727. 61 Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” 2005. Author’s translation. 62 Léopold Sédar Senghor, Liberté 3. Négritude et civilisation de l’universel (Paris: Seuil, 1977), 90. Author’s translation. For further comments on negritude’s genesis and trends, see: Dismas A. Masolo, African Philosophy in Search of Identity (Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994), 15. 63 Cf. Bennetta Jules-Rosette, “Jean-Paul Sartre and the Philosophy of Négritude: Race, Self, and Society,” Theory and Society 36, no. 3 (2007). 64 Jean-Paul Sartre, “Orphée noir,” in Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie negre et malgache de langue française (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), xiv. Author’s translation. 65 Sartre, “Orphée noir,” XIV. Author’s translation. 66 Kahiudi Claver Mabana, “Léopold Sédar Senghor et la civilisation de l’universel,” Diogene 3–4, no. 235–236 (2011), 4. 67 Léopold Sédar Senghor, Poemes (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964), 23. Author’s translation. 68 Cf. Léopold Sédar Senghor, Liberté I. Négritude et humanisme (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964). 69 Stanislas Spero Adotevi, Négritude et négrologues (Paris: Le Castor Astral, 1998). Author’s translation. 70 Léopold Sédar Senghor, “On Negrohood: Psychology of the African Negro,” in African Philosophy. Selected Readings (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995), 121. Author’s translation. 71 Delacampagne, Une histoire du racisme, 157–174. 72 Sartre, “Orphée noir,” XIV. Author’s translation. 73 Senghor, Liberté I. Négritude et humanisme, 316. Author’s translation. 74 Bourahima Ouattara, “Senghor, lecteur de Barrès,” Études de lettres 2 (2017): 123. Author’s translation. 75 Senghor, Poemes, 23. Author’s translation. 76 Achille Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2017), 48–49. 77 Pieter Boele van Hensbroek, African Political Philosophy, 1860-1995: An Inquiry through Three Families of Discourse (Groningen: Centre for Development Studies, University of Groningen, 1998), 159. 78 Kasanda, Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy: Trends, Debates and Challenges, 49. 79 Mabana, “Léopold Sédar Senghor et la civilisation de l’universel,” 4. Author’s translation. 80 Souleymane Bachir Diagne, African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude (London, New York and Calcutta: Rosalind C. Morris, 2011), 188.

Negotiating African Identity  55 81 Diagne, African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude, 187. 82 Mabana, “Léopold Sédar Senghor et la civilisation de l’universel,” 5. 83 Senghor, Liberté 3. Négritude et civilisation de l’universel, 9. Author’s translation. 84 Mabana, “Léopold Sédar Senghor et la civilisation de l’universel,” 10. 85 Alexis Nouss, Plaidoyer pour un monde métis (Paris: Les éditions Textuel, 2005), 95. Author’s translation. 86 Nouss, Plaidoyer pour un monde métis, 95–113. 87 Diagne, African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude, 190. 88 Cf. Mbembe, “Afropolitanisme,” Africultures, 2005. 89 Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2000), 120–121.

Bibliography Achebe, Chinua. Le monde s’éffondre. Translated by M. Ligny. Paris: Présence Africaine, 2000. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. New York: Random House, 2013. Adotevi, Stanislas Spero. Négritude et négrologues. 1970. Reprint. Paris: Le Castor Astral, 1998. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso, 2006. Afolayan, Adeshina. “African Philosophy, Afropolitanism, and Africa.” In The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, 391–403. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Amselle, Jean-Lou. L’Occident décroché: Enquête sur les postcolonialismes. Paris: Stock, 2008. Arendt, Hannah. La condition de l’homme moderne. Translated by G. Fradier. Paris: Pocket, 1994. Atta, Sefi. A Bit of Difference. Northampton: Interlink Books, 2013. Awondo, Patrick. “L’afropolitanisme en débat.” Politique africaine 136, 105–119. 2014. Bastenier, Albert. “Provincialiser l’Europe.” La revue nouvelle 7–8 (2010): 48–59. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Bidima, Godefroid. La philosophie négro-africaine. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1985. Boele van Hensbroek, Pieter. African Political Philosophy, 1860–1995: An Inquiry through Three Families of Discourse. Groningen: Centre for Development Studies, University of Groningen, 1998. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincialiser l’Europe. La pensée postcoloniale et la différence historique, Paris and Amsterdam: Editions Amsterdam, 2009. Cooper, Anna Julia. A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South. 1892. Reprint. Electronic Edition, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2000. Dabiri, Emma. “Why I Am (still) Not Afropolitan.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 28, no. 1 (2016): 104–108.

56  Albert Kasanda Delacampagne, Christian. Une histoire du racisme. Paris: Librairie générale francaise, 2000. Diagne, Souleymane Bachir. African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude. Translated by Chike Jeffers. London, New York and Calcutta: Rosalind C. Morris, 2011. Ede, Amatoritsero. “Afropolitan Genealogies.” African Diaspora 2 (2018): 35–52. Eze, Chielozona. “Rethinking African Culture and Identity: The Afropolitan Model.” African Journal of Cultural Studies 26, no. 2 (2014): 234–247. Gehrmann, Suzanne. “Cosmopolitanism with African Roots: Afropolitanism’s Ambivalent Mobilities.” Journal of African Cultural Studies, 1, no. 28, 61–72. 2016. Gilroy, Paul. Black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Gyssel, Katleen. “Sartre postcolonial? Relire Orphée noir plus d’un demi-siècle après.” Cahiers d’études africaines 179–180 (2005): 631–650. Accessed November 4, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.14952. Hamidou Kane, Cheik. L’aventure ambiguë. Paris: Union générale d’édition, 2003. Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. “Jean-Paul Sartre and the Philosophy of Négritude: Race, Self, and Society.” Theory and Society 36, no. 3 (2007): 265–285. Kasanda, Albert. Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy: Trends, Debates and Challenges. London and New York: Routledge, 2018. Kebede, Messay. “Re-imagining the Philosophy of Decolonization.” In The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, 447–459. Edited by A. Afolayan and T. Falola. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Laye, Camara. L’enfant noir. Paris: Pocket, 2007. Mabana, Kahiudi Claver. “Léopold Sédar Senghor et la civilisation de l’universel.” Diogene, 3–4, no. 235–236 (2011): 3–13. Accessed November 4, 2020. www. cairn.info/revue-diogene-2011-3page-3.htm. Masolo, Dismas A. African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994. Mattelart, Armand and Erik Neveu. Introduction aux Cultural Studies. Paris: La Découverte, 2003. Mbembe, Achille. Critique of Black Reason. Translated by Laurent Dubois. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2017. Mbembe, Achille. Critique de la raison negre. Paris: La Découverte, 2013. Mbembe, Achille. “Afropolitanisme.” Africultures: Les Mondes en Relation. December 25, 2005. Accessed November 7, 2020. http://africultures.com/ afropolitanisme-4248/. Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony: Studies on the History of Society and Culture. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2001. Mbembe, Achille. De la postcolonie. Essai sur l’imagination politique dans l’Afrique contemporaine. Paris: Karthala, 2000. Mudimbe, Valentin-Yves. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988. Nouss, Alexis. Plaidoyer pour un monde métis. Paris: Les éditions Textuel, 2005.

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Part II

Human Being in Times of Displacement

4 The Value of Home in a Global World On Migration and Depopulated Landscapes Bianca Boteva-Richter 4.1 Introduction or the Question of the Meaning of Home “Home,” (Heimat) “homelessness,” “love for home,” or “homesickness” are terms that on the one hand move us deeply and on the other seem to be accessible to us in our everyday life. Are we not all surrounded daily with cultural artefacts that suggest to us (beyond geographical markings) belonging or being excluded from a group, a people or a nation? “Home” is, for philosophy, initially not viewed as an own category due to its factuality, and it is mainly perceived and used as a social-cultural phenomenon, a political problem, a literary tableau. But even if it does not seem to represent a philosophical category, wellknown philosophers, such as the Germans Heidegger2 and Gadamer,3 have themselves dealt with it and struggled to clarify the concept of home. They considered “home” in its various aspects—as place and as language, as process and as emotion—and tried to give the phenomenon an own and unmistakable shape. However, they failed to come up with a clear definition, and the impossibility here of working out the sharp edges of the term and of positioning it clearly is partly due to the concept of “home” not being an easily accessible and certainly not an unambiguous term. Therefore, contrary to the initially superficial general accessibility and comprehensibility of “home,” this term has a dimension of depth that can only be revealed to the viewer in stages. Yet the multiple spectra of “home” not only causes terminological difficulties; it also brings about another dangerous, even insidious, aspect, which enables political ostentation and is well suited for appropriation. This capability is located therein that “home” is not a neutral or purely theoretical term—the concept possesses a psychological component that touches people deep inside and lets emotions arise, which are intense and sometimes in fact resemble an intimate “amorous and even sexual relationship.”4 Similar to the psychological-emotional relationship to one’s own mother, “home” transcends the theoretical level of a purely philosophical category, harbors explosive potential, and enables political parties on the left as well as on the right both to mobilize the term and to

62  Bianca Boteva-Richter instrumentalize it for a reflective interpretation of existence. According to this, “home” is suitable both for an emotional intersubjective localization and an ascription of human belonging. Yet it is precisely this already mentioned, manifold dimension, oscillating between an interpretation of existence to cultural localization and all the way to a political demonstration of power, which complicates a clear and contoured conceptual grasp. As a result, it can be assumed that “home” is not a purely geopolitical place, and not just a place of birth. According to my thesis, it is a relational location of existence that is occupied by intersubjective relations and thus can only be experienced and explained through this relationality. The complexity, quality, and intensity of intersubjective connections determine how home can be evaluated as a place or at the same time how it can constitute different types of homes; On the one hand, this is a beloved, poetic landscape that gives people safety and security. On the other hand, it resembles a minefield of denunciation, terror, hunger, and persecution. Home can therefore have different aspects and manifest itself as a place or as an un-place. In this chapter I try to redefine “home” as a relational location based on the phenomenon of migration, showing the respective situation associated with it, and changes in the intersubjective existence of migrants.5 This reinterpretation assigns an active role to the term, which can be made visible through the acts constituting interpersonal relations, and conversely, such a relational interpretation of “home” can in turn provide conclusions about the living conditions and the possibilities for localization of migrants. The questions that arise are, among others: What does “home” mean in the course of life and in intersubjective connections, especially for those who think that they have a home, and in turn for others who mourn its loss? To prevent loss of home, are people able to transport home with them during migration? Does the term have a passive dimension, or is it active, as constituted by human acts? What is meant by being at “home” and what significance does it have amidst turbulent times globally?6

4.2 What is Home (Heimat)? 4.2.1 Conceptual Approximation via Loss or Evaluating Home via De-localization Jean Améry, a philosopher and writer, aptly noted that when home is desperately needed it is then needed more the less one has of it.7 The entry point in this chapter is therefore via migration because migration has and leads to loss of modes of existence, of belonging, of people, and of places that had to be loved and left behind. Migration shows how urgently a

The Value of Home  63 home is needed as it leads to dislocation in the sense that, through it, the obviousness of existence within everyday life as previously known, as intimate semiotics disappear and new questions, new semiotic battlefields, new situations of self and foreign experience emerge. During migration, most people go through various stages of localization, whereby evaluation of the migrant’s home becomes more and more important in the course of global migration. However, this question given above as to when home is needed is not posed to everyone; it is mainly asked by those people who have in reality already lost their own home: How much home do people need?… Because I am asking the question from the very specific situation [of the people] of the exile from the Third Reich, who… went abroad because [they] had to. [They] lost everything, but [not only the landscape, they] also [lost] the people: classmates from school, neighbors, the teacher… And [they] lost the language.8 Jean Améry9 describes what a loss of belonging feels like. In his escape he not only lost the place of his childhood. Above all, he lost the people; he lost the people who betrayed and handed him over as a person—as an Austrian and as a Jew. So it was not the loss of the silhouette of the church or the smell of the forest that changed the emotional entanglement with the surrounding world in the greatest possible way. The breach in intersubjective connections pulled the ground from beneath his feet, changed the silhouette of the topography of his existence at the time, and made him, who had been previously connected to home, into a homeless person for the first time. With the help of such experiences it becomes obvious that “home” is an a priori intersubjective concept, and Jean Améry is not the only one who has emphasized the importance of interpersonal connections in the interpretation of home. According to the Japanese philosopher Tesuro Watsuji,10 humans lead a dialectical existence that consists of an individual-social network, living both of these two aspects simultaneously. “Home” is, according his analysis, the home of women who are not only as individuals, but simultaneously socially connected as mothers of their/ her children, colleagues in the workplace, and citizens of a nation.11 Home is a place where individuals and families can situate themselves and live, and where people can experience and express values such as justice, security, safety, and also belonging in respective interpersonal relationships of different intensities. Also, according to Hannah Arendt, affiliation can take on “nonnationalistic forms,”12 which are intersubjectively constituted, woven from interpersonal networks and acts. This interpretation of the concept of intersubjectivity counteracts nationalistic constructs, as it is not based

64  Bianca Boteva-Richter on a purely geographical situation. Belonging shows, according to this way of thinking, the intimacy of a group, the members of which usually decide who they want to include or exclude. Thus, it is intersubjective acts that decide home and belonging, and not place of birth. Even if the term etymologically indicates a location in many languages,13 it takes more than a local assignment to turn a place into a home and a home into an inhabited house.14 As home is above all “security,” Jean Améry writes, continuing: In our home we have mastered the dialectic of knowing-recognizing, trust-confidence… To live at home means that what we already know [what] happens again and again in minor variations.15 “Home” is therefore a kind of recurring event that is initiated and kept alive by the intersubjective relations. This event is based on the dialectic of knowing and trusting, which people have trained and passed on to one another. Without human connections, without relations, there is no knowledge, there is no recognition or trust. Desubjectivized places cannot be felt as familiar, intimate, beloved, known or safe places, so they cannot be recognized as home at all. However, through emigration, a disconnection from the familiar takes place, which leads to a loss of our hermeneutical orientation together with the people with whom we have built our most intimate world. It means that we leave our intersubjective safety net and leave familiar landscapes behind us, geographically and hermeneutically. Trust based on our knowledge-experience becomes fragmented and then becomes (initially) lost. The value of home is called into question by being uncoupled or inflated by the loss of something beloved. Through losing the value of home, realistic relation is withdrawn, in that the old, lost home is depicted through the filter of longing and memory as a measuring stick. And this lasts until a new relation is reached or established. But for those who are on the way and have not yet arrived, there are other aspects that, in addition to intersubjective connections lived in everyday life, form a “mobile” home or replace these connections temporarily. This can be language or religion; it can also be narratives that take memories with them or keep them alive on the way. These aspects are important pillars of intersubjective connections and they are builders or destroyers of present and future belonging and home. 4.2.1.1 Language as Home Language can build such a location if it can offer a home inside and preserve it by enticing us with security and belonging in intimate conversation. Language can be “home” if it can give rise to an insight into what is

The Value of Home  65 said in a familiar way and gives us ontological security.16 It thus offers a sense of belonging17 to the commonly spoken “we” and allows it to flow “on the way into its own.”18 Everything else is “strange” and “goes in its search toward the site where it may stay in its wandering.”19 Therefore, if the wandering “I” is looking for a new place as home,20 it can create with the spoken “we” a mobile intersubjective network. A network, in which a common formula is expressed and offers a real or imaginary place of refuge. But in the other case, in the case of its loss,21 the importance of the language grows in a negative way, because, through its non-pronounceability, home can be definitively stolen, a person dislocated, and the work of his expulsion completed. In such a case, language as our strong connection to our home or as a witness of our belonging is stolen and hindered: the language speaks no longer. [die Sprache spricht nicht mehr] In the loss of language, [however] loss of home manifests itself as… definitive dislocation, be it temporary or forever.22 The loss of language reveals the loss of home in the clearest possible way, because in The world hour of our age… the ancestral, traditional relationships between language, mother tongue, dialect, and home [are slipping out of hand]. The human being seems to lose the language that has been skillfully assigned to him and to become speechless in this sense… [With that loss t]he human being seems to become homeless.23 So people first lose language, together with their home, when they set out on their way to a new home. And, according to the previously mentioned dual structure of existence (individual-social),24 the loss of language is also dialectical. On the one hand, it is a real loss, outwardly, in the intersubjective, social area. However, on the other hand, it is an apparent loss if the language is moved inside, in the individual domain. In the social arena, the loss of language to the outside world expresses itself, first intersubjectively, in an initial “between” stage and in the original movement—the movement that is counted as the beginning of migration and that motivates people to migrate. There is speechlessness between person and person, and between a person and a respective new society. In this terrible state of not yet being able to articulate themselves again socially, in a social in-between, people are then individually thrown back onto themselves. However, in the domain of the individual, people speak to themselves intrasubjectively, because in the individual part of existence, people

66  Bianca Boteva-Richter cannot lose their language. They speak to themselves because they have to speak and because they cannot be silent. A person speaks. We speak while awake and in dreams. We always talk; even if we don’t let a word go… We keep talking in some way. We speak because speaking is natural to us.25 And in this way, by means of this natural gift, home can be transported and taken along in the respective language. This is embedded in a separate realm through the individual aspect and home can therein be remembered, longed-for, cursed, or insulted. But language can also be shared again and communicated with others: with old and new companions, with old and new fellow citizens. Through our second, social aspect of existence and in this new communication, home can learn to speak again and will no longer be able to be silenced. Home can therefore be dislocated, transported, and re-situated, but only through language that connects and maintains intersubjective connections. And with these connections, life becomes “contemplation in language” and this contemplation makes it possible to accept the foreign and to make it habitable for oneself and also for others.26 4.2.1.2 Spirituality as a Home in Motion But it is not only language that can create a home and enable a feeling of belonging. The strong longing for a real home is sometimes satisfied by mobile constructs that are filled with supposed and genuine cultural artefacts and practices and inhabited in a real or sometimes exaggerated way. They consist in, among other things, a lived spirituality that offers a kind of substitute for home; just like the Jewish religion, which by repeating the Easter greeting “Next year in Jerusalem” speaks a common “formula and [knows] that it [is] connected in the magical home of the tribal god Jahve.”27 This common formula, along with how spirituality is lived out, offers home in a special form, satisfying longings for the woods and the valleys, for the songs of the nurses, for the prayers muttered in church. Home can be experienced in the smell of incense from Orthodox liturgy or in the touch of knees on the carpet in prayer. The transcendental experience sensualizes the search, makes desires subjective, and builds invisible bridges beyond time and space. In living out this spirituality, in prayer in the church or in the mosque, in the synagogue or at home, migrants can address their worries and fears, their longing and loneliness, their despair, but also hope directed to a higher place and placed there with confidence. In almost all destination countries there are now spiritual places or houses of worship with different religious

The Value of Home  67 features. Already-established migrants often finance, build, and establish these spiritual places, because these places offer Psychological-emotional support, help, and consolation as well as a feeling of familiarity and home. The exercise of religious functions maintains [and supports] a connection to the home that was left behind.28 This kind of “home on the move” is therefore filled and transported along with religious practices and with the sensuality of starved perception. This creates an invisible, placeless “home,” a mobile place that at the same time allows a simultaneous experience of intersubjective temporality (as past, present, and future). The concern for children or loved ones left behind stands as the past, the present is represented by everyday effort for a speedy reunion, and the future is dreamed of as a better life for all. All of this intersubjective temporality can be found in the placeless space of spirituality—in Friday prayer as well as in the liturgy. Here the intersubjective connection reaches from the interpersonal to the transcendental and it is raised and thus postulated as being between a person and God. However, this “home on the move” is fragile if it is not based on real interpersonal connections that take place in real life. This is because in the construction of these connections there lurks the danger of a retroactive orientation and in a view that sees the old home as it no longer exists in reality. Therefore, all the more important is the real, factually lived spirituality, which connects the transcendental with the living intersubjective and transfers and translates the old home into a new one through real and just29 intersubjective connections. 4.2.1.3 Endangering the Home in Exile and in Return But when language, spirituality, or narrative fail to build a new home, a feeling of exile soon becomes noticeable and affiliation initially degenerates into an exhausting, unnatural state. In this case, home in exile becomes an intellectual act which takes place again and again, and which must be mastered through an everyday effort. The new home then opens up only in stages, as people slowly learn to decipher semantics and to interpret the new everyday life. It takes time to get used to it until people gradually settle in again and no longer perceive exile so strongly as a kind of “incurable disease.”30 Surviving in exile definitely requires a double effort in many respects. For survivors this means: [to] lead a life between those who want to forget and preserve the memory, between farewell and memory, loss and new beginning, wherever it may be.31

68  Bianca Boteva-Richter In this departure and memory, in this loss and new beginning, intersubjective connections oscillate between old and new loyalties, between former and new colleagues, between old and new fellow citizens. Here the processual nature and renewing power of the home becomes visible. It constantly develops anew or eludes a person, depending on how one remembers, enters, leaves, or rediscovers it. However, if new interpersonal connections do not hold, if the new semantics of the new place still remain unknown and there are no helpful translators on the way to a new life, home is then in danger of being lost for a long time or even forever. Home is especially endangered if the loss has not yet been overcome, but a new beginning cannot yet be made out, which is to say if the departure and the memory still hurts, but no new welcome can be heard. But it is not only being in exile that presents a threat to migrants; a return to an old home can also endanger one’s relationship with it. After all, returning to an old home and the associated experiences can create a fragile state. Experiences of return bear witness to our past and present relationship with our home; they bear witness to loss, pain, remembering, and wanting to forget. But they also open up new semiotic battlefields and show the fractures, the pain, the coldness of stepping away from home. In a certain sense, returning opens up the real sense of the “ex-sistere,” because existence is in a certain way “out of oneself” and “stepping out into the cold;” it is a hard, difficult, and reallife experience.32 Upon returning, the individual-social structure of human existence becomes apparent, because individual decisions to emigrate are situated here, reacting to the former social or political environment, and mixing with later opportunities and one’s individual willingness (or unwillingness) to return. Remigration reflects the most varied of experiences, uses different buttons of memory, and satisfies or disappoints the expectations of the individual. René König,33 for example, wrote about his own voluntary-involuntary return and about the feeling of foreignness in his new-old home, noting that only people with similar experiences of exile could restore the feeling of familiarity for him. Because of the fragmentation of his original and new interpersonal connections, he had not actually returned home.34 He felt, that he [came] to Germany as a different person. [But a]nother person does not come back, he goes ahead, and he moves forward and has to see that he is accepted.35 Here, too, the individual-social structure of existence becomes apparent,36 because in addition to changes in personality, there are changes in old and new intersubjective connections, in the old and new social

The Value of Home  69 environment. This double helix of homecoming, which turns a return situation into supposed acquaintance’s new entry, requires greater effort: For the home to which we return is no longer the home it once was, apart from the fact that we ourselves have been changed in this process. In this sense, home is always a lost home… Basically, it refuses to be a place that is completely known and transparent to us.37 “Home” is, according to the previous reflections, an intersubjective place, which is able to elude a person which becomes particularly clear here when one steps into the new-old home. Geographical location is transcended as a new situation with the power of memory, but in the meantime not only have forests grown or died, houses have become dilapidated or demolished and the semantics of the streets partially or completely changed. In return, streets, buildings, churches, and forests are pulled through the filter of memory upon return and unwillingly evaluated. Above all, however, it is the people who were close in the past and who have now aged, died, become embittered, or who have moved, who, with their historiography, restructure prior connections or interrupt them entirely. The intersubjective home is also an interweaving of biographies and sociography and a place that repeatedly withdraws or, in happier cases, a place of renewal. In any case, home is to a certain extent fateful and this fatefulness38 and tragedy is revealed in returning, because there is “nothing more desolate than reliving the past.”39 But desolation is only given if the new-old home has to be relived anew and without helpful translation by means of intersubjective connections. Because in order to gain a foothold in the new-old home, a hermeneutic mediation of time will be necessary, which helps in construing intersubjective past and present as well as a possible (intersubjective) future. Only through such an interpretation of the events that took place in the absence of those who have migrated can the changes be understood and thus, fully or partially, be accepted again. Through open, positive, and fair mediation, the former home can be made habitable again and turned into a new, recurring event. Yet regardless of the previous considerations, can home really be as placeless as was shown in previous investigations? Why are we so attached to it and why can it be so strongly instrumentalized in sociopolitical life? And above all: when is home a place and when does it become an un-place? 4.2.2 Home (as Place and Un-Place) In order to explain home as a place or an un-place, one soon comes up against clear limits, because the concept of place is very similar to that of

70  Bianca Boteva-Richter “home” and turns out to be an extremely problematic, elusive concept. As soon as one tries to approach it it quickly becomes clear that a “pure” and “universal‘” concept of place and a “pure” and “universal” concept of thinking cannot be definitely determined […] The place remains, so to speak, non-localizable and is always alien to itself, to its inner elements.40 So here, “home” and also “place,” are two ambiguous terms that need a clear and sharp dividing line. In an attempt to get this problem under control, they are used correlatively here: on the one hand with home or its loss, “place” can be revealed, whereas on the other, with place or unplace, “home” can be clearly elaborated. The first steps of working this out have already been taken: home is assigned a location, the soil of which is woven or constituted by interpersonal connections. And precisely because of these intersubjective connotations, home is emotionally charged and causes pain, longing, suffering in people amidst forced dislocation. The migrants miss their homes, just as they miss their loved ones, and also the security of “justified trust.” It is connections to friends, family, and colleagues that turn land into native soil by spinning the meshes of the intersubjective web in different intensities, tying them down under social pressure, or individually fraying them. The Japanese anthropologist Nobuko Adachi proclaims how important interpersonal connections are for a feeling of home and belonging. She says: Even if you live in a big house, if there are no other people there, you will soon realize that it is not a home. Home is the place where people are. [Everything else is] an empty house.41 4.2.2.1 Home as Place So home is only a home, a house full of people or a good and safe place, if intersubjective networking works well. “Working well” means, however, that, on the level of the person and on that of society, one can interchange and live in a dialogical and fair cooperation, and that people are allowed to be “authentic self.”42 Only in such a case is place a just ground, which is built up through intersubjective exchange, through authentic individual ability to be, as well as through well-justified trust-confidence, recognition-familiarity. For this, however, safe environmental conditions are required; no danger must hover over one’s own life or over the life of family members and friends. The interweaving of biography and sociography, as biographical and semiotic knowledge and memory, shows a strong, equal financial and educational marbling in such cases. Life in a “home” as a place does not just mean semiotic security: a home offers

The Value of Home  71 residents equity in the distribution of financial goods; it provides education for all and cares for future generations. Here, citizens do not betray a real home by denouncing the ideals of a better society, by separating mothers from their children and sending them to distant countries to earn a living, by putting fathers in prison as political prisoners, by forbidding artists from practicing their crafts, and by influencing philosophers in their thinking. If these conditions are not met, home is neither a place nor a place of abode. 4.2.2.2 “Home” as Un-place In cases where there is war and dictatorship, as well as in cases of inadequate financial support, home is not a real home: it becomes an un-place, where staying there, persisting, or enduring is bound up with breaches in intersubjective relationships associated with fighting, physical violence, and denunciation. “Home” becomes an un-place when political conditions are unstable and dangerous, such that even class comrades and neighbors become enemies, removing the intersubjective ground from under one’s feet.43 Such experiences of injustice or of a dangerous home are not only addressed by Jean Améry, the Nazi resistance fighter. Contemporary Syrian literature also records such conditions and denounces home as a dangerous and unsafe place.44 In this case, in the case of staying in a un-place, the intersubjective safety net is violated; it no longer works and is torn or completely destroyed by fractures and betrayals. “Home” then is no longer a home; it is no longer an abode or a place, it is just an “empty house.” But home also becomes an un-place when narratives are misused to guide political goals or social debates. Here the connection between the individual and society is posed on a manipulative, i.e., on a false basis. The intersubjective social-individual connection is abused in order to achieve egoistic and sometimes dangerous goals for society’s members. Populist debates in recent times, especially in Europe, bear witness to this. Nationalist parties in Germany and Austria as well as groups emerging in former Eastern Bloc nations such as Bulgaria, Poland, etc. are now increasingly using the concept of home to form a new, strong national identity and to mobilize their citizens.45 By working out home as a more exclusive, but also traditionally uniform soil, which in very few cases existed in the form depicted, they try to manipulate and rehabilitate history, closing off a supposedly homogeneous inside and trying to defend it from an equally constructed outside. But by manipulating and violating just, moral coexistence, the home becomes an un-place, in which constructs of the essence of home46 are offered as a real home, narratives from past times are brought out, and supposedly real cultural artefacts, clothing items, eating habits along with more intangible cultural practices and/or rituals are bundled in

72  Bianca Boteva-Richter an essentialist way. For this purpose, retroactive artifacts and cultural practices are bundled in a homogenizing manner in order to simplify them and make them manageable. Here, in this construct of home, members or affiliates should find themselves as a complete unit, wearing the same costume, singing and dancing together, speaking in one dialect, and responding in a restricted manner in a simple customary style.47 Here home speaks as an un-place in the dangerous voice of unreason. But home can also become an un-place if it is depopulated and thus desubjectified. Mainly mothers from poorer countries in Eastern Europe—from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, etc.—leave their children, spouses, and parents to earn a living in the richer countries elsewhere in the world. Due to the migration of the mothers and/or fathers, a “falling out of the nest” takes place not only for those who leave, but also for those who might have stayed at home. Not only do migrants suffer a sharp break in the intersubjective, intensive, and intimate relationships, but also those who are left behind—spouses, parents, but above all the children. Leaving one’s country deprives those left behind, as well as the society left, in that that the intersubjective connections between parents and children are reversed and perverted: the grandparents left behind become parents, and the grandchildren become children. This perversion of actual family structure and intimate, close intersubjective connections, being imposed by unequal social conditions, contradicts the theory of autonomous, self-sufficient subjects of migrants and their families.48 Figures published by UNICEF bear witness to these cases and speak a cruel, clear language: 126,000 children were left by both parents with relatives or grandparents in Romania in 2008,49 along with 100,000 in 2012 in Moldova,50 and 200,000 in the Ukraine.51 And in view of these numbers, each case of which calls for reckoning for the individual people affected, the abstractness of the terms “just,” “unjust,” “good,” and “bad” is wiped out in practice and thus gains new etymological sharpness. Due to biological and sociological breaches of the children concerned and of their mothers and fathers, home is desubjectivized and becomes an un-place, in which they are now left unloved and undersupplied. Suicide notes from children in Romania bear witness to this in a harrowing way.52 Here “home” appears as an intersubjective network that no longer supports its members; it is a place without compassion and without justified trust, in this case home is an un-place, a deserted location. 4.2.2.3 Home as a New Place But in the end, everything is not to be understood or reflected upon only negatively. For the question of whether “home” is or becomes a place or an un-place depends on, as already shown, individual-social intersubjective connections. These connections, which are constituted by people, by residential and non-residential subjects and by the respective societies. As

The Value of Home  73 self-acting and self-determining persons, within the range of their possibilities, people can work out or fight for within the framework of prevailing conditions. As part of this activity or as self-acting individuals who correspond with a respective society, not only can they lose their home, but they can also create a new home for themselves and for others. By entering or immigrating to a new country, they are able to subjectify and enliven places in new and different ways. By bringing new values, cultural artefacts, and narratives with them, they can, when their new home welcomes them, bring these assets to their new society in a way that enriches. In a new intersubjective togetherness, new places are then enlivened interculturally and raised up into becoming a new home as a place and a new center of life. Here, not only cultural artifacts and practices, but also language can be used to good effect and the place in question can finally be inhabited. Language can help as Spoken from their rule and being, [as] the language of a home, [as a] language that awakens domestically and speaks in the home of the parents’ [or of the new] house.53 But in order to manifest the final location as a place, new fellow citizens should be given the opportunity to raise their voices and thus be able to make their own concerns heard. Though in order to speak of success in the transition from “I” to “we,” joint action is required, as an intersubjective political negotiation, where “there are no a priori characteristics or properties of an individual, but […] a relationship of equality among those acting equally.”54

4.3 Conclusion In this chapter I have tried to show the value of “home” and also its importance through lack and loss, and I have also tried to locate “home” as intersubjective soil; a location that can be given, lost, and regained. “Home” is occupied emotionally due to interpersonal connections and resembles an intimate, amorous, and even “sexual” relationship, in which people feel themselves to be in good hands or to be unloved and abandoned. The intersubjective home gives sure recognition and forms the interlacing of semiotic-biographical memory from which people generate narratives, practices, and also emotional affiliations. “Home,” however, is also an elusive and complex place that, as an emotional zone of recognition, trust or mistrust, lays the ground for individual-social development that is just or unjust respectively. The loss of this emotional zone is sometimes felt as a kind of loss of self—as the loss of the individual and also of

74  Bianca Boteva-Richter society. In this respect, the view from the perspective of loss is not simply a view from a camera obscura. Loss of home is the tableau for presenting interpersonal location and shows quite well how varied and how complex the relationship to home discloses itself and also how this is evaluated in our era and world.

Notes 1 Kai Hammermeister, “Heimat in Heidegger and Gadamer,” Philosophy and Literature 24, no. 2 (2000). 2 Cf. Martin Heidegger, “Sprache und Heimat (1960)” [Language and Home], in Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 1910-1976, GA, Vol. 13 (Frankfurt a. M., Germany: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983). 3 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Heimat und Sprache,” in Ästhetik und Poetik (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1993), 366–372. 4 Anna Krasteva, “Bulgarian Cultural Identity,” in Creating Democratic Societies: Values and Norms, Bulgarian Philosophical Studies II, Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change (Washington: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1999), 214. 5 This chapter deals with the connection between the value of home and the respective situation of migrants. In contrast to immigrants, migrants are people who willingly or unwillingly migrate, have to leave an old home to find a new one, and sometimes have to leave it again to move on or to return to their old home. In contrast to immigration, which is mainly concerned with immigration to a destination country and its consequences, the term migration or migrants refers to human migration that has to do with bio- and sociocultural breaks and their consequences or coping with them. The migration is therefore a multiple movement that only comes to a standstill temporarily. Rather, immigration is understood to be a one-sided movement that brings people and their bio- and socio-cultural experiences into a country in order to stay there. 6 The term “globally” is not explicitly pursued here, but I understand it to mean a world and time that on the one hand is condensed by new communication media, but on the other hand dispersed again by the worldwide migration movements. 7 Jean Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten [Beyond Guilt and Atonement: Coping Attempts of the Overwhelmed] (München: dtv Klett-Cotta, 1988), 62. 8 Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten, 60. 9 Jean Améry is the fighter and stage name of the writer and philosopher Hans Mayer. He was born in Austria in 1912, fled the National Socialists to Belgium in 1938, fought in the resistance there and survived Auschwitz and other concentration camps between 1943 and 1945. He is buried under his maiden name, Hans Mayer, in a grave of honor at Vienna’s central cemetery. 10 “Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960) was one of a small group of philosophers in Japan during the twentieth century who brought Japanese philosophy to the world. He wrote important works on both Eastern and Western philosophy and philosophers, from ancient Greek, to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, and from primitive Buddhism and ancient Japanese culture, to Dōgen (whose now famous writings Watsuji single-handedly rediscovered), aesthetics, and Japanese ethics. His works on Japanese

The Value of Home  75 ethics are still regarded as the definitive studies,” see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/watsuji-tetsuro/ 11 For the dialectic being “ningen [人間]” (human-between) according to Watsuji see: Tetsurō Watsuji, Watsuji Tetsurōs Rinrigaku. Ethics in Japan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 90. 12 Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Sprache, Politik, Zugehörigkeit [Who sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging] (Zürich: diaphanes, 2007), 35. 13 For example, in German - Heimat/Heim is home, while in Russian and Bulgarian this is rodina (place of birth), and in Japanese kokyoo (the place or village of one’s birth). 14 For more on home as an inhabited house: see Nobuko Adachi, “Die Dynamik von Rasse und Ethnizität als Kategorisierungs- und Klassifizierungsprozess: Benennung, Rassenzuweisung und Ethnisierung in einer japanisch-brasilianischen Kommune” [The Dynamics of Race and Ethnicity as a Process of Categorization and Classification: Naming, Racial Allocation and Ethnicization in a Japanese-Brazilian Commune], Polylog 30 (2013), 62. 15 Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten, 65–66. 16 Heidegger, “Sprache und Heimat 1960” [Language and Home], 155–156. 17 Heidegger, “Sprache und Heimat 1960” [Language and Home], 156. 18 Martin Heidegger, “Language in the Poem,” in On the Way to Language (New York: HarperOne/HarperCollins Publishers, 1982), 163. 19 Heidegger, “Language in the Poem,” 163. 20 There are many scientific studies on global migratory movements, including the annual UNHCR report, which publishes the following figures for 2019 regarding the population affected by migration or thereby falling into UNHCR employment: 18% of the population of both Americas, 39% of Africa, 14% Europe, 11% Asia and Pacific, 18% Middle East and North Africa. These are broken down in: Refugees Asylum-seekers Returnees (refugees and IDPs), Stateless persons Internally displaced people (IDPs) and Others of concern Venezuelans displaced abroad, see: https://www.unhcr.org/globalreport2019/ 21 Cf. Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten [Beyond Guilt and Atonement: Coping Attempts of the Overwhelmed] (München: dtv Klett-Cotta, 1988). 22 Bianca Boteva-Richter, “Wie viel neue Heimat braucht der Mensch? Heimat und Heimatlosigkeit in und durch Migration” [How much new home does a person need? Home and homelessness in and through migration], Concordia 68 (2015), 6. 23 Heidegger, “Sprache und Heimat 1960” [Language and Home], 156. 24 According to the structure of existence worked out by Watsuji. 25 Martin Heidegger, “Die Sprache” [Language] in Unterwegs zur Sprache (Stuttgart: Verlag Günther Neske, 2001), 11. 26 Hans Georg Gadamer, “Heimat und Sprache” [Home and Language], in Ästhetik und Poetik I. Kunst als Aussage (Tübingen: C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1993), 367. 27 Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten, 62. 28 Martin Baumann, “Religion und ihre Bedeutung für Migranten. Zur Parallelität von ‚fremd‘ -religiöser Loyalität und gesellschaftlicher Integration” [“Religion and its Meaning for Migrants: On the Parallelism of ‘Foreign’ Religious Loyalty and Social Integration”], in Religion-Migration-Integration in Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft (Berlin/Bonn: Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Migration, Flüchtlinge und Integration, 2004), 22.

76  Bianca Boteva-Richter 29 For more on just intersubjective connections, see: 4.2.2. Home (as Place and Un-Place). 30 Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten, 66. 31 Gadamer, “Heimat und Sprache” [Home and Language], 366. 32 Tetsurō Watsuji, FUDO. Wind und Erde. Der Zusammenhang von Klima und Kultur [Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study] (Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 1997), 8. 33 Rene König was one of the scientists, philosophers and sociologists who returned to Germany, such as Theodor W. Adorno and Helmut Schelsky. 34 Marita Kraus, Heimkehr in ein fremdes Land: Geschichte der Remigration nach 1945 (München: C.H. Beck, 2001), 7. 35 Kraus, Heimkehr in ein fremdes Land: Geschichte der Remigration nach 1945, 7. 36 Tetsurō Watsuji, Watsuji Tetsurōs Rinrigaku. Ethics in Japan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 90. 37 Tsutomu Ben Yagi, “‘Exiled in the Mother Tongue’. Gadamers Beitrag zur Frage nach Heimat und Fremde” [Gadamer’s Contribution to the Question of Home and Abroad], Polylog 31 (2014), 38. 38 Heidegger, “Sprache und Heimat 1960” [Language and Home], 156. 39 Emilian Stanev, Kradezat na praskovi [The peach thief] (Sofia: Balgarski Pisatel, 1987), 17. 40 Giuseppe Menditto, “Nishidas bashō im Gespräch mit dem griechischen und phänomenologischen Denken” [Nishidas bashō in Dialogue with Greek and Phenomenological Thinking], Polylog 31 (2014), 24. 41 Adachi, “Die Dynamik von Rasse und Ethnizität als Kategorisierungs- und Klassifizierungsprozess: Benennung, Rassenzuweisung und Ethnisierung in einer japanisch-brasilianischen Kommune,” 62. 42 An important concept of Martin Heidegger is that of “eigentliches Selbst,” but this is very difficult to translate into English. German–English dictionaries of philosophical terms offer the translation as “authentic self.” See Elmar Waibl and Philip Herdina, Dictionary of Philosophical Terms (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: faculras, Böhlau Verlag, 2011). 43 Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten, 60. 44 Cf. Dima Wannous, The Frightened Ones (New York: Alfred A. Knopf/ Penguin Random House, 2020). 45 On the populist debates and the effects of the new nationalism in Europe see (in addition to the reports in the press), amongst others, the widely acclaimed analyses of the Institute for Human Science in Vienna: https://www.iwm.at/ closedbutacitve/weekly-focus/week-xi/ 46 In 2016 during the election campaign for the Federal Presidential election, countless advertising posters from almost all parties were labelled with the essentials of their home country—mountains, traditional clothing, etc.—and displayed throughout the city of Vienna. 47 E.g., Procedure of the FPÖ in Austria. 48 Laura Brace, “Borders of emptiness: gender, migration and belonging,” Citizenship Studies, 17, no. 6–7 (2013), 875. 49 Anca Gheaus, “Care drain: who should provide for the children left behind?,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 16, no. 1 (2013), 1–23. 50 Liza Yanovich, “Children Left Behind: The Impact of Labor Migration in Moldova and Ukraine,” in MPI Migration Information Source, January 23, 2015.

The Value of Home  77 51 Yanovich, “Children Left Behind: The Impact of Labor Migration in Moldova and Ukraine,” January 23, 2015. 52 Gheaus, “Care drain: who should provide for the children left behind?,” 1–23. 53 Heidegger, “Sprache und Heimat (1960)” [Language and Home], 156. 54 Butler, Spivak, Sprache, Politik, Zugehörigkeit [Who sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging], 40.

Bibliography Adachi, Nobuko. “Die Dynamik von Rasse und Ethnizität als Kategorisierungsund Klassifizierungsprozess: Benennung, Rassenzuweisung und Ethnisierung in einer japanisch-brasilianischen Kommune.” [The Dynamics of Race and Ethnicity as a Process of Categorization and Classification: Naming, Racial Allocation and Ethnicization in a Japanese-Brazilian Commune]. Polylog 30 (2013): 59–75. Améry, Jean. Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten [Beyond Guilt and Atonement: Coping Attempts of the Overwhelmed]. Munich: dtv Klett-Cotta im Deutschen Taschenbuch Verlag, 1988. Baumann, Martin. “Religion und ihre Bedeutung für Migranten. Zur Parallelität von ‘fremd‘-religiöser Loyalität und gesellschaftlicher Integration” [Religion and its Meaning for Migrants: On the Parallelism of “Foreign” Religious Loyalty and Social Integration]. In Religion-Migration-Integration in Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft, 19–31. Edited by Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Migration, Flüchtlinge und Integration. Berlin/Bonn: Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Migration, Flüchtlinge und Integration, 2004. Ben Yagi, Tsutomu. “‘Exiled in the Mother Tongue’. Gadamers Beitrag zur Frage nach Heimat und Fremde.” [Gadamer’s Contribution to the Question of Home and Abroad]. Polylog 31 (2014): 33–41. Boteva-Richter, Bianca. “Wie viel neue Heimat braucht der Mensch? Heimat und Heimatlosigkeit in und durch Migration.” [How Much New Home do People Need? Home and Homelessness in and through Migration]. Concordia: Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 68 (2015): 3–17. Boteva-Richter, Bianca. “Die Migration und das Zwischen als konstituierendes Element. Ist der globale Mensch ein ewiger Migrant?” [Migration and Betweenness as a Constitutive Element: Is the Global Human an Eternal Migrant?]. Polylog 30 (2013): 41–58. Brace, Laura. “Borders of emptiness: Gender, migration and belonging.” Citizenship Studies 17, no. 6–7 (2013): 873–885. Butler, Judith, and Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Sprache, Politik, Zugehörigkeit. [Who sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging]. Translated by Michael Heitz and Sabine Schulz. Zürich: diaphanes, 2007. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Heimat und Sprache (1992).” [Home and Language]. In Ästhetik und Poetik I. Kunst als Aussage, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 8, 366–372. Tübingen: C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1993. Gheaus, Anca. “Care drain: who should provide for the children left behind?” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 16, no. 1 (2013): 1–23. Accessed August 16, 2020. DOI: 10.1080/13698230.2011.572425.

78  Bianca Boteva-Richter Hammermeister, Kai. “Heimat in Heidegger and Gadamer.” Philosophy and Literature 24, no. 2 (2000): 312–326. Heidegger, Martin. “Sprache und Heimat (1960).” [Language and Home]. In Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 1910–1976, GA, Vol. 13, 155–181. Edited by Hermann Heidegger. Frankfurt a.M., Germany: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983. Heidegger, Martin. “Language in the Poem.” In On the Way to Language, 159– 199. Translated by Peter D. Hertz. New York: HarperOne/HarperCollins Publishers, 1982a. Heidegger, Martin. On the Way to Language. Translated by Peter D. Hertz. New York: Harper One/Harper Collins Publishers, 1982b. Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings: from Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking (1964). Edited by David Farrell Krell. London and New York: Routledge Classics 2011. Heidegger, Martin. “Die Sprache.” [Language]. In Unterwegs zur Sprache, 9–35. Stuttgart: Verlag Günther Neske, 2001. Krasteva, Anna. “Bulgarian Cultural Identity.” In Creating Democratic Societies: Values and Norms, Bulgarian Philosophical Studies II, Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change. Series IVA, Eastern and Central Europe, Vol. 12, 205–229. Edited by Plamen Makariev, Andrew M. Blasko, Asen Davidov. Washington: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1999. Kraus, Marita. Heimkehr in ein fremdes Land: Geschichte der Remigration nach 1945. [Returning to a Foreign Country: History of Remigration after 1945]. Munich, Germany: C.H. Beck, 2001. Menditto, Giuseppe. “Nishidas bashō im Gespräch mit dem griechischen und phänomenologischen Denken.” [Nishidas bashō in Dialogue with Greek and Phenomenological Thinking]. Polylog 31 (2014): 23–33. Stanev, Emilian. Kradezat na praskovi. [The Peach Thief]. Sofia: Balgarski Pisatel, 1987 Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self. The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Wannous, Dima. The Frightened Ones. Translated by Elisabeth Jaquette. New York: Alfred A. Knopf/Penguin Random House, 2020 Watsuji, Tetsurō. Watsuji Tetsurōs Rinrigaku. Ethics in Japan. Translated by Yamamoto Seisaku and Robert E. Carter. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Watsuji, Tetsurō. FUDO. Wind und Erde. Der Zusammenhang von Klima und Kultur [Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study]. Translated by Dora Fischer-Barnicol and Okochi Ryogi. Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 1997. Wimmer, Franz Martin. “Zur Aufgabe des Kulturvergleichs in der Philosophiehistorie.” In Vier Fragen zur Philosophie in Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika, 145–163. Edited by Franz Martin Wimmer. Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1988 Wimmer, Franz Martin. Interkulturelle Philosophie. Eine Einführung [Intercultural Philosophy: An Introduction]. Vienna: WUV Facultas Verlags und Buchhandels AG, 2004. Yanovich, Liza. “Children Left Behind: The Impact of Labor Migration in Moldova and Ukraine.” In MPI Migration Information Source, January 23, 2015. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/children-left-behind-impact-labormigration-moldova-and-ukraine.

5 A Genealogy of Displacement in the South African Land Question Christopher Allsobrook

Not long ago, here in South Africa, at a wealthy, traditional public boys’ school, Maritzburg College, three black matric pupils posted a picture of themselves on social media, one holding a t-shirt painted with the slogan, “EFF: our last hope of getting our land back.” This spread virally, causing a major fuss with alumni, parents, and teachers. The school brought disciplinary charges against the three pupils. But outraged public pressure soon helped the school see the error of their ways. They dropped the charges, to investigate allegations of pervasive white racism at the school. The EFF campaign for “expropriation without compensation”; with conviction that the state should take white land, stolen from blacks, without paying for it, to restore it to its rightful owners, black Africans. It may seem odd that three matriculants, on their last day of school, were considering land restitution. My overriding concern on the last day of school was to get to Plettenberg Bay for a week of parties. The subsequent public attention revealed this had less to do with land than to do with cultural and racial hegemony at the school, alongside a deficit of mutual recognition.. None of these reflections ought to detract from urgent material concerns regarding racially skewed ownership of the economy, including agricultural land in South Africa, nor of enduring zones of white exclusivity. Nevertheless, one may suggest that “the land question” stands in for many economic, political, and ethical problems, of social and economic injustice, exploitation, and alienation, which lie beyond the scope of land reform and land restitution. To do justice to public discourse on land, we ought to disaggregate its many meanings and to distinguish the ideology of land discourse from direct concerns about land tenure and land ownership. To deal with the land question, we need to widen our analysis beyond the narrow political economic constraints of landreform solutions. Ideological analysis, and even ideology critique, of the South African land question is warranted. Or, at least, it seems warranted, until one tries to interpret the land question as ideology. Land is an unlikely object for ideology critique. If

80  Christopher Allsobrook land is ideology, what does that even mean? Each distinct term, land and ideology, meaningful enough on its own, stops making sense the minute they sit together. What could be more directly material and less ideological than the ground? How can land act as ideology? What the land question means, as a matter of ideology, at any one time, depends on the context of statements or claims made about it. In this chapter I examine how land discourse functions as ideology, as an effect of displacement, after withdrawal of the directly repressive state apparatus of the apartheid regime. My objective is to offer, first, a few methodological precautions for the interpretive critique of land discourse as ideology and, second, a conceptual framework of displacement, with which to explain the mechanism by which land discourse functions as ideology.

Part One: The Displacement Mechanism of Ideology and Its Critique Before we try to conceive of land discourse as ideology, it is necessary to be clear about the meaning of the operative term. By “ideology” I intend a pejorative conception, based on that of Geuss in The Idea of a Critical Theory,1 which suggests two related problems, namely, deception, or false beliefs, and a functional component, which involves irrational domination. To give a working definition, ideology is a set of interrelated ideas, values, norms, beliefs, desires, or other such propositional attitudes, shared by a group of people, which misleads them with respect to the social and historical conditions of social practices in which they engage, such that, by colluding in these practices, they mistakenly participate in their domination, such that they fail to act in accordance with their real interests, that is, interests they would pursue were they not misled by the relevant ideology.2 For Marx, at least in The German Ideology,3 ideology is explained as a mode of conceptual fetishism or reification of abstract ideas, or ­theoretical beliefs about the world, wherein we neglect to account for the historical, material, social determination of these ideas. We take c­ oncepts of political economy, such as the market, and related principles, as given, if they are natural facts. Race, money, gender, property, states, and state borders are socially constructed normative concepts whose significance, we forget, depends on public engagement and acceptance. We ­perpetuate our exploitation under the spell of ideology when we lose track of the material production that determines the significance of the normative concepts we use, to make immediate sense of our historically determined environment.4 Adorno, and later Althusser, Foucault, Butler and others, all draw attention to a common feature of late capitalist ideology, that it functions, less by unrealistic categorical idea(l)s, imposed on social ­reality, than by “post-ideological” resignation or adaptation. Under few illusions that climate change is just natural we still believe it to be inevitable. This

A Genealogy of Displacement  81 makes immanent critique difficult for an ideology critic who relies on gaps between ideas and social reality. Ideology is typically deceptive not in contradicting facts but in the ­spinning of stories that underplay significant effective factors of agency in social practices, such that agents who accept the story see it as in their interests to participate in these. Classic Marxian ­ideology ­functions for irrational domination to the extent that agents, who p ­ articipate in these practices, since they accept the interpretation, ­ undermine their own ­interests, to the benefit of elites. One may mistakenly a­ ttribute a c­ ommon good to social activities which serve partial interests. Scientology is a classic example of ideology, albeit unusually intentionally contrived ­ as such. Ideology does not typically depend on direct d ­eception or ­repression. Women may undoubtedly reinforce sexist practices if they accept sexist beliefs; equally, however, they may reinforce such ­practices with ­recognition that the situation is what it is. Trump, when asked about a daily Covid-19 death toll of 1,000, said, “It is what it is.”5 Against this context of late capitalist ideology, the chapter focuses on the ­governmentality of apartheid, which is sustained indirectly in South African land discourse as an effect of displacement by subjugated African agency (as opposed to direct repression, which subsided with the end of formal apartheid). To give a brief historical overview of the general problem, white settlers conquered and took ownership of much of the productive, strategic, and resource-rich land in what is now the territory of South Africa. After the British defeated the Boers in 1900 and annexed the few remaining independent eastern Nguni territories, the colony gained independence, with Act of Union, in 1910, under exclusively white control. With the 1913 Natives Land Act and subsequent racial legislation, a relatively small portion of South Africa was set aside for semi-autonomous territories, where blacks could settle and own property, and a few locations outside white urban areas were set aside, where black laborers were permitted to reside on a temporary basis.6 The plan of apartheid was to formalize the native homelands into sovereign national states, to keep the best part of the land for whites. Since the apartheid regime collapsed in the early 1990s, the state has engaged in a largely unsuccessful program of restitution of land removed from black owners/dwellers for white owners after 1913, of land redistribution, and of tenure upgrading. The pace of reform has fallen far behind schedule and below expectations. Thus, the ANC-led government, faced with widespread frustration, high unemployment and waning support, has pushed to amend the constitution to allow the state to expropriate land without compensation for redistribution to black owners or state tenants.7 The chapter looks further than the literal displacement of African people from their land to cities and farms as laborers, and back again to semi-autonomous “homelands,” to the displacement of African social

82  Christopher Allsobrook tenures (regulated by communally negotiated governance, m ­ anagement protocols and levels of access) by a Western model of property ­ownership, which gives exclusive control over surveyed turf to the bearer of its title deed, which is recognized and secured by the state and its laws. The South African state does not secure, and local registered credit providers do not recognize, other types of land tenure.8 Noting that most viable a­ gricultural land with good rainfall lies in the eastern half of the country, the former African bantustans take up a large part of it. Access to this land and much of the sprawling informal urban townships is ­communally ­negotiated or traditionally regulated according to levels of social tenure which are not registered, secured, or taxed as private assets, like title deeds, by the state.9 The popular ideology of the “land question” c­ alling for a transfer of title deeds from white to black hands sustains this ­erasure of insecure African social tenures and reproduces colonial property regimes. The focus of the chapter is on land ideology and its critique; that is, on land discourse that functions as ideology, in the pejorative sense. By this I mean, first, to argue that it is misleading to bundle issues such as racial inequality, dispossession, unemployment, and poverty into a framework of land-based restitution and reform, as if such groundwork could solve related relational social problems which call for distinct solutions. Second, more importantly, I argue that packaging such displaced concerns into a story about land dispossession misleads those, who buy into it, to participate irrationally and unwittingly in self-defeating practices that shore up their own domination. I do not mean to claim or to imply that all land discourse is ideology in this pejorative sense. But it is quite possible that some land discourse is ideology. And, if so, there is a role for ideology critique. What does it mean to say that land ideology misleads people to act against their real interests? What does it mean to interpret, and to critique, land discourse as ideology? The key is in the mechanism, by which land ideology misleads its adherents to engage in self-defeating practices. For instance, a simple example of land ideology may be found in the conceptual apparatus of post-colonial territorial sovereignty. PanAfrican solidarity has been thwarted by borders inherited from Europe. In the aftermath of decolonization in Africa, despite promotion PanAfrican solidarity by nationalist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere in the 1950s, each politically independent jurisdiction vies for sovereign authority, at the expense of intracontinental integration. In Africa Must Unite, written in the early 1960s, Nkrumah urges, If we are to remain free, if we are to enjoy the full benefits of Africa’s rich resources, we must unite to plan for our total defence and the full exploitation of our material and human means, in the full interests of all our peoples. “To go it alone” will limit our horizons, curtail our expectations, and threaten our liberty.10

A Genealogy of Displacement  83 The illusion of territorial sovereignty, bestowed by former empires, under economically interdependent global market conditions, also masks direct outsourcing of colonial exploitation to captured, debt-indentured client regimes. The illusion that Africans won back their land masks the radically restructured economic relations that now determine its function. Africans are sourced in as guardians of states that administer extraction of raw materials for others. Marxian immanent critique of ideology does not dismiss or contradict illusions; rather, it typically presents a bigger picture that reveals the distorting influence of a partial perspective on a set of social facts. Ideology involves a surface appearance or partial perspective on a set of social facts, whose seemingly self-determined character disguises its socially constructed origins or conditions. The ideology critic does not demonstrate that ideological beliefs are false but explains underlying economic conditions which determine the appearance of phenomena in question. The critic explains how these conditions convey a misleading appearance. Ideology functions better with true beliefs than false beliefs. The key to ideology critique is to identity the mechanism of disguise by which background apparatus is obscured, like the blood, sweat, and tears behind a seemingly effortless performance or like the collective credit we pay to ingenuity, self-restraint, discipline, charisma, and hard work of powerful individuals, who control and profit from the exploitation of natural, social, and common resources. This chapter identifies displacement as a significant key to land ideology. The first black South African to join my traditional, well-to-do public boys’ school in Port Elizabeth arrived on a rugby scholarship the year before I left. The captain of the Springbok team that won the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Siya Kolisi, attended some years later. In my primary school years, however, we were joined by several white Africans from across the border, first from Mozambique, then from Zimbabwe. From then on, the refrain “or we will end up like Zimbabwe” became an unofficial verse of our national anthem. Oh, South Africa, our land. One cannot discuss the ideology of land in South Africa without mentioning Robert Mugabe. Even the Economic Freedom Fighters limited their foundational claim for expropriation without compensation to “unproductive land” (ironically repeating colonial settlers’ original claims for unworked land as terra nullius). Look at Zimbabwe. Mugabe fought for territorial sovereignty for his people, but, a decade on into independence, the country still functioned as a client state for British capital. So, when Britain reneged on reparation commitments and fingers began to point at his complicity, he seized white land and abruptly collapsed the economy. For both sides, the spectre of land dispossession stood in for a host of related political and economic factors. But to many investors, this scapegoating of white settlers’ farms looked like a black hand waving a red flag at a golden goose.

84  Christopher Allsobrook Faced with a backlash against the capture of the state by three brothers, the Guptas, from Uttar Pradesh, their ally, South African President Jacob Zuma, and son, turned to the propaganda ministry of British Tory capitalism, Bell Pottinger, to craft the cover story of a Manichaean battle between Radical Economic Transformers and deep state agents of White Monopoly Capital. While their rivals fought a campaign against “state capture,” the political faction of the Zuma Dynasty stood for expropriation of land.11 The land shall belong to all who live in it, administered under the trusteeship of a patronage network of tenders, commanders, controllers, brokers, dealers, branch managers, enforcers, and gatekeepers. It is too late now to point out Zuma’s position on land expropriation was a foil for self-enrichment. Universalist discourse has long been discredited as a ruse in South Africa, since the imposition of an illegitimate system of universal laws to defend apartheid. Whites are only interested in good governance now that the tables have turned. This is how the game was always played. There is no point in criticizing how the game is being played if we already know the drill. We need no ideology critic to decode the underlying rationale. Everything is all too transparent. Every hashtag spins defetishizing critique. Everyone knows and is in on it: official norms and rules are for private benefit. In a notorious instance of state capture orchestrated by the Gupta brothers (who decided South African cabinet appointments for a period, courtesy of then-President Jacob Zuma), a functional dairy was purchased as a public–private partnership and land reform empowerment scheme to uplift 100 black emerging farmers, under the direction of then Free State province Premier Ace Magashule, now Secretary General of the ANC, and leader of the “Radical Economic Transformation” faction of the ruling party formed in opposition to the reformers led by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Instead, the project is currently under investigation for 220 million South African Rand (approx. 13.5 million USD) reportedly, “siphoned off to various Gupta-linked individuals and government officials.”12 The Free State Department of Agriculture illegally contracted businesswoman Lena Mohapi to implement all projects for the department for two years, paying 756 million Rand (~46.5 million USD). In return she paid “huge sums of money” to the department’s CFO.13 With land reform fronting for elite enrichment, the dairy was expected to function as a cash cow. Classic Marxian ideology critique interprets ideology in terms of a mechanism of repression, that is, of normative social relations which shore up underlying economic conditions for the elite. But, as Theodor Adorno observed, under late capitalism, these hypocritical bourgeois ­ideals are no longer defended by the elite and, so, immanent ideology critique of such ideals no longer works. Defetishizing critique of liberal hypocrisy loses to the bullshit and the fake news of neoliberal modernity.

A Genealogy of Displacement  85 Adorno writes, “In their attempt to resolve a conflict between ­collective and ­individual interests, these hopeless rationalisations contained a ring of truth which today we too cheerfully deny.”14 Accountability suffers from our haste to decode universal principles into economic causes. Attacks on the hypocrisy of liberals’ universal ideals of equal ­opportunity hit the bull’s eye in the miraculous tale of Desmond Tutu’s Rainbow Nation Circle of Ubuntu. But this leads to lawless impatience with the niceties of liberal democracy. What is it, then, to reveal the economic interests of the Zuma–Gupta nexus? The emails are there for all who care to read them; the testimony heard at the Zondo Commission. There is no secret ­mechanism for the ideology critic to explain. In any case, a materialist critique of land returns us to square one, missing the meaning of land as ideology. Immanent, defetishizing, Marxian ideology critique misunderstands neoliberal ideology, which does not pretend to be universal but just points to how it is, as if it is what it is. The mechanism of ideology normalization is not directly repressive or deceptive, such as with a false, hypocritical presentation of high universal moral ideals. A better explanation, which I advocate here, for how land discourse functions as ideology is not just by way of active repression or direct deception, but also as an indirect effect of structural ideological or cultural displacement. Ideas formed in one context are displaced into or by a different context, such that the absent operative conditions, by which they are formed, including contested evaluative relations of power, are disguised. We reinforce these attendant social relations through our agency and our actions, without seeing how we thereby perpetuate the same circumstances by which we are dominated, disempowered and exploited. Think, for example, of white South African colonial education, displaced from its European origins and imposed by displaced Europeans, who have lost sense of its social and cultural significance, forgetting the imperialistic relations of exploitation that influenced its historical development. Conversely, useful knowledge that whites picked up from around the world may be mistakenly dismissed by decolonizing black South Africans as opinions made up for white interests. Displacement, suggests Peter Sloterdijk, substitutes the repressive hypothesis of the unconscious, as an explanation for psychological ­delusion, for a theory of displacement, as a censoring mechanism which mediates the conscious and unconscious. In Freud’s last major published work, Moses and Monotheism, written in exile, on the brink of war, on the verge of death, as Nazis overran Europe and cancer overran the jaw of the doctor, who invented the “talking cure,” Sloterdijk claims the c­ oncept of the unconscious is then rendered superfluous by the ­introduction of the concept of distortion/displacement.15 In this last work, Freud i­nterprets Moses as an Egyptian follower of the solar monotheistic Aten religion, who realizes rival gods like Amun cannot be eliminated at home, amidst

86  Christopher Allsobrook emplaced associated rituals. So, he infiltrates captive Jews, to lead them off to another place, “to resume the monotheistic experiment in a new location with other people.”16 There he taught them Egyptian customs like circumcision and codes of religious arrogance, strict self-discipline, and the taboo on idolatry, which monotheism demands of followers. Moses’ followers leave emplaced African pantheism for displaced monotheistic exodus and diaspora taking with them immutable normative texts, immune to compromise, forgetfulness and death. I present this not as historical fact but as a fruitful allegory, which Sloterdijk employs, to explain displacement as a mechanism of ideology, which does not depend on repression or deception, but works from a structural dislocation that conceals drivers of our ideas. The relevance of the allegory bears uncannily on a significant disjuncture between orally, communally negotiated processes securing African social tenures and the imposition by Roman-Dutch law of title deeds, secured by a state. Freud observes that the German Entstellung doubles for both distortion and displacement. The displacement on this biblical re-interpretation, therefore, does not only concern the recasting of roles, in the person of Moses, leader and liberator of the Jews, who gives them their laws, as an Egyptian, explains Sloterdijk, “but equally the redaction of accounts of this, which are always subject to the tendentious requirement of making what happened as unidentifiable as possible.”17 The epistemicide that erases customary norms of African social tenure takes place by displacement. Displacement of indigenous knowledge systems sustains neo-colonial governmentality even in land. The function of such displacement, as dislocation, is to hide, disguise, mystify, or camouflage the operative, generative conditions of a phenomenon, such that a social effect appears to sustain itself, as if by fate. Faith best forgets its effective agency in the suspension of disbelief. Freud compares the distortion of a text to a murder: “The difficulty lies not in carrying out the deed, but rather in removing its traces.” From then on, “the true Egyptian drama… takes place in a different location… in the religious experiment of Judaism as conceived by the man Moses.”18 Via Sinai, immobile monumental, anthropomorphic, pyramidic, pictographic place gods of ancient imperial Egypt are recoded, in abstract syncretic motifs, from “stone to scroll”19into the universal laws of one God, written in alphabetic text, transported in exodus and in diaspora; in the process of a metaphysical theodicy forever chronically haunted, “with the problem of its uncertain territorialisation.”20 In a key passage, Sloterdijk argues: One can view Moses and Monotheism to an extent as the self-correction of psychoanalysis at the last minute. The message of Freud’s late works would then be: ultimately it is not the unconscious that decides the fate of humans; what truly counts is the incognito that

A Genealogy of Displacement  87 conceals the origin of the dominant ideas. Because distortion goes far beyond active concealment, it protects the Egyptian incognito in a way that is much more secure than the directorate of a conspiracy could ever achieve… Projects become more important than origins… consideration for descent takes a back seat to the prospect of the Promised Land.21 The hegemonic ideologies, the dreams of the Pharaohs, the neurotic principles of political economy, which the psychoanalyst or ideology critic decodes, are not misleading phenomenal psychic effects of actively repressed, sublimated, hidden, unconscious desires, drives or social relations. Rather, underlying conditions of illusory phenomena, that is, the sensible grounds of their emplacement, are mysterious just because their location has shifted or repositioned in geographical and political space. Thus, Freud reforms his explanatory framework for delusion, with a more satisfactory model of displacement than the ad hoc anomaly of a mysterious agent of (self-)deception, or a regressive series of intermediaries in the mind, which Sartre ridicules in Being and Nothingness as the deceptive homunculus, buried in one’s psychic apparatus, to ward off the truth of lies the subject tells herself,22 and which Foucault identifies in The History of Sexuality: Volume I as the fictive sovereign subject of the repression hypothesis. Sloterdijk suggests, Freud abandons this hypothesis for displacement, or substitution, as a mechanism to explain the dislocation of perceived agency from its causal factors. With this theory in mind, one may suggest that African social tenure, like the unconscious, is likewise covered by displacement in a process Mogobe Ramose identifies as epistemicide, when he observes that African “customary law,” otherwise known as the law of the peoples of the land, is subordinated to the constitution. The dominance of this paradigm, exemplified by the total exclusion of ubuntu from the constitution, “speaks to continuing epistemicide feeding on delusory racial superiority”23 (I return to Ramose’s critique of the constitution toward the end of the chapter). In this context it may be argued that displacement, more so than repression, ensures the colonizer’s epistemic paradigm remains dominant. With the balance of forces, which keep contested concepts in check at home, dislocated abroad, measures of accountability are lost in translation. Moreover, a disjuncture between cultural norms and the official system erodes the formal legal infrastructure. Abraham Olivier interprets Ramose’s term to mean “­ prevailing ­subjugation to the colonizer’s epistemological paradigm and ­concomitant displacement of African thought.”24 Olivier responds to Malpas’s account of displacement as “superposition,” or, “the disappearance of one ­experience so that the appearance of another experience can take place” in a flux that makes possible perception of unity in experience.25 Displacement is a condition of our experience of unity in experience

88  Christopher Allsobrook and of selfhood in experience.26 This may involve the literal enforced removal of people from their homes, as with apartheid’s “enforced homelessness.”27 But also, Olivier writes, “one’s home can be taken from one, while still remaining in the same location… for instance, in the form of discriminatory social exclusion.”28 In this context, he cites Mbembe’s account, in On the Post-colony, of the forced homelessness many postcolonial inhabitants of African countries experience in their own places of living, where due to unbearable circumstances they can barely survive.29 The function of active repression in colonization, for imperialistic domination and exploitation, is automated by epistemicide, under the governmentality of decolonization, since, “the very predominance of the colonizer’s epistemic paradigm arises through the displacement of the subjects that it colonizes.”30

Part Two: English Settlers Lose the Plot In 1983, when I was seven years old, my family moved out of town to “the farm.” This nice enough but strange plot of land, in Rocklands, outside Uitenhage, sat at the foot of a mountain, a pinched toe of the Lady’s Slipper, on the road to a high security prison. It was big enough for a small farm but there was no farming on it. We rented for a year to see how we would like it, living out there. I had imagined the land all green and soft, without so many thorns and itchy insects. There were: a house, a couple of fields, two servants’ huts, uphill, an empty reservoir where I played cricket with my sisters and the gardener, Henry. I liked exploring but none of my friends visited since it was half an hour’s drive from town. Henry became my best friend. We’d hang out in his home up the hill. He taught me some math and how to bake bread on the fire. I remember we once ate snake together. He told me when President Vorster was killed. His spoke his name like a swear word. Vorster was from Uitenhage too. My mom hated Uitenhage, an industrial dorpie in a dirty valley, dominated by Volkswagen and its suppliers. Our German family friends ran the game farm next door Wide Horizon. Every sunset you heard lions roar at feeding time. The air was clean. My younger sister wanted a donkey for her birthday. She never touched it once she got it. The abject reality of the dismal beast freaked her out. My mom, a dramatic drama teacher at the local convent, grew ill and went mad. I’m not sure which came first. She was in bed a lot, with bowel obstructions, playing loud classical music, and in hospital for much of the year, between operations. There was a flood, which warped our ­photographs, books, and vinyl. My dad started an affair with his secretary. At some point Henry disappeared, or so I was told. Years later I learned my dad and elder sister found him hanging in his hut. We left the land at the end of that year to escape, to Port Elizabeth, to the city, like most white South Africans. The trauma, displaced by the idea of our

A Genealogy of Displacement  89 farm in Africa, was exacerbated in its manifestation on the land, which could scarcely sustain the burden of speculation. Eyes are bigger than the stomach, we say, when we experience the horror of indigestion. I mention this personal account of land ideology to take stock of the relatively privileged position that informs these views, given the hazards of displaced omniscient critique, as a white man raised to rule the land over races still considered subordinate through the final two decades of apartheid. My family was publicly critical of the system, but our enjoyment of its benefits at home warps our perspectives like water damage. I do so also to reflect on representative ideology of land, for many white South Africans, which arises in displacement. By the time white South Africans consolidated control of the land, that is, by around the 1930s, most of us had also, perversely, lost interest in occupying much of it. The vast, majestic, wild South African landscape makes for a great city break. We fetishize the landscape of a peri-urban plot. But most of the land is hard and lonely, with few opportunities. Farming is tough. Apartheid was less the forced removal of Blacks from land (which happened earlier) than from their homes, around the cities, where most whites already lived. Black urbanization accelerated rapidly with the fall of apartheid. We all want land. We love the land. But most of us sleep in the city and many more are moving in. Despite the political centrality of the land question, most of us do not want much of it nor know what to do with it. I’ve never owned much land. Since I left school, the year before our first democratic elections, I rented small homes, to stay flexible, despite my father urging me to dig my roots into a miserable London apartment at the turn of the century. It is not unusual for the French or the German bourgeoisie, or the residents of Singapore, New York, or Hong Kong, to rent a room. A lack of land has never undermined my own sense of freedom, self-possession, or entitlement. My dad was right. I may have made a tidy sum. But I would not be where I am trying to justify by displacement my possession of 900 m2 of African land.

Part Three: Restoration of Title to Territory, Absolute Sovereignty, and Reparations The end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered (Alexander III)”31 To prove the Egyptian identity of Moses and of his faith, Freud rejects the “folk etymology” of the story, that his Hebrew name Moshe—“the drawer out”—was bestowed by an Egyptian princess who drew him out of the water. First, the term is too far from “he that was drawn out of the water” and second, he writes, “it is nonsensical to credit an Egyptian

90  Christopher Allsobrook princess with a knowledge of Hebrew etymology.”32 Freud notices, “It might have been expected that one of the many authors who recognized the name Moses to be an Egyptian name would have drawn the conclusion;” but, perhaps, the thought that Moses was Egyptian “seemed monstrous.” At any rate, the Egyptian name “Mose”—child—is a “not uncommon” abridgment of the fuller form of a name, such as “Amunmose” (Alexander’s title when he freed Egypt), “Thut-mose” (Thothmes), or “Ra-mose” (Ramses).33 If the universalist ideology of faith in One God was displaced from Africa by the Scroll—since its hegemony was unsustainable among evidence and customs that told the genealogy of its embodied emplacement—then it is apt that it should return through the displaced modalities of Byzantine imperial diplomacy, Islamic conquest, and European Enlightenment. Likewise, it is apt for our South African high priest of Black Consciousness Mogobe Ramose, who received his PhD in Philosophy from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, then, to return to Africa, with the fall of the colonial regime, to indict decolonization for displacing the colonial function of imperial domination. In developing a defetishizing, immanent critique of its universal pretensions to deterritorialization, Ramose deploys the language of universal justice and human rights to fight back against syncretic, indirect rule, with a call for the return of all land to Africans, for the redrawing of African borders, a new international order, the right to development, cancellation of foreign debt, and compensation for slavery and colonization.34 Decolonization, Ramose argues, makes the mistake of adopting the colonial technique of government; instead of moving on, with state succession. This process is, “a device to protect and perpetuate the privileges acquired through conquest in the unjust wars of colonization,” but it “did not eliminate the African quest for historical justice.” Rather, it imposes—in the name of historical justice—“necessity upon Africa to correct the situation.”35 Ramose accords the cultural context of colonization with principles of ancient Western philosophy and of medieval Christian orthodoxy. These principles distinguish human from non-human property with honorific distinctions of reason, or of enlightened maturity, which European conquerors attribute to themselves, in opposition to uncivilized savages, barbarians or infidels.36 By virtue of conquest, “lawlessness, utter disregard for morality, manifest injustice and the unprovoked use of armed force, was vested in the conqueror’s title to the territory of the conquered and absolute sovereignty over them.”37 But acquisition of title to territory and sovereignty over it, by “fraud, forgery and use of brute force,” Ramose explains, is invalid from “a juridical perspective.”38 That is to say, it transgresses, “the line of divine justice,” and the sovereignty of a people, with a substantive identity, within specific boundaries, which, “[i]s held by a people in perpetuity.”39

A Genealogy of Displacement  91 Ramose ridicules Rome’s assertion of its sole and exclusive right to universal spiritual sovereignty, invoked against Constantinople in the Petrine Commission, with the dismissive observation of “one basic problem,” with such extraterritorial metaphysical sovereignty, which is, “to be human is to be an embodied being…located in space and time… fixed or located in a territory.” He concludes, “it is clear that the idea of universal sovereignty without territory is imaginary…”40 But where, one may ask, lies the line of divine justice; and when is the perpetuity of national sovereignty? If the teleology of this African theodicy is Promised Land, then it appears, at present, at best, utopian. Ramose rejects the principle of extinctive prescription, which he disputes as just a right of conquest, with the maxim ex injuria ius non oritur, that is, “original lawlessness cannot change into lawfulness.” Since “a right cannot arise from a wrong… a claim to territorial title which originates in an illegal act is invalid.” “Effective occupation and lapse of time would not necessarily eliminate permanently this original right to territory and sovereignty over it.”41 Thus, since it was unjustly taken away, Ramose calls for restoration of recognized sovereignty of the conquered over their land.42 But, to whom and on whose terms does he address this call? To the conqueror, by his law, I’d venture, which imposed a duty on the people of Zimbabwe and South Africa to purchase back their own land that was taken from them wrongly in the first place, violating even Robert Nozick’s first law of just holdings. Despite this injustice, Ramose insists, the post-colonial constitutions of Zimbabwe and South Africa preserved the right of conquest as a juristic fact, by allowing the land holdings of the conqueror. Ramose contends, in addition to his appeal to historic justice, as ­equilibrium, that any legitimate state must recognize we all “have an equal right to life… which everyone must recognise, respect and protect.” Since “food is produced on and from the land… there is an ­indivisible ­connection between land and life,” such that, “the right to land means at the same time the right to food and life.”43 Moreover, by the ­principle of recoverability (ad repetendas res), the conquered may invoke just war to recover this lost land, justifiably including the use of force, with the ­ possibility of killing.44 The grave injustice, for the i­ndependence of Zimbabwe and South Africa, is the substitution of the struggle for decolonization for democratization, state succession, and extinctive ­ ­prescription. The f­oundational land question, which demands title to ­territory and ­sovereignty over it, is thereby reduced to a q ­ uestion of ­private law, with special reference to land ownership, reform, and r­ esettlement. Thus, a “universe of juristic facts excludes, discards and ignores a matter of natural and fundamental justice.”45 The concession “lost sight of the fact that the land question was a basic issue long before apartheid.”46 Moreover, Ramose adds, “This tension is sharpened ­particularly by the fact that the conception of law of the indigenous conquered peoples

92  Christopher Allsobrook does  not recognize the statute of limitation.”47 Having done with the immanent critique of universal law, he finally returns home from exiled displacement, to conclude, “[p]rescription is unknown in African law.”48 Thus, “restitution and reparation must be counted among the basic pillars of the post-conquest constitution.”49 In a later interview with Derek Hook in 2016, Ramose reflects on his fundamental concern as follows, There is no reason why we should be soft on the point that this is our land (Izwe Lethu)… There is unfinished business precisely regarding who is the owner of the land… Land ownership… does not pertain to questions of private law, the right to private property… No, this one is specific. It is the question of sovereign title to territory… One would say the Izwe Lethu slogan of the PAC is still important in today’s South Africa because today’s South Africa is yet to answer the question.50 Hook suggests, It is almost as if you could take that historical scene where the PAC cautions against the problematic things that are being enshrined in the Freedom Charter… and make the same argument today in relation to the constitution… that contains many of the same problems. That argument holds? To which Ramose responds, “It holds, it holds, yes.”51 Once they had settled property rights in the longest clause of the constitution, white South Africa traded parliamentary for constitutional sovereignty. For this reason, he argues, “it is not the Constitution of the people.”52 In a curious development, the African ethical concept of Ubuntu was included in the interim constitution, deployed to defend the preference for restitution and forgiveness over retribution and punishment at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; then, dropped from the final constitution. What we have now [is] a law that actively retards the process of justice for the indigenous conquered peoples of South Africa. It is quite ironical that most of the of the so-called negotiators including Mandela himself were trained lawyers, how could they not see that?… Ramaphosa, lawyer, Matthew Phosa, lawyer, Mandela, lawyer. Where did they study the law, how could they not see? I don’t think it makes sense! It just cannot make sense.53 To say that ubuntu was actively dropped from the constitution perhaps understates the insidious character of displacement. Ubuntu entered law in the “postamble” to the 1993 Interim Constitution, with a call in Act 200

A Genealogy of Displacement  93 for the divisions of apartheid “to be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for r­ eparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation.” Although there is no explicit mention of Ubuntu in the final 1996 ­constitution, as Bennett explains, “with no solid legal foundation, apart from this ­aspirational clause, ubuntu was then absorbed into the ­mainstream of legal discourse by a series of judgments in the Constitutional and High Courts.”54 However, this recognition has not extended to expropriation of whites’ title deeds. Though the 1996 constitution makes allowance for African customary law as a legitimate recourse for civil disputes, this code stands in an inferior relationship to the Bill of Rights, including the Property Clause, which overrides it.55

Part Four: Invisible Land To the Justice of whom does Ramose appeal? From the universalist multi-racial grounding of the African National Congress Freedom Charter (bound in our 1996 constitution), to the fateful injustice of territorial compromise, of the principle, that, “South Africa belongs to all who live in it,” in whose register ought we to read or listen to the response of the Pan-Africanist leader, Robert Sobukwe, Izwe Lethu? No! To liberal or communist backpedalling, this is our land! The land belongs to the conquered black Africans. Ramose interprets this to mean: “Justice demands the restoration of title to territory to the indigenous conquered peoples as well as restitution to them.”56 He bases his appeal, addressed in English, on the displaced, universalizing, globalist discourse of natural law, or in common humanity. But what if we read Izwe Lethu not in these displaced terms of natural law, sovereignty, humanity, equity, or territorial title, but through African norms of social tenure? Colonialism and apartheid displaced Africans from land by territorial acquisition and forced removal. The less visible epistemic consequence of this literal displacement is that, by this process, African land rights, established by emplaced, living, evolving, negotiated customary norms of social tenure and pastural migrancy, were also displaced by a universal framework of Western title deeds, which fixes enclosed space to legal persons on a surveyed cadastre as registered private property; through a system recognized and enforced by the courts of a nation-state with a monopoly on violence. Once colonialism achieves this secondary ideological displacement, the primary displacement of territorial acquisition is redundant. Decolonization requires neither repression nor occupation of the land. The hegemonic ideology automates exploitation, once finance on private property is secured in place. Although I focus here on legal foundations of land expropriation and displacement, it is important to acknowledge that relationships

94  Christopher Allsobrook with the land in African customary traditions are not just abstract or theoretical but also often deeply cultural and also spiritual.57 Displacement of African social tenure by Western title deeds functions more effectively at the level of ideology than by direct repression, which requires ongoing maintenance by an external agent. Through displacement, conquered subjects come to believe they lost what the conqueror gained. They fight for it. Even in resistance, therefore, the struggle for liberation entrenches the alien property rights. Instead of seeking recognition, restoration and security of social tenure, the conquered buy into the private property market, to gain the security and prestige of a title deed to commodified land. This displacement by title deed shifts the place of liberation from our land to my land, the Promised Land, eroding the negotiated, historical identity of people on land, until social tenures are invisible. From this radical and revolutionary perspective in late 1970s Black Consciousness, Ramose speaks to the epistemic function of displacement more than the primary displacement of forced removal. In this last section, it is worth raising a third sense of displacement that applies to the land question. This third, most general, least specific sense, of displacement, or meta-displacement, is predicated in the essential structural function of displacement itself, which is, to abstract the sense of embodied particulars (the trace of which is represented in hieroglyphs) into a universal code made of portable alphabetic text; such as from Ra, the embodied sun god, or idol, to the conceptual sun disk, Aten. This third level of displacement may be distinguished in Sloterdijk’s account of Freud’s Moses, in his Festschrift to Derrida and his Egyptian construction, the indestructible deconstruction machine. It is not just the roles of Moses and the Jews, their place and their religion that are displaced, but also the prior emplacement of ideas, i.e., the emplaced sense of ideas, to which ideas belong; the structural relationship of connection to place, which is expected of ideas, is itself displaced, by Platonic faith in underlying abstract universal categories, whose inner lives are more enduring than their physical and phenomenal manifestation. Ancestors are no longer buried at home. With our spirits displaced by the restless movement of capital, we are incinerated. And so, it is interesting that Ramose should return home from exile to speak of essential, eternal, and universal African ethical precepts, such as human rights, sovereignty, Ubuntu, justice as equity and equilibrium, and even prescription of extinctive prescription in the principle of molato ga o bole.58 In practice, normative customary relations of African social tenure are typically defined across a range of socially negotiated levels of access which are established by historical precedence, present occupation, kinship relations, need, status, chiefly authority, negotiated access, etc. A common general feature of the various ethical principles

A Genealogy of Displacement  95 that align these practices across Africa is this: they all agree that the legitimacy of social tenure gains sense on the ground and not from abstract, universal principles or title deeds. There is a bias against displacement, as such, in traditional conceptions of social tenure, toward emplacement. In Cambridge Cemetery, down the road from my home, a scam was recently revealed, whereby middle-class bodies are exhumed and re-buried in a mass pauper’s cemetery to be replaced by those with relatives prepared to pay less for the wrong headstone.59 Residents of informal settlements and squatters occupy vacant land regardless of title deeds. In terms of homegrown credentials, they also know who lives where on what land. Not anything goes. Ramose advocates the principle of constitutional sovereignty in favor of parliamentary sovereignty, and he remains committed to the universal ethics of Ubuntu, with African humanness (if not humanism). But he also observes that, even as the political leadership of the black nationalist Azanian People’s Organisation and the Pan Africanist Congress “continues to pursue the resolution of this conflict within the narrow and untenable epistemological paradigm of the conqueror, their peoples chartered their own route through the matyotyombe phenomenon…” This is “a complex combination of conditions unfit for human habitation human beings nonetheless find themselves in, leaving the only option but to radically question, the juridical epistemology of the conqueror.”60 The occupation of the matoytyombe is, “a rejection of a situation of basic injustice protected by a constitution without homegrown credentials.”61 The matyotyombe (in isiXhosa, or baipei in Sotho) “assert their right to a place,” “which has historical meaning, where some things have happened which are now remembered and which provide continuity… in which important words have been spoken and which have established identity…”62 So, where Ramose argues, “the natural right to housing has priority,” one may point out, rights are social. And when he argues for sovereign African title to territory, one wonders where this title deed is filed. The great injustice in South Africa’s transition of the unresolved land question turns on displacement of the sovereignty of parliament, representing the people, with a code of constitutional sovereignty; and with a constitution, which barely recognizes local African customary norms, which most of our citizens cannot read. It is fine to argue in the conqueror’s terms, but our fear is that the immanent constitutional critique no longer works, for a confluence of capitalism, decolonization and epistemicide. To be clear, my argument is not intended to deny functional r­ estitution cases for land, but to argue for the better alignment of (a) formal, registered, private land deeds, with (b) off-register, social tenures, so ­ the latter gain an equal footing with the former, in official recognition, protection, and enforcement. As Kepe and Hall see it,63 by exclusively

96  Christopher Allsobrook securing title deeds under the official state apparatus, to the neglect of all other social tenures, land reform, “perpetuates the colonial present.” The state reproduces colonial segregation of individualized title deeds and communal social tenures, failing to reconceptualize and integrate these in a coherent, coordinated system which could better secure the latter. Ironically, this divide is maintained in land reform programs. That is to say, ideological displacement of social tenure leads the conquered to voluntary servitude. I suggest that displacement is the mechanism by which land discourse is ideological. The state and all financial institutions recognize, credit, and secure registered title deeds. They cannot see African land rights. The dominant formal theoretical framework of norms, standards, and regulations for land administration must therefore be revised to accommodate a wider array of tenure options.64 Whereas the current system of land administration privileges formally registered title deeds over alternative social tenure arrangements, this conception of tenure rights is inadequate to deal with social tenures. These so-called “informal rights” are seldom disorganized and usually regulated and organized through local social and political processes.65 Hornby et al. argue that the conception of tenure rights must be expanded through land reform in South Africa to include recognition of these alternative normative patterns of tenure which are currently neglected by a cadastral system based exclusively on surveyed freehold title deeds.66 Through displacement we are alienated from and dominated by social creations that seem beyond our input and control. In a window of freedom in the late 1970s, before the rise of the Iron Lady and the fall of the Iron Curtain, when it seemed authoritarians were on the back foot and people power was up for grabs, the South African black consciousness leader Steve Biko and the poststructuralist Michel Foucault realized, independently, that governmentality is deep inside and not on top. Biko renounces violence not for the sake of morality but because he does not imagine such a large black majority in an African country needs violence to take over their land. The greater obstacle to black empowerment he identifies is the struggle for black pride, against white normativity.67 President Zuma treated his constitution as an imposition, just as he avoided the pitfalls of colonial education. Our students often treat reading material, assignments, and lecture attendance as an imposition, as if compelled by an external force, neglecting to take ownership of their epistemic role in learning and in development of knowledge. We treat the law of the land as if it belongs to others, not to all who live in it but to white monopoly capital or blacks. Coercion and inequality lead us to disown collective institutions and public space so that we dispossess ourselves. If I may have displaced the land question in digressing to a discussion of ideology, make no mistake, urgent economic intervention is needed

A Genealogy of Displacement  97 to address land dispossession. But many complex social problems are bundled into the land question, which we still need to unpack. We have reason to suspect that land discourse at times functions as ideology in this antagonistic, divided society. We know the land question is susceptible to ideological manipulation. I argue further that land ideology is not just repressive. It is less of an external force than it is a restructuring of desires and agency by displacement. Domination, more than an effect of repressive norms, is what we allow when we do what we want. By virtue of displacement, our agency is complicit. South Africa is full of displaced people and institutions which have lost touch with their ancestry. We have neglected, forgotten, or denied the conflicted historical and cultural normative roots of our legal and administrative infrastructure. Failing to understand the historical sense of our everyday institutional and customary practices, we reproduce exploitative relations of power without realizing why we do so. Where land ideology benefits elites, this may be straightforwardly repressive, in the style of white elite entitlement to conquered territory and literal coercive displacement. More insidiously, it may function by structural displacement, where we lose touch with the history and meaning of what we do. Izwe Lethu calls for recognition of African land rights, as practiced by African people on the ground, first, foremost; long before the matyotyombe can get it together to take on the universal discourse of a formal shack dwellers’ movement, such as Abahlali baseMjondolo. Decolonization is more than the forced removal of white settlers from the Promised Land. It requires coherent integration and realignment of the law of the state with the genealogies and purposes of citizens’ everyday customary practices.

Notes 1 Raymond Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 12–19. 2 Christopher Allsobrook, “Phenomenology as First Philosophy,” in SA Journal of Philosophy 33, No. 3 (2014), 323–324. 3 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, with Selections from Parts Two and Three, Together with Marx’s “Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy” (New York: International Publishers, 1970), chapter 3, section 5. 4 Maeve Cook, “Adorno, Ideology and Ideology Critique,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 27, No. 1 (2001), 9. 5 Amanda Holpuch, “They’re Dying… It is what it is,” The Guardian, Aug. 4, 2020. 6 William Beinart and Peter Delius, “The Historical Context and Legacy of the Natives Land Act of 1913,” Journal of Southern African Studies 40, No. 4 (2014), 668. 7 Abdul Hamid Kwarteng and Thomas Prehi Botchway, “State responsibility and the question of expropriation: A preliminary to the ‘Land Expropriation without Compensation’ Policy in South Africa,” Journal of Politics and Law 12, No. 1 (2019), 100.

98  Christopher Allsobrook 8 Donna Hornby et al., “Introduction: Tenure Practices, Concepts and Theories in South Africa,” Untitled: Securing Land Tenure in Urban and Rural South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2017), 4. 9 Hornby et al., “Introduction: Tenure Practices, Concepts and Theories in South Africa,” 5–6. 10 Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite (London: Heinemann, 1963), xvii. 11 Cf. Marianne Thamm, “Bell Pottinger has Taught Us What to Treasure in the Long Painful Haul Back to Freedom,” Daily Maverick, Oct. 7, 2017. 12 Cf. Marianne Thamm, “Hawks Round Up Bigger Fish in the Estina Scandal Edge Closer to Ace Magashule,” Daily Maverick, Aug. 19, 2020. 13 Cf. Thamm, “Hawks Round Up Bigger Fish in the Estina Scandal Edge Closer to Ace Magashule,” 2020. 14 Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (London: New Left Books, 1974), §2. 15 Peter Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009), 16. 16 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 12. 17 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 13. 18 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 14–15. 19 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 47. 20 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 15. 21 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 16. 22 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (London: Routledge, 1995), 95. 23 Mogobe Ramose, “Towards a Post-Conquest South Africa: beyond the constitution of 1996,” South African Journal of Human Rights, 34, No. 3 (2018), 13. 24 Abraham Olivier, “Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27, No. 1 (2019), 33. 25 Jeff Malpas, Place and Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 160. 26 Olivier, “Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach,” 39. 27 Olivier, “Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach,” 41. 28 Olivier, “Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach,” 42. 29 Olivier, “Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach,” 42. 30 Olivier, “Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach,” 33. 31 Plutarch, Lives, 345. 32 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 13. 33 Sloterdijk, Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid, 14–15. 34 Mogobe Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” in The African Philosophy Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), 542. 35 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 542. 36 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 544. 37 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 544. 38 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 548. 39 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 550. 40 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 550. 41 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 553. 42 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 552.

A Genealogy of Displacement  99 3 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 555–556. 4 44 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 556. 45 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 543. 46 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 570. 47 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 569. 48 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 569; cf. M’Baye, ‘The African conception of law’, International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, vol. II, edited by U. Drobnig, et al. (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1974), http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2589-4021_IECO_COM_020107. 49 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought,” 576. 50 Mogobe Ramose, “‘To Whom Does the Land Belong?’: Mogobe Bernard Ramose Talks to Derek Hook,” Psychology in Society, 50 (2016), 93. 51 Ramose, “‘To Whom Does the Land Belong?’: Mogobe Bernard Ramose Talks to Derek Hook,” 96. 52 Ramose, “‘To Whom Does the Land Belong?’: Mogobe Bernard Ramose Talks to Derek Hook,” 97. 53 Ramose, “‘To Whom Does the Land Belong?’: Mogobe Bernard Ramose Talks to Derek Hook,” 97–98. 54 Thomas William Bennett, “Ubuntu: an African Equity,” Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad, 14, No. 4 (2011), 30. 55 For arguments regarding suppression of African customary rights recognition by Western legal principles in South African law, see Ndumiso Dladla, “Towards an African Critical Philosophy of Race: Ubuntu as a Philo-Praxis of Liberation,” Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 6, No. 1, 39–68 (2017) and Christopher Allsobrook, “Universal Human Rights from an African Social Contract,” in Perspectives in Social Contract Theory, 275–318 (Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2018). 56 Ramose, “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought;” Ramose, “Justice and Restitution,” 543. 57 Avela Njwambe et al., “Ekhayeni: Rural–Urban Migration, Belonging and Landscapes of Home in South Africa,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 45, No. 2 (2019), 414–415. 58 Mogobe B. Ramose, “An African perspective on justice and race,” polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy, 3 (2001), 572. 59 Cf. Bongani Fuzile, “Graveyard Scam Raking in Piles of Cash for Dodgy Funeral Parlours,” Daily Dispatch, 20 June 2020. 60 Ramose, “An African perspective on justice and race,” 574. 61 Ramose, “An African perspective on justice and race,” 574. 62 Ramose, “An African perspective on justice and race,” 574. 63 Thembeka Kepe and Ruth Hall, “Land Redistribution in South Africa: Towards Decolonisation or Recolonisation?” Politikon 45, No. 1 (2018), 8. 64 Ben Cousins et al., “Will formalising property rights reduce poverty in South Africa’s ‘second economy’? Questioning the mythologies of Hernando de Soto,” PLAAS Policy Brief 18 (2005), 2. 65 Hornby et al., “Introduction: Tenure Practices, Concepts and Theories in South Africa,” 9. 66 Hornby et al., “Introduction: Tenure Practices, Concepts and Theories in South Africa,” 10. 67 Steven Bantu Biko, I Write What I Like: Steve Biko. A selection of his writings (Oxford: Heinemann, 1987), 133–134.

100  Christopher Allsobrook

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor. Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life. Translated by EFN Jephcott. London: New Left Books, 1974. Allsobrook, Christopher. “Phenomenology as First Philosophy.” SA Journal of Philosophy 33, No. 3, 321–329. 2014. Allsobrook, Christopher. “Universal Human Rights from an African Social Contract.” In Perspectives in Social Contract Theory, 275–318. Edited by Edwin Etieyibo. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2018. Beinart, William, and Peter Delius. “The Historical Context and Legacy of the Natives Land Act of 1913.” Journal of Southern African Studies 40, No. 4, 667–688. 2014. Bennett, Thomas William. “Ubuntu: an African Equity.” Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad, 14, No. 4, 30–61. 2011. Biko, Steven Bantu. I Write What I Like: Steve Biko. A selection of his writings. Edited by Aelred Stubbs, Oxford: Heinemann, 1987 Biko, Steven Bantu. I Write What I Like: Steve Biko. A selection of his writings. Edited by Aelred Stubbs, Oxford: Heinemann, 1987. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 200 of 1993. Cook, Maeve. “Adorno, Ideology and Ideology Critique.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 27, No. 1, 1–21. 2001. Cousins, Ben, et al. “Will formalising property rights reduce poverty in South Africa’s ‘second economy’? Questioning the mythologies of Hernando de Soto.” In PLAAS Policy Brief 18, 2005. Dladla, Ndumiso. “Towards an African Critical Philosophy of Race: Ubuntu as a Philo-Praxis of Liberation.” Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 6, No. 1, 39–68. 2017. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Fuzile, Bongani. “Graveyard Scam Raking in Piles of Cash for Dodgy Funeral Parlours.” Daily Dispatch, 20 June 2020. Geuss, Raymond. The Idea of a Critical Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Holpuch, Amanda. “They’re Dying… It is what it is.” The Guardian, Aug. 4, 2020. Hornby, Donna, et al. “Introduction: Tenure Practices, Concepts and Theories in South Africa.” In Untitled: Securing Land Tenure in Urban and Rural South Africa, 1–43. Edited by Donna Hornby et al. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2017. Kepe, Thembeka, and Ruth Hall. “Land Redistribution in South Africa: Towards Decolonisation or Recolonisation?” Politikon 45, No. 1, 128–137. 2018. Kwarteng, Abdul Hamid, and Thomas Prehi Botchway. “State responsibility and the question of expropriation: A preliminary to the ‘Land Expropriation without Compensation’ Policy in South Africa.” Journal of Politics and Law 12, No. 1, 98–107. 2019. Malpas, Jeff. Place and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

A Genealogy of Displacement  101 Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology, with Selections from Parts Two and Three, Together with Marx's “Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy.” Translated by Christopher Arthur. New York: International Publishers, 1970. Njwambe, Avela, et al. “Ekhayeni: Rural-Urban Migration, Belonging and Landscapes of Home in South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies, 45, No. 2, 413–431. 2019. Nkrumah, Kwame. Africa Must Unite. London: Heinemann, 1963. Olivier, Abraham. “Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27, No. 1, 31–56. 2019. Plutarch. Lives. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. London: Heinemann, 2015. Ramose, Mogobe B. “An African perspective on justice and race.” polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy, 3. 2001. [https://them.polylog.org/3/frm-en.htm] [Accessed October 15 2020] Ramose, Mogobe. “Justice and Restitution in African Political Thought.” In The African Philosophy Reader. Edited by PH Coetzee and APJ Roux. London: Routledge, 2003. Ramose, Mogobe. “‘To Whom Does the Land Belong?’: Mogobe Bernard Ramose Talks to Derek Hook.” Psychology in Society, 50, 86–98. 2016. Ramose, Mogobe. “Towards a Post-Conquest South Africa: beyond the constitution of 1996.” South African Journal of Human Rights, 34, No 3, 326– 341. 2018. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by Hazel Barnes. London: Routledge, 1995. Sloterdijk, Peter. Derrida, an Egyptian: on the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid. Translated by W Hoban. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009. Thamm, Marianne. “Bell Pottinger has Taught Us What to Treasure in the Long Painful Haul Back to Freedom.” Daily Maverick, Oct. 7, 2017. Thamm, Marianne. “Hawks Round Up Bigger Fish in the Estina Scandal Edge Closer to Ace Magashule.” Daily Maverick, Aug. 19, 2020.

Part III

Being with Others Applied Dimensions and RealWorld Problems

6 The Public Legitimacy of Minority Claims in Eastern Europe Plamen Makariev

6.1 Introduction Put briefly, my aim here is to present an idea of another form of minority empowerment. I have called it, proceeding from Jürgen Habermas’ term “communicative power,”1 “communicative empowerment.” I regard it as an alternative to “traditional” forms of minority empowerment, such as collective and group rights, as well as certain political models—consociational democracy,2 the politics of presence,3 and the participation of ethnic parties in political life.4 By “communicative empowerment,” I mean development of a capacity of minority groups to legitimate in the public sphere claims related to their status in society in such a way that public opinion in the country would support them, thus motivating authorities to implement appropriate public policies. In particular, such claims would concern the social conditions for maintaining and reproducing over time the identities of such groups with regard to language issues, education, the media, the arts, religion, etc. Obviously, even the strictest observance of universal, individual human rights would not suffice to ensure proper conditions for the realization of minority identities.5 On the other hand, the multiculturalist policies of the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century have provoked negative reactions among the mainstream public—in the form mostly of concerns about the integrity of society.6 As a result, nowadays such multiculturalist policies have lost “momentum” in Western Europe, and nationalism is gaining ground in most of the countries in the Central and Eastern parts of the continent. Similar concerns have been expressed regarding collective and group rights.7 Therefore, this “wavering” between universalist and particularist approaches to cultural diversity does not seem to be a promising way to find a satisfactory answer to the question: How can minority identities be granted proper recognition without impairing national integrity?

106  Plamen Makariev That is why I think it would be a good idea to seek such an answer in the field of public communication. If claims made by representatives of a minority community concerning the conditions for the reproduction of its identity over time are justified before the general public, then government policies which are more favorable for its identity would be regarded as legitimate in public opinion. In such a case, greater opportunities that its members would get to “enjoy” their culture—e.g., to use and develop their language, to be properly represented in the media and in the arts, to practice their religion, etc.—would not be regarded as a threat to the integrity of society, as has been the case with the multiculturalist “celebration of diversity.” Such a legitimization would be a kind of “social contract” that would balance the interests of all of the parties involved. How can this be done? I rely in this respect on a methodological paradigm which has not only been theoretically refined through the recent decades, but has also found considerable practical application. By this, I mean the theory and practice of public deliberation. Philosophically, it “rests” on more than one “pillars”—the communicative approach to reason, the theory of communicative action, the consensualist ideal of democracy, discourse ethics, theories of the public sphere, and so forth. The procedural criteria that differentiate public deliberation from other modes of public communication aim at guaranteeing that the consent of the parties in an agreement is genuine, i.e., that each of the parties has agreed not because of coercion, or yielding to an emotional impulse, or trust in some authority, or some other kind of manipulation. Public deliberation is a procedure of communication, which is designed to help the parties come to an agreement, knowing what they are doing. That is why, within this paradigm, it is accepted that true legitimization can come about only through communication that meets the criteria of public deliberation. The reason is that such communication is especially protected from manipulation. Public legitimization has always been one of the favorite targets of such “mischievous” activities. A rogue “player” in politics can profit a lot from manipulating public opinion. This is all the more true in the field of minority issues. Undertakings that have aimed at protecting minority identities have been tarnished as subversive actions, and the self-interests of corrupt minority leaders have been promoted under the banner of “just” struggles for rights and freedoms. Hence, the only possible means of legitimizing minority claims in a fair way seems to be public deliberation. However, the “philosophy” of public deliberation is a distinctly modernist one. A norm or a social practice is legitimate for someone if it is approved by them in an agent-like manner,8 i.e., if it has been accepted as justified by that person themselves, and not because someone else has decided that this should be so. In such a case, what can be said about the applicability of this method of legitimization with regard more precisely

The Public Legitimacy  107 to minority claims? Can we imagine, for example, people who belong to an immigrant community in a Western European country, one which might be characterized by traditional mores and a profoundly religious mentality, as engaging in a publically deliberative debate? Obviously, we cannot. That is why I will focus my study on a particular type of minority—namely national, ethnic, and religious non-immigrant communities in the countries of Eastern Europe. More particularly, I have in mind groups like the Turks in Bulgaria (about 8% of the country’s population),9 the Serbs in Croatia (4.36%), the Hungarians in Serbia (3.53%) and in Romania (6.5%), the Russians in Latvia (26.9%), Lithuania (5.8%) and Estonia (24.8%), the Albanians in North Macedonia (25.2%), and the Roma in Bulgaria (4.4%), Romania (3.3%), Hungary (3.2%). As regards religion, the breakdown is as follows: there are Muslim populations in Bulgaria (7.78%) and North Macedonia (33.33%), Eastern Orthodox Christian populations in Latvia (24.1%), Lithuania (4.1%) and Estonia (16%), Roman Catholics in Albania (10.03%), Romania (4.6%), and Serbia (5%). These groups have inhabited the places where they live now for ages, but in most cases they have become minorities10 as a result of redistribution of territories occurring without caring for the interests of the groups affected—for example, with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the territorial changes resulting from World Wars I and II, as well as the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. It should be noted though that a special case here is that of the Roma minorities, whose presence in the countries where they live is due to migrations having taken place many centuries ago. Why do I think that it is in this social environment, that communicative empowerment can help solve minority issues better than collective or group rights, or involving minority communities in the struggles for political power? My reason for thinking so is that these groups have inhabited the territory of these countries for centuries. A modern mentality prevails among their members. The reproduction of their collective identities over time is in most cases of a self-reflective nature. Most of these people have enough experience in participation in public communication—at least as “consumers” of mass-media content. More generally, these communities are a part of the civil societies in their countries. In a word, there is enough capacity available here for participation in debates which meet the criteria of public deliberation. The great challenge in this respect are, however, the cultural differences between most of these communities and the mainstream public. One of the main characteristics of public deliberation is that it is rational communication. The negotiating parties are trying to come to an agreement by convincing each other—exchanging arguments—that a given solution would fit best the interests of all of them. In the case of the legitimization of minority claims the arguments refer to such communities’ cultural needs. But how can needs of this sort be assessed from without?

108  Plamen Makariev Let us imagine that, for example, representatives of a Muslim community in a given country argue in the social media, that the obligation to wear a niqab is a necessary element of the self-awareness of any Muslim woman, and that a ban on wearing such garments in public space would hurt deeply her personality, which would be a gross injustice. Therefore, the wearing of niqabs should be allowed everywhere, including public institutions, schools, hospitals, etc. How can non-Muslim citizens evaluate the legitimacy of such a claim? In order to do that they should be able to assure themselves that female Muslim self-awareness does indeed include necessarily such an element. But how can this be done? Just by asking people? By a sociological survey? How can we be sure that the respondents would reveal their true cultural identity, even if their answers are anonymous? Maybe these answers would be influenced by certain “strategic” (in the sense of Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action)11 considerations? Or maybe such a self-awareness, even if it does exist, is an instance of false consciousness altogether, and should not be encouraged by too permissive policies? It is something of an analytical statement, that it is impossible to find out what someone’s true identity is from an external perspective. And this concerns not only religious, but also national and ethnic identities. How can we know what really matters for a community to which we do not belong—if their self-awareness is different from ours. What about a claim regarding, for example, the names of geographical areas, rivers, towns, villages in regions, where a minority population numerically prevails—a claim that they should bear, beside their names in the official language of the country, also their traditional names in the minority language? What if such a claim is substantiated by referring to the cultural self-awareness of the minority community—in the sense that if these places are named exclusively in a way which feels alien to these people, they would not feel at home in this country, they would not identify really with this nation, etc.? How can the general public tell whether this is actually the case? A local referendum would not be convincing enough, because the result might be due to political propaganda, or to other factors, which have nothing to do with how the members of this community really feel. So, summing up, I shall be trying here to clarify how communicative empowerment of minority communities would be possible. More specifically—how could public deliberation be used as means of legitimizing minority claims before the public opinion in the respective country. And the great challenge that I shall be dealing with in this regard is—how could public deliberation be realized across the “barrier” of cultural differences. In what follows I shall first present briefly the procedure of public deliberation (Section 6.2); then I shall comment more extensively what difficulties for the application of this kind of communication for legitimizing minority claims arise from cultural “intransparency” (Section 6.3); and lastly, I shall sketch out the solution that I propose (Section 6.4).

The Public Legitimacy  109

6.2 Why Public Deliberation? In most general terms, to legitimize a claim before someone means to convince the interlocutor, that this claim is consistent with her own beliefs and awareness of her interests. In cases when a decision is being made by two or more parties, it would be legitimate for all of them, if they accept that it is in the equal interest of each one affected. In such case the decision would be made by consensus. In the theory of public deliberation this approach to decision-making is contrasted to the majority-vote approach.12 To make a decision by voting is characterized as doing so by “aggregating preferences.” The alternative is to adjust the decision to the interests of all parties which would be affected by it—and this is called to decide by “transforming preferences.” The negotiating parties are trying to convince each other to modify their claims, if necessary, so that to achieve a balance of interests. This consensualist approach is oriented to justice, unlike the “majoritarian” one, which leads to some people imposing their will on others. However, since times immemorial people have been fooling each other on this matter—whether a claim, or a state of affairs is consistent with the “other’s” beliefs and interests. When such mischiefs are done in the field of public communication, the latter is being manipulated. As a result, fictitious legitimacy is produced. People do believe that a claim, a norm, a state of affairs, etc. is consistent with their understandings, values, faith, interests. They are prepared to conform voluntarily their behavior to such norms, to bear the consequences of such policies without objection. However, they are wrong in doing that. Actually their judgment regarding the legitimacy of norms or practices is only nominally theirs. It is in fact predetermined by the one who has manipulated them. James Fishkin defines manipulative communication in the following way. A person has been manipulated by a communication when she has been exposed to a message intended to change her views in a way she would not accept if she were to think about it on the basis of good conditions.13 So, how could public communication be protected from manipulations? Can certain criteria be formulated, such that if a public debate meets them, it would be “immune” to faking the authorship of the debates’ outcomes. In other words, how can each of the participants be provided the opportunity to determine her position in regard of the debates’ subject matter herself. Of course, this position might be, under circumstances, wrong, counterproductive, etc. due to the participant’s incompetence, or, more generally, to human imperfection. However, it is not without importance, whether, or not, this would be truly the participant’s own position, i.e., it would not be pre-decided by someone else.

110  Plamen Makariev The theory of public deliberation is addressing precisely this issue. Authors who work within this paradigm are discussing various criteria which could protect a debate from manipulations. One of the most comprehensive proposals has been made by Joshua Cohen. He prescribes the following parameters for a publicly deliberative discussion: (a) rationality (“argumentative form”); (b) inclusivity and publicness (all who are possibly affected should have an equal chance to take part); (c) freedom from external coercion; (d) freedom from internal coercion (equality among the participants—their positions in the debate should yield only to “the unforced force of the better argument”); (e) revisability of the decisions made; (f) inclusivity concerning the subject matter of the deliberation (any issue that can be regulated in the equal interest of all can be discussed); and (g) inclusivity regarding interpretations of needs and wants.14 Criteria of this sort, which single out public deliberation from all kinds of public communication, are a matter of numerous discussions. For lack of space I shall not try to present them here. I will focus rather on the criteria, which in my opinion would guarantee the autonomy of the participants in the debates. In this respect, I think, three of Cohen’s parameters are most relevant. One of them is “freedom from external coercion.” It is obvious that if someone has been made to do something against her will, the “authorship” of such a deed is not hers. Another relevant procedural requirement is “inclusivity and publicness” of the communication. If someone’s access to information is regulated by someone else, then that person’s positions concerning the debate’s subject matter would be determined not by her, but by the one who controls the information. Of course, even if the debate is fully inclusive and public, this does not mean that each of the participants would have at her disposal all relevant information, and that it would be entirely true and precise. In reality, public debates do not take place under perfect conditions. However, what matters in this respect is, whether, or not, each of the participants in the debate takes her decisions in an agent-like manner. The third criterion in this order is, in my opinion, “rationality.” A discussion on the legitimacy of some norm or policy can proceed as an exchange of arguments, but also, conversely, as a clash of narratives, passionate appeals, insults, etc. In which of these two cases would it be more likely, that each of the participants will have the opportunity to decide for herself which one of the proposed versions of the norm (or policy) to support? Will this be so, if she makes her decision by comparing the options discussed with her beliefs and awareness of her interests, and rationally choosing the one that is most consistent with them? Or, if she yields to emotions, or to the charisma of a talented orator, or to the authority of a great scholar? The proponents of public deliberation, such as Jürgen Habermas, rely in this respect on the “unforced force of the better argument.”15

The Public Legitimacy  111 However, what about a situation—and such cases are not at all rare— when the better argument is not in our favor? For example, what if from a just solution of a social problem would follow that we will have to lose some privileges of ours? Yes, such a solution would be in the equal interest of all whom it concerns, and if we happen to be normally moral people, it will be consistent with our conscience, i.e., it will be legitimate from our viewpoint. But still—what if our selfishness prevails over our conscience and we do not have the motivation to admit publicly that this is the right solution, and we are prepared to accept it? In such cases people usually try to evade recognizing the superiority of the “better argument.” This can be done in many ways, especially by challenging it—by insisting that it is in some sense wrong, although they know for themselves that this is not true. How can public deliberation “work” also in such situations? It would work, if the debate is public in the proper way, i.e., if it takes place before a competent “audience,” which can tell the difference between cogent and not cogent arguments. Actually, it is the public’s task to assess the quality of “competing” argumentations—which one has “the unforced force” that Habermas writes about. If someone knows for sure that she participates in a debate in front of watchful eyes, and that any attempt to play “dirty tricks” would be easily “deciphered,” she would think twice before daring to do something of this sort, provided, of course, that the legitimacy of her own behavior matters for her, and provided that she does not want to compromise herself in public. In this respect Jon Elster has introduced a telling idiom: “the civilizing force of hypocrisy.”16 Yes, I might hate to admit that my opponent is right, but if her argument is publicly recognized as better than mine, I will have to do so in order not to lose the trust of the public. This means that the public-deliberation paradigm is culturally and historically relative. Public deliberation can be practiced only in modern (some authors prefer the term “late modern” in this respect, e.g., Habermas 1997) cultural environment, where agency and rationality matter. Besides, it needs a public which is communicatively competent. Such competence is a historical achievement; it is developed in the course of democratic practices in civil society. The situation is, however, more complex when minority issues are at stake. In such cases, the general public itself might be interested in denying the superiority of “the better argument.” The public opinion in a country is actually the opinion which prevails among the racial, ethnic, religious majority. Let us imagine the following situation. An argument is presented in public space, e.g., in the social media, which supports claims for, e.g., reforms in education that would be favorable for minority identities. Let us presume that it is a perfectly cogent one. However, usually such innovations are not welcomed by the majority. They might complicate social life, raise new problems, the integrity of society might

112  Plamen Makariev be jeopardized, resources might have to be relocated, etc. All of this could make the general public reluctant to recognize the validity of arguments which substantiate the necessity to carry out reforms in minorities’ interest, however convincing they may be. In such situations, the role of the public as an arbiter regarding the “unforced force of the better argument” is in question. In reality, such things do happen. When minority issues come up, the public at large tends to neglect these people’s interests. How can in such situations public deliberation be applied as a means of assessing the legitimacy of minority claims? More particularly, how can the public be motivated to assess the cogency of the arguments, which substantiate such claims, in a fair way? In my opinion, so far only general prescriptive considerations can be discussed in this regard. I see a potential motive of such nature in the interest of a public in a “well ordered society” (in John Rawls’ terms)17 to maintain and enhance the self-consistency of its liberal self-awareness. When the latter is burdened by discriminatory attitudes, this endangers its integrity. And the integrity, the self-respect of a liberal public as such, is a good that is quite real for a more or less liberal society, it is not a matter of wishful thinking. Compromises in this respect, bad precedents can sooner or later lead to an all-around degradation of political culture in such societies.

6.3 Minority Claims and Cultural Differences The cultural differences between ethnic and religious minority communities, on the one hand, and the general public, on the other, seem to be the greatest challenge to the application of public deliberation for legitimizing minority claims. I have presented here the argumentative type of communication as aiming to convince the interlocutor by demonstrating to her the consistency between the thesis that is being substantiated and her own knowledge, beliefs, and awareness of her interests, i.e., I keep to an anthropological interpretation of argumentative communication which does not involve referring to undeniably existing states of affairs.18 However, from this perspective such communication can be practiced only among people who share the same “epistemic background.”19 This means that no public deliberation can be performed between representatives of minority communities and of the public at large if the cultural differences between them are too substantial. In more general terms, from the same perspective quite a few authors claim that actually no unitary public sphere exists at all. In Elizabeth Butler Breese’s words Twenty years after the translation of The Structural Transformation, nearly all scholars of the public sphere agree that our social world is

The Public Legitimacy  113 composed of multiple, overlapping, and unequal publics. It is more accurate to talk of (and research) publics and public spheres than to refer to the public sphere.20 Rawls, for example, points out that arguments, which refer to beliefs that are specific for a “comprehensive doctrine” (e.g., a religion), cannot be convincing for the public at large, and that is why they have to be supplemented also by generally accessible ones.21 Nancy Fraser underscores the importance of the “sociocultural means of interpretation and communication.” She means “the historically and culturally specific ensemble of discursive resources available to members of a given social collectivity in pressing claims against one another.”22 In her opinion there are no absolute means of argumentative communication that are recognized as convincing throughout the public sphere as a whole. Some authors claim that the “cleavages” between distinct publics are due to class differences—a proletarian public sphere and a bourgeois one.23 Others see cultural differences as the factor which brings about the formation of separate religious, ethnic, racial, and gender publics.24 Besides, another difference between types of publics is discussed— between stable ones, which are divided by substantial cultural or social differences, on the one hand, and contingent publics, which come up in the course of particular debates, on the other. Audiences that coalesce into publics who talk about political issues— and begin to enact their civic identities and make use of their civic competencies—move from the private realm into the public one, making use of and further developing their cultures of citizenship.25 So, if argumentative communication between representatives of different publics is difficult, if not even impossible, how can we rely on public deliberation as means of legitimizing minority claims before the public opinion in the respective society? As I have tried to show, this kind of communication is designed so, as to be “immune” to manipulations, and this makes it the best possible “candidate” to be the “language” of mutual understanding between minority communities and the public at large. In what follows I shall present some ideas, which have appeared in recent publications, about the prospects of performing public deliberation across the “barrier” of cultural differences. I will start with the “pessimistic” accounts, which point out the difficulties in this regard, and I’ll continue with some solutions proposed. One type of such “barriers” is the social distance between privileged and marginalized groups. Melissa S. Williams argues that they attach alternative social meanings to one and the same practice. Consequently, “the reasons that undergird marginalized groups’ critique of the practice do not function as reasons for members of privileged groups, because

114  Plamen Makariev the social meaning of the practice for the marginalized group is (at least initially) inaccessible to them.”26 Williams refers to a debate which took place in the United States Senate in 1993 on the design of the insignia of an NGO called the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It included an image of the Confederate flag and this provoked an African-American senator, Carol MoseleyBraun, to object against the approval of the emblem. She claimed that this flag symbolizes slavery. Some white colleagues of hers from Southern states argued in turn, that, on the contrary, the flag’s image referred to sacrifices made for the homeland. Neither of the two sides showed the slightest readiness to accept as valid the argumentation of the other. Who was right, and who was wrong in this controversy? Obviously, this was not a epistemological discussion, but a clash of incompatible deep convictions. However, the case may have been even more difficult. In Williams’ opinion there was a reasonable doubt, whether MoseleyBraun’s interpretation was really “a valid representation of the distinctive experience of African Americans or an attempt to score political points by choosing to take offence at an innocuous piece of legislation.”27 In other words, cultural “intransparency” can be an even greater obstacle to communication, if it is made use of for manipulative purposes. So, how could public deliberation be applied as a mode of discussing such issues? Another obstacle to argumentative communication are religious differences. If your interlocutor claims that her religion demands from her that she does this, or that, how can you know whether this is really the case? Provided that you do not share that person’s religious experience… A typical example in this respect is the notorious “headscarf issue,” which has recently evolved into the niqab/burka one. Seyla Benhabib asks, regarding a case with Muslim schoolgirls who were not admitted to class because they were wearing their headscarves: But what exactly is the meaning of the girls’ actions? Is this an act of religious observance and subversion, or one of cultural defiance, or of adolescent acting—out to gain attention and prominence? Are the girls acting out of fear, out of conviction, or out of narcissism?28 Benhabib recommends that in such instances the people involved should be given the opportunity to speak for themselves, i.e., to declare what has really driven them to do this or that. In my opinion this would not solve the problem. How can we be sure that they would honestly present their motives. If the girls, for example, have acted out of fear, they might also try to conceal that on the same ground. Or if narcissism was involved, they might be ashamed to confess that, etc. The situation becomes even more complex, if we take into account, that some of the actors involved might be motivated by false consciousness. In this respect, Ranjoo Seodu Herr presents some interesting examples

The Public Legitimacy  115 in her article “Cultural Claims and the Limits of Liberal Democracy.”29 She describes cases in which minority women support practices of a discriminatory nature as valuable for their communities. How can someone know, from an external perspective, whether this is a manifestation of false consciousness, or an expression of deep cultural commitment? Maybe these women’s identity has been constructed in the “wrong way,” but maybe they derive their self-respect and an awareness of their own worth as human beings from their sacrifices for the community’s good. As Andrea Baumeister states, “Although established cultural and religious practices are frequently at odds with a liberal conception of gender equality, many women strongly identify with the traditional way of life of their community.”30 The chances for minority claims to obtain public recognition are minimized further if social and political interests are involved. Usually such claims are made on behalf of the respective community by persons who play the role of its representatives—leaders of ethnic parties, religious leaders, intellectuals. But how can the general public be sure that these people adequately formulate and present the claims in question, referring to the interests and cultural needs of their community? Maybe these demands express the will or interests of only some part of the minority group? Or maybe they are meant to serve the self-interest of the representatives themselves, and the alleged community needs are just a pretext to achieve some privileges and other benefits for minority leaders? For example, representatives of ethnic parties, such as the ones of Albanians in North Macedonia, Hungarians in Romania, Turks in Bulgaria,31 usually get seats in the Parliament, often—ministerial positions, mayoral positions in local governments, etc. More particularly in Bulgaria, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms is such a desirable partner in building government coalitions and parliamentary majorities, that the authorities have always turned a blind eye to the participation of this party’s elite in all kinds of corruption practices. In the opinion of a number of authors, minority claims often “are strategic or political in character, reflecting interests and power relations both within the community and between the community and the wider society.”32 How can all these obstacles to the argumentative communication between minority groups and the public at large be overcome? I shall present several proposals in this respect that have been made by authors who work in the paradigm of public deliberation. A “minimalist” solution has been suggested by James Bohman in his book Public Deliberation. He is not trying to find a way in which interlocutors who are divided by deep cultural differences can achieve mutual understanding by an exchange of arguments. He seeks a solution in another dimension. He writes, “What is reasonable is not the shared content of political values but the mutual recognition of the deliberative liberties of others, the requirements of dialogue, and the openness of one’s own beliefs to revision.”33 He argues

116  Plamen Makariev that an agreement may be accepted as legitimate by all parties insofar as it fosters mutual respect among the participants, and not because it is based on arguments that they all accept as convincing. Each of the parties would “transform her preferences” (if we use the classic “idiom” of the public-deliberation paradigm) not because she has been argumentatively convinced by the other one that she ought to do so, but for the sake of establishing a positive relationship between them. Another author who is dealing with the same issue is Jorge Valadez. In his book Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy, and SelfDetermination in Multicultural Societies he comments on, however, another challenge to the application of public deliberation in this field. He points out that argumentative communication can be impeded not only by cultural incommensurabilities, but also by “significant and persistent cultural group differences in socioeconomic and political power.”34 Concerning the cultural “barrier” Valadez keeps to the same “minimalist” approach as Bohman. He proposes that in a multicultural environment public deliberation should not necessarily be expected to lead to consensus: “in the more difficult cases of intercultural disagreement, it will suffice that participants believe they have equitably influenced the deliberative process and agree to continue to cooperate in good faith in future deliberations.”35 Concerning the power inequalities, which more often than not are an element of minority issues, Valadez develops a methodology, which he calls “epistemological egalitarianism.” It is meant to compensate for the inequalities in communicative capacities stemming from inequalities in socioeconomic and political status, more specifically being meant to ensure equal access to the epistemological resources that are indispensable for effective participation in public deliberation. This can be done by providing equal access to information and information technologies, equal educational opportunities to develop the critical thinking abilities for analyzing and evaluating that information, and equal access to the social and material means necessary for the intracultural and intercultural exchange of information.36 My third author in this sequence is Michael Rabinder James, who introduces the concept of “plural polity” in his book Deliberative Democracy and the Plural Polity. He presents it as a means for reconceptualizing the deliberative decision-making method, so that it be applicable to a multicultural environment. James keeps to a constructionist approach to cultural identity, and that is why the terms “plural deliberation” and “complex legitimacy” play a great role in his theory. In a plural polity only complex legitimacy is possible and it can be achieved by plural deliberation. Whether or not a deliberation is plural should be determined on

The Public Legitimacy  117 a case-by-case basis, according to four criteria: “the scope of deliberation, the relationship between understanding and criticism, the link between deliberation and decision-making, and conditions governing the deliberative and aggregative fairness of institutions and processes.”37 Monique Deveaux proposes another solution to the same problem, i.e., how public deliberation can be used for legitimizing minority claims. Her conception (from Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States) is quite complex, but in my opinion the most important idea is the following. From her perspective the greatest challenge to performing manipulation-proof communication between minority communities and the public at large (i.e., communication in the form of public deliberation) is that claims which allegedly concern the satisfaction of legitimate cultural needs of minority groups may in fact be driven by selfish interests of some of their members. The public-deliberative criteria which protect communication from manipulation (openness, freedom from coercion and rationality) cannot “do the job,” if the proclaimed cultural needs of the minority community are not that real or have been interpreted in a manipulative way. Due to cultural “intransparency,” the general public cannot know, whether the said cultural needs are real, and whether they have been presented correctly. Deveaux argues that this obstacle can be overcome if the participants in such debates are selected so as to represent all relevant interests— namely, community leaders, representatives of women from the communities involved, experts and government policy-makers. This would make it difficult to camouflage claims driven by some leaders’ self-interest as ones which concern genuine cultural needs of the community. Such a debate would enable critical reflection upon the interests of the participants, therefore “those who simply seek to maintain control over vulnerable members of their community… will be hard pressed to disguise their motive or find a legitimate justification for it that cannot be revealed as cynical window-dressing.”38 In my opinion this proposal is a step in the right direction. As I shall try to show in the next section, the involvement of the “rank and file” members of minority communities in public deliberations concerning their communities’ claims would have a positive effect on the credibility of the latter. However, I do not think that the representation of all relevant interests in the deliberations would be enough to solve the problem of “cultural intransparency.” Let us presume that the claims of some representatives of a cultural community (e.g., ones who belong to its “elite”) are confronted by objections of other members of the same community, who argue that the cultural needs to which these claims refer are non-existent or are of very different nature. So, whom should the general public believe? Provided that the non-members do not share the community’s lifeworld and have no means to find out who is telling the truth. By the way, situations of

118  Plamen Makariev this sort really occur, when minority claims, such as ones concerning the importance of the mother tongue, or of the names of rivers and mountains, or of the chador are discussed. Some members of the respective community support certain claims, others argue against. How can the public opinion in the country judge who is right?

6.4 Minority Groups as Publics The solution to the “cultural intransparency” problem that I propose is based on the public sphere model of Jürgen Habermas. Briefly this model can be described in the following way. The communicative power of the citizens is exercised in the form of legitimizing (or delegitimizing) certain policies by public opinion, so that the governmental institutions are motivated to implement (or discard) them in order not to jeopardize the chances of the ruling political parties to win the next elections (let us remember here Elster’s “civilizing force of hypocrisy”). If, however, public opinion on a certain issue is formed as a result of manipulated public communication, the “legitimization” of policies will be a false one and the communicative power of the citizens will work wrongly. So, how can the various interests, causes, ideals, etc. of the citizens be represented in a fair way in the processes of shaping public opinion on particular issues? Habermas’ answer is that this would be the case if the debates which transmit the messages from the lifeworlds of the ordinary people to public opinion formation are performed according to the procedural criteria of public deliberation. These debates are of two very different natures. Habermas calls them ethical-political and moral discourses. The former are of an intra-group nature, and they are aimed at articulating the self-understanding of the respective group and defining the common good of its members.39 Argumentation proceeds here primarily on a substantive basis, that is, the reasons refer to interests and beliefs that are shared by the group’s members. Moral discourses, in contrast, are universalistic. They aim at legitimizing norms and practices as being in the equal interest of all individuals and groups that are affected by them, whatever their interests and beliefs may be. The argumentation characteristic of this type of communication refers not to what is substantively common for the participants but, rather, to justice. As Habermas remarks, “For moral discourse allows all those concerned and affected an equal say and expects each participant to adopt the perspectives of the others when deliberating what is in the equal interest of all.”40 If we regard minority communities as publics—in the spirit of the pluralistic approach to the public sphere—and as “arenas” of ethical-political discourses, which produce the minority claims that need public legitimization, the issue which this article is dealing with, would have to be reformulated. In the frame of reference of Habermas’s model of the public

The Public Legitimacy  119 sphere it would have the form of the problem “how can minority claims be substantiated within a universalistic moral discourse?” Justification by referring to the cultural needs of particular communities would obviously not work in a universalistic discourse. Actually, this is the same challenge of cultural “intransparency,” which has been extensively discussed above, but now presented in Habermasian language. Situating this problem in the new frame of reference opens a new perspective, which seems worth exploring. What if the ethical-political discourses within minority communities are performed according to the criteria of public deliberation? Let us imagine the following situation. A claim is being discussed within the community, concerning its cultural needs. It is meant to be advanced further into a moral discourse with the aim of legitimizing it in the eyes of the public opinion. A member of the community (or a group of members) puts forward an argument which exposes this claim—in a way that is convincing for the other members—as presenting these cultural needs in a distorted fashion. If this ethical-political debate proceeds according to the criteria of public deliberation, each one of the other participants in it will face the following dilemma: either agree with the critical argument or expose herself in the eyes of the other members as a not trustworthy member of the community. If ethical-political discourses produce in this way claims to be legitimized on a universalistic moral level, the difficulty of overcoming the “barriers” of cultural difference would be done with. The general public would be able to assess the credibility of minority claims not by making guesses about the “true nature” of the cultural needs of communities of this kind. It would be enough to assess the procedural quality of the ethical-political discourses that produce these claims. More particularly, it would be enough to make sure that no coercion is being exercised on the participants in the discourse, that no one is prevented from making relevant contributions to the discourse (the relevance of the interventions can be assessed by the other participants), and that the better argument always prevails. The application of the last criterion is most problematic, because the arguments in such debates are culture-specific and their cogency cannot be assessed from without. However, the quality of an argument of this sort is manifested in the debate itself—if no one of the participants can object against it without exposing herself in the eyes of the other community members as being incompetent, or dishonest, then this argument should be recognized as valid from any perspective. All of these procedural parameters of intra-group debates are universally accessible. They are not culturally specific. Besides, public deliberation , because of its self-reflective nature, also provides opportunities for dealing with false consciousness—a notorious obstacle to finding “a common language” between minority communities and the public at large.

120  Plamen Makariev What conclusions in terms of minority policies can be made from all these considerations? A communicative empowerment of national, ethnic, and religious minorities would be possible if a culture of public communication is promoted within minority communities, ideally if public deliberation were to become the prevailing pattern of intra-group debates concerning the ways in which such groups’ claims for fair minority policies might be legitimized. All of this means that the role of minority leaders and of charismatic figures who speak on these communities’ behalf should be minimized, and the importance of rational egalitarian debates within the communities should be brought to the fore. Communicative empowerment of such nature can be realized, as was already stated above, only if the proper conditions are present. Namely, a (late) modern communicative environment, where agency and rationality do matter. In my opinion this is the case with non-immigrant minorities in Central and East European countries. Further, regarding the prospects for realizing communicative empowerment in political practice, a viable option seems to be offered by the Internet. Quite a few recent publications are dealing with the prospects of public deliberation in the virtual “public sphere.”41 Communication in the Internet is especially egalitarian, open and difficult to control by coercive means. What is missing at present is the priority here of argumentative means of “winning hearts and minds.” However, this can be changed through competent and persistent work, showing to the public the advantages of manipulation-proof communication. And last, but not least, social media platforms have already demonstrated how effectively distinct publics can function. I can easily imagine a minority community as a public of this sort, where ethical-political discourses are performed concerning the community’s cultural needs, i.e., the conditions which are necessary for the reproduction over time of its collective identity. If these discourses are immune to manipulations, i.e., if they are performed according to the rules of public deliberation, the claims that they produce should be credible from the general public’s perspective.

Notes 1 Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996), 486. 2 Cf. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). 3 Cf. Anne Phillips, The Politics of Presence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 4 Cf. Nancy L. Rosenblum, “Banning Parties: Religious and Ethnic Partisanship in Multicultural Democracies,” Law & Ethics of Human Rights 1, No. 1 (2007); Christina Isabel Zuber, “Beyond Outbidding? Ethnic party strategies in Serbia,” Party Politics 19, no. 5 (2013).

The Public Legitimacy  121 5 Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 76. 6 Brian Barry, Culture and Equality. An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001), 300. 7 Cf. Peter Jones, “Cultures, Group Rights, and Group-Differentiated Rights,” in Multiculturalism and Moral Conflict (New York: Routledge, 2010); Miodrag A. Jovanović, Collective Rights: A Legal Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Corsin Bisaz, The Concept of Group Rights in International Law. Groups as Contested Right-Holders, Subjects and Legal Persons 41 (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012). 8 Cf. Peter Muhlberger, “Human Agency and the Revitalization of the Public Sphere,” Political Communication 22, no. 2 (2005). 9 Data concerning the relative size of these minority populations are presented according to the latest censuses by the respective countries. 10 I regard being in a non-dominant position in the societies where these people live as decisive for the minority status of a group or category of people (cf. for example the definition in the Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2010—OHCHR 2010, 2). 11 Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1 (Boston: Beacon Press 1984), 302. 12 Joshua Cohen, “Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy,” in Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997), 411. 13 James S. Fishkin, When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 6. 14 Joshua Cohen, “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy,” in The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1989), 23. 15 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 306. 16 Jon Elster, “Introduction,” in Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 12. 17 John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” University of Chicago Law Review 64, no. 3 (1997): 807. 18 Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst, A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The Pragma-Dialectical Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 15. 19 van Eemeren, and Grootendorst, A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The Pragma-Dialectical Approach, 15. 20 Elisabeth Butler Breese, “Mapping the Variety of Public Spheres,” Communication Theory 21, no. 2 (2011): 132. 21 Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” 784. 22 Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 164. 23 Cf. Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993). 24 Cf. Lucas Swaine, “Deliberate and Free. Heteronomy in the Public Sphere,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 35, no. 1–2 (2009); Jacob Z. Hess and Nathan R. Todd, “From Culture War to Difficult Dialogue: Exploring Distinct Frames for Citizen Exchange about Social Problems,” Journal of Public Deliberation 5, no. 1 (2009). 25 Peter Dahlgren, “Doing citizenship: The cultural origins of civic agency in the public sphere,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 9 (2006): 275.

122  Plamen Makariev 26 Melissa Williams, “The Uneasy Alliance of Group Representation and Deliberative Democracy,” in Citizenship in Diverse Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 138. 27 Williams, “The Uneasy Alliance of Group Representation and Deliberative Democracy,” 140. 28 Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 117. 29 Cf. Ranjoo Seodu Herr, “Cultural Claims and the Limits of Liberal Democracy,” Social Theory and Practice 34, no. 1 (2008). 30 Andrea Baumeister, “Gender, culture and the politics of identity in the public realm,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 12, no. 2 (2009): 260. 31 The founding of ethnic and religious parties is not allowed by the Constitution of Bulgaria, but the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a de facto Turkish ethnic party, was registered as a nominally liberal political formation which defends the rights and freedoms of all. 32 Baumeister, “Gender, culture and the politics of identity in the public realm,” 267. 33 James Bohman, Public Deliberation (Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2000), 6. 34 Jorge Valadez, Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy and SelfDetermination in Multicultural Societies (Oxford: Westview Press, 2001), 6. 35 Valadez, Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy and Self-Determination in Multicultural Societies, 5. 36 Valadez, Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy and Self-Determination in Multicultural Societies, 6–7. 37 Michael Rabinder James, Deliberative Democracy and the Plural Polity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 52. 38 Monique Deveaux, Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 349–350. 39 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 163. 40 Jürgen Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion. Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 18. 41 See, for example, Maria Simone, “CODEPINK Alert: Mediated Citizenship in the Public Sphere,” Social Semiotics 16, no. 2 (2006); Robert Cavalier, Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss, “Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly), Online Deliberation. Design, Research and Practice (2009); Tim Van Gelder, “Cultivating Deliberation for Democracy,” Journal of Public Deliberation 8, no. 1 (2012).

Bibliography Barry, Brian. Culture and Equality. An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001. Baumeister, Andrea. “Gender, culture and the politics of identity in the public realm.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 12, no. 2, 259–277. 2009. Butler Breese, Elisabeth. “Mapping the Variety of Public Spheres.” Communication Theory 21, no. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2011): 130–149. Benhabib, Seyla. The Claims of Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

The Public Legitimacy  123 Bisaz, Corsin. The Concept of Group Rights in International Law. Groups as Contested Right-Holders, Subjects and Legal Persons. The Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights Library, Vol. 41. Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012. Bohman, James. Public Deliberation. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2000 Cavalier, Robert, Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss. “Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly).” In Online Deliberation: Design, Research and Practice, 71– 82. Edited by Todd Davies and Seeta Peña Gangadharan. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2009. Cohen, Joshua. “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy.” In The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State, 17–34. Edited by Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1989. Cohen, Joshua. “Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy.” In Deliberative Democracy, 67–92. Edited by James Bohman and William Rehg. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997. Dahlgren, Peter. “Doing citizenship: The cultural origins of civic agency in the public sphere.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 9 (2006): 267–288. Deveaux, Monique. Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States. Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Elster, Jon. “Introduction.” In Deliberative Democracy, 1–18. Edited by Jon Elster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Fishkin, James S. When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Fraser, Nancy. Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1. Boston: Beacon Press 1984. Habermas, Jürgen. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996. Habermas, Jürgen. “Modernity: an Unfinished Project.” In Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity: Critical Essays on The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 38–58. Edited by Maurizio Passerin d'Entrèves and Seyla Benhabib. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997. Habermas, Jürgen. Between Naturalism and Religion. Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008. Herr, Ranjoo Seodu. “Cultural Claims and the Limits of Liberal Democracy.” Social Theory and Practice 34, no. 1 (2008): 25–41. Hess, Jacob Z. and Nathan R. Todd. “From Culture War to Difficult Dialogue: Exploring Distinct Frames for Citizen Exchange about Social Problems.” Journal of Public Deliberation 5, no. 1 (2009): 1–14. James, Michael Rabinder. Deliberative Democracy and the Plural Polity. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004 Jones, Peter. “Cultures, Group Rights, and Group-Differentiated Rights.” In Multiculturalism and Moral Conflict, 38–58. Edited by Maria DimovaCookson and Peter Stirk. New York: Routledge, 2010. Jovanović, Miodrag A. Collective Rights: A Legal Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

124  Plamen Makariev Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Lijphart, Arend. Democracy in Plural Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. Muhlberger, Peter. “Human Agency and the Revitalization of the Public Sphere.” Political Communication 22, no. 2 (2005): 163–178. Accessed October 20, 2020. DOI: 10.1080/10584600590933179. Negt, Oskar and Alexander Kluge. Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Minority Rights: International Standards and Guidance for Implementation. New York: United Nations, 2010. Phillips, Anne. The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Rawls, John. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” University of Chicago Law Review 64, no. 3, (1997): 780–807. Accessed October 20, 2020. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/vol64/iss3/1. Rosenblum, Nancy L. “Banning Parties: Religious and Ethnic Partisanship in Multicultural Democracies.” Law & Ethics of Human Rights 1, no. 1 (2007): 1–59. Simone, Maria. “CODEPINK Alert: Mediated Citizenship in the Public Sphere.” Social Semiotics 16, no. 2 (2006): 345–364. Accessed October 20, 2020. doi:10.1080/10350330600664904. Swaine, Lucas. “Deliberate and Free: Heteronomy in the Public Sphere.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 35, no. 1–2 (2009): 183–213. Van Eemeren, Frans H. and Rob Grootendorst. A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Valadez, Jorge. Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy and SelfDetermination in Multicultural Societies. Oxford: Westview Press, 2001. Van Gelder, Tim. “Cultivating Deliberation for Democracy.” Journal of Public Deliberation 8, no. 1 (2012): 1–11. Williams, Melissa. “The Uneasy Alliance of Group Representation and Deliberative Democracy.” In Citizenship in Diverse Societies, 124–154. Edited by Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Zuber, Christina Isabel. “Beyond Outbidding? Ethnic party strategies in Serbia.” Party Politics 19, no. 5 (2013): 758–777.

7 Cultural Impoverishment The Hidden Dimension of Global Injustice Mongi Serbaji

7.1 Introduction In his Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas makes use of the notion of “cultural impoverishment” to designate a modern process of separation between the expert cultures and the context of communication in the lifeworld. Habermas develops this concept relying on the Weberian thesis of the “loss of meaning” in modern societies coupled with the cultural rationalization as a professionalized treatment of culture, i.e., sciences, moral and legal theory, and arts.1 Modifying this thesis according to the premises of the theory of communication, Habermas pays attention mostly to the threat this impoverishment represents to the communicational structures of the lifeworld.2 The German philosopher argues that it is an elitist splitting-off of expert cultures from contexts of communicative action that is at the origin of the cultural impoverishment of everyday communicative practice.3 However, more recently MeyerBisch defined “cultural poverty,” in a juridical perspective, as a denial of cultural human rights.4 He mentions that poverty cannot be reduced to the privation of elementary goods. It must also be conceived as a contempt of the capacities, choices, and relationships of the poor that also signifies a huge waste of all possible sources of richness. As cultural poverty could be caused by systematic disinformation and misinformation, Meyer-Bisch concludes that it is a question of logic of impoverishment.5 In another perspective, hermeneutical impoverishment is the term Miranda Fricker used in order to highlight the lack of cognitive resources enabling individuals or groups to make adequate sense of their own experiences of injustice.6 In fact, Fricker focuses on the experiences of epistemic injustices in their testimonial and hermeneutical dimensions. These dimensions cluster around the inability of certain persons or groups to express their own feelings of injustice for lack of necessary cultural and epistemic resources such as information and education. She asserts that epistemic injustice has to deal with “a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower.”7 Therefore, Fricker describes an unfair situation characterized by a huge disparity, not only in terms of material goods

126  Mongi Serbaji possession but also in terms of capacity to access to symbolic, cognitive, and cultural resources. In this context, if a lack of material resources can be associated with material poverty, a lack of cultural and cognitive resources, like education, information, or academic research, would express a situation of cultural poverty. This multilevel use of the term cultural—or hermeneutical— impoverishment improves its complexity as a term describing a multitude of experiences related, at least, to three normative claims which are communication, human rights, and justice. Habermas, departing from a social critique, focuses on the critical aspect of this notion with regard to the systemic conception of society and its impact on the processes of communication. Meyer-Bisch underlines its juridical aspect as a negation of specific human rights. Fricker, finally, situates it in the context of a theory of (in)justice, revealing, hence, its political aspects. Each of the three philosophers, in their own way, brings about a conception of deprivation that is not related to material goods but related to an adequate symbolic and cognitive apparatus. In a world where almost nothing is equally shared, these deprivations become a factor of exclusion, marginalization, and other unjust, and harmful practices. The victims of these deprivations do not possess the epistemic and hermeneutic means to express the disadvantaged situation to which they are condemned. In its first section, this chapter endeavors to reconstruct the definition of “cultural impoverishment,” taking these different forms of deprivation into account. Extracting its twofold aspect as a descriptive and as a normative-critical concept, I will try, in the second section, to describe different situations of this kind of impoverishment and, especially, to understand the politics and mechanisms that are feeding it on a global scale. It is in this regard that cultural impoverishment can be regarded as a hidden, but influential, dimension of the global injustice. Finally, the chapter proposes an applied study of the Tunisian case that would underline how cultural impoverishment constitutes a real challenge for a society in democratic transition.

7.2 What is Cultural Impoverishment? Defined in a broad sense, the term culture may refer to “the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterizes a society or a social group.”8 This contains arts and letters, moral and legal systems, scientific and technical productions, value, traditions, and beliefs. Accordingly, all human activities can be regarded as cultural activities, including socio-economic interactions such as labor, material goods exchange, financial activities, and wealth production. In this respect, linking impoverishment with culture can lead to multiple confusions. Firstly, because it implies that even material poverty shall be considered as a product of culture. Secondly, because it may hint that

Cultural Impoverishment  127 there are “poor” and “rich” cultures. Thus, there is a misunderstanding which should be keenly avoided from the outset. On the one hand, and in order to highlight the existence of non-­ material forms of deprivation that can lead to social inequities and to identity ­marginalization, it would be more relevant to use the notion of culture in a more restrictive meaning as referring foremost to the domain of symbolic production, including mainly sciences, artistic ­activities, information, and education. On the other hand, associating ­poverty with culture does not mean that a specific culture is poor or trivial. Indeed, ­cultural impoverishment does not suppose any normative value ­judgment. Material ­impoverishment is always less related to a lack of material resources than to the politics leading to the production and ­distribution of wealth. Similarly, cultural impoverishment is less a matter of resources than of capabilities and politics allowing an accommodate exploitation of these resources. Henceforth, material impoverishment as related to the reality of distributive injustice can be legitimately distinguished from cultural ­ impoverishment which is related to the reality of epistemic-cognitive injustice. However, it is worth noticing that this distinction does not mean that we have to deal with two separate types of impoverishment. It rather confirms the multidimensional aspect of this phenomenon. In fact, although they are often interconnected, these two types of impoverishment do not apply to the same scope and they are not necessarily reciprocal. As we will argue, there are societies which are rich in terms of individual income but which should be classified as poor in terms of cultural rights and quality of education. The definition of poverty as adopted by a cohort of i­nternational organization reports seems to be deeply concerned with this ­ ­multidimensional aspect. In the World Bank texts, for example, “poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being.”9 In this respect, the materialfinancial dimension of poverty is generally differentiated from—but also associated with—educational and health dimensions.10 Whereas many reports recognize the difficulties of grasping poverty quantitatively,11 they endeavor to establish indexes that can measure poverty globally or locally. Income, life costs, and consumption are the principal criteria for measuring the material financial dimension of poverty, while school enrolment and infantile mortality are, among others, criteria for m ­ easuring the educational and health dimension. The data, rates, and statistics are, rightly, considered to be a compulsory entry point to schematizing and, then, targeting the figures of deprivation. Nevertheless, the educational dimension cannot exhaust the meaning of cultural impoverishment as we are describing it. It is still necessary to pay attention to the quality of education, to the knowledge produced by laboratories, its relevance to local contexts, and its ability to enhance diversity and to promote local culture as a sphere of meaning production. Indeed, culture has to deal with

128  Mongi Serbaji a manner of being rather than with possession. It is the domain in which the person becomes aware of oneself and builds a network of relationships with others and with the world. Hence, cultural impoverishment cannot refer systematically to material indexes and cannot be calculated on the basis of a kind of phenomenological observation. In this context, cultural impoverishment defines—specifically—a lack of the fundamental capabilities required to develop cognitive and creative faculties, to be able to diversify resources for theoretical as well as practical knowledge, and to participate in the processes of public discourse as a real partner. Being necessary to communicate with others and to create intelligible meanings, these capabilities are unavoidable competences allowing persons to achieve all human interactions. On the contrary, the denial of these capabilities leads to a disadvantaged and iniquitous situation. In this respect, it is rather the idea of deprivation and lack which allows the metaphorical connection between poverty and culture. Nevertheless, it is not merely a lack of resources. It is further a lack of abilities and means to effectively benefit from the existing resources. Precisely, it is a lack of capabilities. In this regard, the concept of “capabilities” is very interesting. It was initially introduced and elaborated by Amartya Sen in a critique.12 Indeed, Sen intended to call into question the postulate of poverty line. Nonetheless, this concept can be legitimately extrapolated to the field of cultural poverty. Apprehending cultural impoverishment by relying on a capability approach means that we have to consider not only the lack of the symbolic resources, but also the lack of the necessary abilities to have effective access to these resources or to use them adequately. The necessary capabilities can be acquired mainly through adequate education, a free and diversified media and information resources, and free cultural activities/institutions. It is only by the means of these capabilities that the agent can develop a critical attitude regarding the practices and knowledge established by her own culture or by other cultures. Deficiency of these capabilities, which might be due to socio-economic causes, would result in cultural closure, in intolerance, or in the dogma of the completeness of a specific culture. From this perspective, the violation of cultural rights and the lack—or even the failure—of the politics of difference can be considered as causes that deepen cultural impoverishment. At a global level, the cultural and epistemic hegemony allied with the Western globalization contributes continuously to the elimination of cultural diversity and, then, to the impoverishment of humanity’s cultural heritage. Consequently, the notion of cultural impoverishment can be grasped on two superimposed levels—descriptive and normative-critical. The descriptive level brings to the light some aspects of cultural and epistemic deprivation. However, although descriptive statistics demonstrate existing injustices concerning access to education, information, and media, they

Cultural Impoverishment  129 remain insufficient, as will be shown in the following section. We need, in fact, to pay attention to the politics and actors who are responsible for the present reality described statistically and for its historical origins. The normative-critical level brings about universal moral claims such as justice, recognition, human rights, and warns about tolerant politics regarding exclusion, disrespect, and social contempt. These twofold levels can explain why we resort to the term “impoverishment” and not to the term “poverty.” Using the term “poverty” would neglect the normative implication. Poverty evokes a fact. But here, we do not only have to deal with a fact. The point is to take into consideration eventual politics and strategies producing recognition or exclusion, justice or harms. In this respect, cultural impoverishment might be a result of factual dynamics characterizing the political, the social, and the cultural spheres at a national limited level as well as at a global level. We use the notion “dynamic” in the sense that situations of injustice are not isolated from each other. On the contrary, these situations are often mutually reinforced and systematically reproduced. Therefore, in order to explore these dynamics, designating the victims and the parties responsible for this kind of impoverishment will be indispensable. This finding may raise the question of whether this impoverishment and the situation of the injustices it feeds are a mere epiphenomenon of socioeconomic domination or whether they have their own logic? How is one to understand, in sum, the relationship, if any, between the several forms of injustice, intolerance and other injuries inflicted on human beings, and cultural impoverishment? In the next section, I depart from the descriptive level in order to preview some forms of cultural impoverishment (7.3.1). I argue that this kind of impoverishment must not be approached independently of the processes of global cultural hegemony. Pointing out the normativecritical level, I will show that cultural impoverishment is at the core of the dynamics of injustice, especially on a global scale (7.3.2).

7.3 Cultural Impoverishment: A Hidden Dynamic of Injustice According to the statistics of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), there is a noticeable progress especially in children and youth schooling and in other educational indexes in the decades after 2000. However, the challenges are formidable and have not yet been met. Rates and statistics show that this progress has stalled during the recent years, at many levels and in many regions.13 The gap between developed countries and underdeveloped nations persists, if it is not increasing.14 In 2018, there were still 258 million children, adolescents, and youth who were out-of-school. They are almost 20% of the world population between 6 and 17 years old. This proportion reaches 31.2% in SubSaharan Africa. The rates are far higher among youth of upper secondary

130  Mongi Serbaji school age and reach 57.5% in this same region.15 Taking into account the low level of mean years of schooling in 2017 in many underdeveloped states, with Pakistan and Mali coming in at just 1.87 years,16 a sizeable portion of the schooled population of these states is under threat of falling back into illiteracy. This portion of the population may be added to 750 million of illiterate people existing over the world.17 Illiteracy is the most expressive form of deprivation from the symbolic capital that allows people to participate in the processes of communication and to live their otherness in a fitting manner. However, as alarming as they are, these figures are not the worst. Evolving the capabilities of a person is not only a matter of level of education. It is also conditioned by the quality of education to which a person has right. Following a UNESCO paper, 617 million children and adolescents are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics despite two thirds of this group going to school. This means that more than one-half—56%—of all children will not be able to read or handle mathematics with proficiency by the time they are of age to complete primary education. The proportion is even higher for adolescents, with 61% unable to achieve minimum proficiency levels when they should be completing lower secondary school.18 The ratio of pupils to trained teachers has the potential to say a lot about the quality of education in several regions around the world. In primary education, this ratio is for example 40:1 in low-income countries, compared to 13:1 in the European Union.19 As regards international trade in cultural goods,20 Sub-Saharan African countries, which account for 13 percent of the world population, contribute 0.23 percent of the total of global exports of cultural goods. The quantity of cultural goods exported by these countries remains limited and does not exceed 0.2 percent of the total of their international goods trade. These shares are insignificant compared to those of, for example, European states which control 34 percent of exports of international cultural goods.21 As concerns scientific research, the figures also show a weak level of production and activities in many regions compared to others. For instance, while the world average of the number of researchers per million inhabitants in 2017 was slightly under 1,200, in Sub-Saharan Africa the average was only 98.22 In 2018, researchers in America have published almost 699,000 scientific documents.23 In Sweden, the number of the documents reaches 44,178,24 with approximately 4,417 documents per million inhabitants. On the other hand, similar statistical entries from Africa and some regions in Asia do not exceed 100 published documents per million inhabitants. These rates summarize the situation of research institutions, expenditure on scientific activities, and the mobility of the academics.

Cultural Impoverishment  131 Concerning the use of the Internet and access to other communication media, the World Bank confirms that half of the world’s inhabitants did not use the Internet in 2017.25 While in high-income countries, Internet usage rates reached 85%, in low-income countries this number was only 16%. In the Arab World, including high-income countries, the number of Internet users does not exceed 50% of the population. Hence, in our globalized world, a great number of people are still deprived of a crucial source of information. They are living at the fringes of the conduits of communication and opinion exchange. They do not take part in the virtual processes of meaning production. Consequently, it seems that we are living in a frail world where a great number of people are under the educational poverty line due either to a low level of education or a complete lack of schooling. The epistemic and cultural handicap produced by this situation is reinforced by very limited access to the media, the Internet, and other resources of i­nformation. However, frailty does not cover only in these alarming figures but also points to the economic and political repercussions of this situation of ­disadvantage and deprivation. Victims of cultural i­mpoverishment are always seen as a burden for the politics of development in a world ­economy that is increasingly geared towards knowledge-based a­ ctivities. Those victims are economically excluded insofar as they become ­economically superfluous. At this level, cultural impoverishment feeds the spiral of material poverty and the lack of necessary resources for development. These economically superfluous people are also p ­ olitically excluded, as they are deprived of the cultural and epistemic potential required to p ­ articipate in public debates, to be a bearer of knowledge, and to be visible in public space. Cultural impoverishment is a factor that aggravates the frailty of the social, economic, and political status of its victims. Providing us a state of play of the lack in resources and capabilities related to cultural production and activities, these statistics also reveal the degree of inequity in the global distribution of cultural wealth and poverty. In general, this inequity reflects economic disparities between the rich and the poor countries. The map of the world’s material injustice seems to coincide with a map of unequal redistribution of cultural goods and resources. However, regardless of the fact that “increased educational inequality is linked with a higher probability of conflict,”26 we have to pay attention to two observations: First, this coincidence is not perfect. In many lower-middle- and ­middle-income countries, governments are achieving successful e­ ducation policies and devoting reasonable material resources for research and development. In Qatar, the state with the highest GDP per capita, c­ oming in at almost 69,000 USD,27 out-of-school children, adolescents, and youth make up 10.69% of the population between 6 and 17 years old.28 In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, where the GDP is under 4,400 USD,

132  Mongi Serbaji the portion is about 1.95%. Yet Georgia is not an exception in this regard. Whereas their GDP is inferior to 10,000 USD, Cuba, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, and other countries record only less than 7% being out of school among the same age group. This means that the material richness of a country or a society cannot exclusively explain certain cultural impoverishment indicators. The problem is instead related to public policies and choices, and not, precisely, to a lack of resources. This can be illustrated by a comparison between expenditures on cultural or scientific activities and those in other domains, especially in the military sector. Located in two regions of high political and military tension, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) lead different politics in terms of public expenditure. According to the latest statistics, while the KSA devotes 8.8 percent of its GDP to the military and 0.82 percent to research and development; the ROK expenditures in these areas are respectively 2.5 and 4.23 percent. In Sweden, expenditure on research and development is three 3 greater than military spending, while in the UAE it is 5 times less.29 In addition to this disparity between societies, there are other levels of inequality inherent to almost all societies and based on sex, location, social class, and ethnicity. According to an OECD report, belonging to a disadvantaged socio-economic milieu in France has a significant impact on the performance of students. The performance gap in the sciences, for example, is the equivalent of almost four years of schooling. School has but a limited contribution to social mobility, however. For example, adults with tertiary-educated parents were 14 times more likely to complete tertiary education than adults with less-educated parents.30 In the USA, the performance gap in science is the equivalent of three full years of schooling and only 15% of adults with parents who did not complete upper secondary education completed tertiary education.31 Some indicators show that, in 2017, 13% of dependent family members in the lowest family income quartile had obtained a bachelor’s degree by age 24, compared with 62% of those in the highest quartile.32 Over time, these conditions could increase the cultural and social gaps threatening the social texture of affluent Western societies and pose real challenges of integration to them. Moreover, looking at respect for the cultural rights of minorities and individuals in many countries, be they rich or low-income countries, reveals that cultural impoverishment is not organically associated with material poverty. Refusing any politics of difference, the repression of free creative activities, and the drastic control of cultural production— especially in some Arab countries—deprive the society of the diversity it requires to activate its own intellectual and material potential. Cultural totalitarianism is an injustice where victims are not defined on the ground of their class membership.

Cultural Impoverishment  133 All of this consolidates the idea that the cultural impoverishment is, mainly, a matter of policies and political decisions, expressing as well as causing other forms of injustice. Disparities between nations and between different categories of people in the same country attest to the finding that the cultural impoverishment is at the core of the dynamics of injustices. This model of impoverishment is more than an appendix to social inequalities. However, a legitimate problematic arises here. It consists of knowing if respect for cultural rights and the improvement of educational and scientific research would eradicate, mutatis mutandis, cultural impoverishment. Do not right systems, education, and science contribute, from a certain point of view, to this impoverishment and to the injustices it entails, by relating local cultures to Western norms and epistemology? From its introduction five decades ago, Bourdieu’s critical sociology has underlined the dynamic of social exclusion infinitely reproducible by the unequal redistribution of the symbolic capital. Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron underline the role of the school in reproducing and keeping the same domination relationship. As social institution, the pedagogical act is an act of symbolic violence through which the dominant social class imposes its cultural model.33 Hence, material and symbolic poverty interminably inter-reproduce. However, the French authors focused specifically on the symbolic violence as an expression of the social-class domination. In a closely related context, Axel Honneth explains how the process of cultural exclusion functions. He especially emphasizes strategies which systematically withhold the appropriate linguistic and symbolic means of class-specific experiences of injustice using public education agencies, media of cultural industry, or even public political forums.34 Social exclusion due to material poverty is duplicated and supported by cultural exclusion due to cultural impoverishment. This impoverishment is illustrated in this context by privation and control of the language and by the narrowing of opportunities to be visible in the public space, i.e., in media. Obliged to silence, the disadvantaged class would be invisible. Honneth, Bourdieu, and Passeron share more or less the same perspective. They understand the process of cultural exclusion as a mechanism of social control used by the dominant classes. In this perspective, cultural impoverishment takes the form of a deprivation of the material resources that are necessary to attend to the social production of meaning and of cultural expressions. The victims of this deprivation are resigned to silence. This can give an overview as to how the cultural impoverishment becomes a strategy of social domination in an unjust society. But the schema seems to be incomplete. In fact, this perspective would hide the global aspect of cultural exclusion which erodes the ability of individuals and communities to be visible and to confirm their existence in global

134  Mongi Serbaji intercultural spheres. The production and use of knowledge, the spread and treatment of information, and the capitalization of mainstream media and cultural industries systematically widen the gap between culturally dominant societies, who control “symbolic capital,” and culturally impoverished groups. This leads to a fatal elimination of diversities: diversity of public opinions, diversity of culture, and diversity of identity, etc. As Habermas noted, the lifeworld seems to be ignored as a context of communication, but it is not as he described in 1981 because of the elitist spilling-off of culture,35 but because culture is becoming less and less a human activity that enhances understanding and conviviality. Instead, culture is an industry that is economically and politically gainful. Culture’s value is often reduced to its economic dividend: tourism, amusement, cinema, etc. Social domination in the local field depends on a culture’s ability of adaptation with the transnational forms of domination. Corrupted local authorities, often supported by Western democracies, contribute to the sustainability of the policies of domination and cultural impoverishment. However, the divide in this context is not only, materially structured, i.e., rich dominant societies vs. poor dominated societies. The situation is more complex. Global cultural hegemony seems to be a structural aspect of modern Western thinking. There are even some well-to-do Asian and Middle-Eastern societies that have been exposed to the challenge of impoverishment caused by the hegemonic tendency of modernity. Relying on Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ thesis about cultural hegemony and the cognitive injustice it entails, I would identify some aspects of cultural impoverishment that are instances of global injustices. The Portuguese sociologist defines “cognitive injustice” as scorn for the knowledge and wisdom of the world on behalf of the monopoly of science and the technologies sanctioned by science.36 This knowledge is viewed as mere incomprehensible beliefs, idolatry, and magic. He argues that modern Western thinking is abyssal thinking, since it supposes an epistemic and juridical divide between modern Western societies and other societies. On the epistemic level, this division has created a chasm between the realm of scientific-rational knowledge associated with the modern, Western societies and the realm of ignorance and idolatry connected with colonized territories. Santos explains that this divide haunts the political and social imaginary of Western societies and it leads to a devaluation—nay a “radical negation”37—of the culture and knowledge of others. Indeed, the logic through which colonized societies are treated exhibits the complex duality of appropriation/violence. He attests that In the realm of knowledge, appropriation ranges from the use of locals as guides and the use of local myths and ceremonies as instruments of conversion, to the pillage of the indigenous knowledge of biodiversity, while violence ranges from the prohibition of the use

Cultural Impoverishment  135 of the native languages in public spaces and the forcible adoption of Christian names, to conversion and the destruction of ceremonial sites and symbols, and to all forms of racial and cultural discrimination.38 As a consequence, modern science has been universally imposed as the unique legitimate epistemology. Its hegemony is the equivalent of a radical negation of the epistemologies of the South, i.e., of colonized societies. Epistemic hegemony, the emblematic expression of epistemic injustice, is nothing but epistemicide. Supported and sustained by technical progress and mass media, cultural hegemony contributes to a radical shaping of the social structures of colonized societies. Furthermore, this entails a situation of double epistemic alienation: on the one hand, this regards their own cultural and cognitive heritage, which can no longer be productive of meaning since their form of life was significantly destroyed; and, on the other hand, this regards Western knowledge associated with the image of colonizer. Cultural hegemony properly means that those who produce legitimate and valid knowledge are also those who monopolize the production of meaning and the efficiency means to spread it worldwide. Language proficiency, intellectual propriety, and systems of indexation are the rules of the game of inclusion-exclusion from the realm of the valid knowledge. They are the soft tools of neo-colonial cultural domination. The overpossessing of meaning and truth on one side would necessarily lead to the dispossession on the other side. It is this dispossession that can be designated, in this context, as cultural impoverishment. The supremacy of the dominant epistemology and its methods is implicitly recognized and accepted in the educational systems of Southern societies. In social science as well as in all other sciences, local scholars are constrained in having to subscribe to the modern, Western criteria of the scientific method and to seek recognition in the Western academic milieu. Any product of Western societies would be modern and universally valid, while what is produced in other societies conforming to their traditions would be traditional, autochthonous, and local. It would be invisible.39 Hence, two aspects characterize the situation of the culturally impoverished: marginalization and extraversion. The first aspect consists precisely in the marginalization of the ­symbolic and epistemic production of non-Western societies. As S­ antos argues, mono-cultural rationality and mono-epistemology dogmas ­create a zone of non-existence around modern, Western culture. People in this zone are stigmatized as ignorant, inferior, backward, retrograde, and ­unproductive.40 Historical colonial injustice and the monopole of ­information make this dogma, produced in the zone of the truth and ­sciences, a self-evident truism even for the victims of the stigmatization. This self-stigmatization accumulates, over time, as a generalized loss of the feeling of self-esteem. It shows how frail the relationship of these

136  Mongi Serbaji people to themselves, let alone to others, is. Cultural impoverishment implies, also, impoverishment of identity. This does not mean that people have to gave up to their traditions or heritage completely, but that the problems related to educational systems, historical colonization, the imperatives of economic development often planned by global financial institutions, the one-way flow of information and cultural contents, etc. create a situation in which belonging to a local tradition is, thereafter, challenged by the ideologies of development and modernization. Hence, beyond quantitative statistics about education, researches or cultural production, the real problem is to know whether these sectors allow local elites as well as young beneficiaries to give culturally adequate responses to modern problems and the challenges facing their societies. The weakness of the educational and research structures is a main factor behind cultural impoverishment. Total subordination of educational and research systems to Western norms and strategies would not eradicate impoverishment; it may eradicate culture though. The second aspect consists in epistemic—and cultural—extraversion. Hountondji notes that the researchers in Africa are extraverted. They are externally oriented. In spite of being inwardly focused in response to the questions of African societies, they are organized and subordinated to the necessities of other societies.41 Borrowing the term “extraversion” from the economic field, Hountondji asserts that an analogy is possible between the economic and the epistemological dependency of the TierWorld on the Metropolis, i.e., on Western societies.42 Despite the rich natural and cultural heritage that yields European and North American scholars a colossal dividend of knowledge,43 Southern elites can, only with great difficulty, defend the validity of the local or traditional knowledge. Being dependents on Western laboratories institutions of knowledge, methods of research, and construction of models, the local elites, including those who want to resist against extraversion, realize that their self-awareness is mediated by the “other.” But the “other” they have to deal with is a dominant “other.” African Studies or Asian Studies are, in this perspective, examples of disciplines that are produced in Western universities and that deeply shaped the local research about Africa and Asian civilizations. Marginalization and extraversion are actually aspects that describe the situation of the poor at a socio-economic level. The poor person is socially excluded and economically dependent. At a cultural level also, marginalization is the euphemism for exclusion. Extraversion is a euphemism for dependency. Both can produce several forms of distortion as regards the relation of a person or group to themselves/ itself—to their own traditions, knowledge, etc.—as well as to other people or groups. Intolerance, fanaticism, identitarian closure are extreme attitudes which must be dealt with in addressing cultural impoverishment.

Cultural Impoverishment  137

7.4 Cultural Impoverishment and Democratic Transition in Tunisia Tunisia, a North African country belonging at the same time to the African continent, Mediterranean basin, and to the Arab-Muslim world, was colonized by France from 1881 to 1956. If we believe the Tunisian philosopher Albert Memmi,44 the colonization had deeply impacted the world of the colonized, including in terms of psychology and self-conscience. He shows how colonization invested in the impoverishment of the symbolic universe of the autochthonous people. This can be explained, on the one hand, by the oppression of collective memory to the point of producing a collective amnesia. The colonized would be, according to Memmi, deprived of history as well as of territory. On the other hand, the impoverishment of the symbolic universe is illustrated by “linguistic drama:”45 the drama of the “colonial bilingualism” that the colonized writer must confront. It is a drama because the colonized writer is condemned to a tragic choice. He would opt for the language of institutions and knowledge, but this is the language of the oppressor; it cannot convey its own history. He would attempt to write in his mother tongue as a form of self-possession; but this tongue is neither written nor read; it permits only uncertain and poor oral development.46 Bilingualism or, more precisely, diglossia, reflects a relation of unjust domination. The supposed supremacy of the language of the colonizer is just one of multiple forms of the symbolic domination that supports the appropriation of territory. In colonized Tunisia, the spread of French as the language of the administration, modern knowledge, education, and court systems generated, systematically, the decline and the impoverishment of the mother tongue of the colonized. Considered to be an “idiom of conversation,”47 Arabic is more and more reduced to conversational usage. Compared to French, the language of the colonized is connected with “archaic forms of economic and social organization.”48 Linguistic domination during the colonial period can be regarded as an efficient mechanism of the politics of the cultural impoverishment and socio-cultural exclusion. But there is no room to expect that the impacts of these policies will cease once the colonial situation is, legally, brought to an end. Effectively, “linguistic ambiguity” has persisted even after the ­independence in 1956. Although the Tunisian Constitution of 1959 states that the Arabic language is the official language of the republic, it was only with the end of the 1970s that the school curricula was, gradually and partially, taught in the mother tongue. Designed as the enterprise ­language of sciences and technologies, the French language c­ontinues to be considered a sign of social advancement.49 In universities, the ­predominance of the French language still remains. This predominance can in no way be dissociated from a belief that the mother tongue is so

138  Mongi Serbaji “poor” that it cannot convey modern science and technology. This can lead to a position of collective loss of self-worth that can be illustrated by using the term “Arab” in a tone of disdain. In the Tunisian local dialect, “Arab” work means that it is bad, and an “Arab” rendezvous signals a lack of respect for an appointment, etc. As Memmi notes, this use would be an adoption of the colonizer’s lexicon.50 It is also an admission of the colonizer’s pretended cultural supremacy. The debate has never come to an end between those who consider this dominance to be a condition of modernization and cultural openness and those who see it as a simple form of alienation and impoverishment of the tradition. Everything that is related to the local culture falls under the categories of tradition and heritage. On the contrary, everything related to the West would be modern and its modernity is its very value. However, there is a near-consensus that the emergent state has undertaken considerable efforts in order to make education compulsory, free, and modern. These efforts were supported, on the level of legislation and culture, by a plan of social modernization. The women’s status code and the policies aiming to limit tribalism and to promote citizenship integration have contributed to manifest change of the Tunisian form of life, especially in urban settings. The governments of the young independent state made remarkable investments in education, media, and literature publication, in addition to supporting movies and other cultural productions. However, neither the education politics nor modernization processes have definitively sheltered the Tunisian society from cultural impoverishment. 7.4.1 As Regards Education Illiteracy rates in Tunisia are still high, with almost 20% of the population being affected. Furthermore, the geographical distribution of this population shows a noticeable regional inequality. While in the greater Tunis district the rate of illiteracy is steady under 11.3%, it exceeds in many districts in central and northwestern parts of the country 32%.51 Until 2014, only 36.6 % of the population over 10 years in age had completed a cycle of secondary education. In this same pattern of population, there are only 12% who have successfully completed a short cycle of tertiary education.52 Mean years of schooling do not exceed, in this context, 7.22 years, which, in 2017, compares to Germany with more than 14 years and more than 13 years in the UK . These figures show how weak the politics of education are in Tunisia. Matters are made worse regarding the quality of education. According to the evaluations of the Program for International Students Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and the OECD, Tunisia was consistently low ranked with very modest results.53

Cultural Impoverishment  139 After several decades of independence, these statistics are a sign of a real crisis not only in the educational system but also in education policies and strategies. In similar conditions it would be difficult to diversify and enrich the cultural production, to involve creativity, critical thinking, etc. This crisis is going to get worse given the situation of the cultural and academic production, mainly including books, press, and citable documents. In 2018, for example, only 2,135 books were published.54 The volume of academic publication remains quite limited.55 From 2015 to 2017, Tunisia imported books to the amount of $14 million every year. Belgium, having an equal number of inhabitants, imports books in excess of $579 million each year. In many regions of the country, only 7% of the population over 10 years of age has a tertiary-level of education.56 Furthermore, Tunisian universities seem to be confined to the transfer of knowledge instead of also engaging in its production. These universities are increasingly isolated from society.57 According to Scimago Journal & Country Rank statistics, from 1996 to 2019 Tunisia published almost 90,000 citable documents,58 which is approximately the same quantity of citable documents published in Switzerland in 2018 and 2019! Accordingly, the means which were supposed to spread the modern values and knowledge, namely education and scientific research, have failed to reach this aim. 7.4.2 As Regards the Process of Modernization The process of modernization in independent Tunisia has been grounded on a history of political and social reform. Kheireddine Pasha59 and Tahar Haddad60 are, in this context, the emblematic figures of an enlightened elite. In the political field, this process has contributed to a modern organization of political and administrative institutions. As regards the cultural field, it has enabled the emergence of a literate elite educated within Tunisia and outside of the country, mainly in France. However, it was rather a paternalist modernization, which, on response to the challenges of development and the need for the stability of the post-colonial state, has oppressed claims for democracy, justice and political and cultural liberties. Cultural policy after independence was quite centralized and totally controlled by the regime.61 It was serving the regime’s ideology and its propensity to dominate the social production of culture. State financial support for culture went hand in hand with administrative censorship of intellectual and creative production. Consequently, this modernization was permanently questioned: it was questioned by the elites for whom it was incomplete and cover the authoritarian aspect of the regime, by the different social classes who lost confidence in the state because of the economic crisis at the end of the 1970s, and by the traditionalists for whom modernization was just a disguised westernization.

140  Mongi Serbaji Whatever might stand as the critique addressing the process of modernization, two main theses can be admitted: − The independent state has failed to build policies for citizenship integration that enhance liberties of expression, of publication, media, and even academic liberties. In addition to social injustices, social integration is enhanced by an unequal distribution of material and cultural wealth between regions and between social classes. Improvement of living standards after independence has been accompanied by growing social inequalities and by concentration of wealth, income, and investments in the littoral regions.62 Modernization as an openness to the Western culture failed to foreground a political culture of democracy and human rights. − The state has a clear penchant for controlling cultural and symbolic production, including religion, as an efficient mean to dominate society. The secularist aspect of the state did not prevent a certain complex relationship with religion. Once the dominant political elite came into an ideological conflict with the religious establishment, the Al-Zaytuna Mosque, and with the traditional forms of religiosity, it hurried to completely submit religious concerns to the control of state power. The official institutions of the state, namely the Office of Fatwa63 and the Higher Islamic Council,64 monopolized the right to interpret religious texts.65 This monopoly may have temporarily limited the orthodox and intolerant tendency of some religious-political groups, but it has, at the same time, precluded also the accumulation of rational critiques of religious discourse. In short, there was an evident advancement, in independent Tunisia, within the fields of education and state modernization. But this advancement did not totally eradicate cultural impoverishment as a deprivation of the adequate and diversified resources required to develop creative potential, foster theoretical and practical knowledge, and participate in the process of public discourse. In addition to limited cultural and academic production, the Tunisian experience of modernization was challenged by a separation between the processes of modernization and secularization on the one hand and those of political democratization on the other hand. Secularism, unification of the legal system, modernization of education, and eradication of tribalism were accompanied by a continued restriction on information, artistic creation, and even academic freedoms. The violation of these cultural rights hinders the rise of a sphere of intellectual debates and exchanges about issues like religion, identity, human rights, etc. Under the condition of a “unique” and “official” understanding of religious scripture there is, for example, no tradition of tolerant and open discussion between secularists and religious that could arise.

Cultural Impoverishment  141 Even if it is not totally accurate to establish a causal link between the modes of education and fanaticism, or between the process of modernization/secularization and the orthodox reaction, it would not be prudent to totally deny a link between a lack of a critical thinking—or state domination of the cultural field—and the spread of dogmatic, monodimensional lectures of the religious texts. In similar conditions, forms of indoctrination prevail over the possibilities of a hermeneutic and critical investigation of one’s identity. This indoctrination would conceal the constitutive diversity of one’s culture and, hence, deprive the person of its richness. Moreover, the process of modernization does not immunize society against the return of the radical and violent forms of religiosity. On the contrary, the excess of modernization imposed from on high may have contributed to this return and to the rise of Islamism and Salafism in general.66 Relying on a face-to-face survey with some members of the Salafist movement, Hadj Salem concluded in his investigation that most of them were not in school and that they studied scientific and technical areas. He noted that just a minority among them had a tertiary-level education; they had enrolled mostly in disciplines other than the arts and humanities.67 The post-revolution process initiated in 2011 shows to what extent an orthodox traditional conception of religion is still dominant throughout the different social classes. The debate about the identity of the state and the universalism of human rights shows that Tunisian society is still unable to respond to the fundamental question “who are we?” The report of the Commission of Individual Liberties and Equality (CILE) gave place to rare debates as well as to a lot of dogmatic reactions and violent insults. The prevalence of dogmatism over understanding and reasonable argumentation may be the consequence of many factors that are related to cultural impoverishment such as cultural totalitarianism that closes up any path to the diversity and to the freedom of thought, to restricted access to cultural and academic resources (films, books, reviews, museums, etc.), or to a lack of a culture of media literacy. Here, cultural impoverishment as a limitation of the sources of knowledge has weakened the possibilities for an intra-culture debate about tradition. In general, it prevents the rise of public space as a space of communication, i.e., of a pluralism of interpretations and understanding. The lack of a democratic culture and the impoverishment of the public sphere weigh heavily on the process of democratic transition.

7.5 Conclusion Cultural impoverishment as a consequence of political impositions of a narrow understanding and interpretation of the culture is not specific to the Tunisian case. Other Arab and Muslim countries impose an official understanding of traditions. This is a part of such states’ control over

142  Mongi Serbaji society. They do not tolerate any politics of difference and show no respect to cultural rights. In this context, cultural impoverishment is not the result of material poverty; it is, rather, the result of state policies. This local process of impoverishment is accentuated by the hegemonic aspect of Western globalized culture. It must be taken seriously as a factor behind local and global injustice. In this chapter, we have been primarily interested in the global dimension. On the one hand, the obvious inequities between countries and between regions in the areas of education, scientific and cultural production, media and information, etc. feed social and economic injustices. It gives the image of a divided world where surplus and excessive possessions here coexist with lack and dispossession there. On the other hand, modern globalization contributes to the impoverishment of local cultures by imposing its own epistemology, i.e., its own understanding of the world. In this condition, even plans for emancipation and development would be seen as building on Western models. It was in this sense that Santos accurately observed that “there is no global social injustice without global epistemic injustice.”68 In the modern globalized world, hegemonic culture imposes its rules of inclusion-exclusion and visibility-invisibility, through its mainstream media, cultural industry, law of intellectual proprieties, etc. This provokes a situation of marginalization and extraversion. Marginalization occurs when all local cultural productions are scorned and devalued. Extraversion occurs when non-Western intellectuals and scientists become obliged to turn their works outside, i.e., to promote the benefit and agendas of the Western societies. People who are socially and economically poor are excluded and dependent, and so are culturally poor groups as well.

Notes 1 Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Life World and System: A Critique of a Functionalist Reason (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), 326. 2 Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Life World and System: A Critique of a Functionalist Reason, 327. 3 Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Life World and System: A Critique of a Functionalist Reason, 330. 4 Patrice Meyer-Bisch, “Le droit de participer à la vie culturelle, premier facteur de liberté et d’inclusion sociale,” in Le rôle de la culture dans la lutte contre la pauvreté et l’exclusion sociale (Bruxelles, Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Service général de la Jeunesse et de l’Education permanente, No19, 2013), 64. 5 Meyer-Bisch, “Le droit de participer à la vie culturelle, premier facteur de liberté et d’inclusion sociale,” 56–57. 6 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and Ethics of Knowing (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 16. 7 Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and Ethics of Knowing, 1.

Cultural Impoverishment  143 8 Cf. UNESCO, Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies World Conference on Cultural Policies (Mexico City: UNESCO Publishing, 1982). 9 World Development Report: Attacking Poverty 2000/2001 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 15. 10 World Development Report: Attacking Poverty 2000/2001, 15–18. 11 Human Development Report 1997 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 17. 12 Amartya Sen, “Development as Capability Expansion,” Journal of Development Planning 19 (New York: United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 1989): 43. 13 UNESCO Institute for Statistics, New Methodology Shows that 258 Million Children, Adolescents and Youth Are Out of School, Fact Sheet 56, September 2019 (New York: UNESCO Publications, 2019), 1. 14 UNESCO Institute for Statistics, New Methodology Shows that 258 Million Children, Adolescents and Youth Are Out of School, 6–8. 15 UNESCO Institute for Statistics, New Methodology Shows that 258 Million Children, Adolescents and Youth Are Out of School, 4. 16 UNESCO Institute for Statistics Website, Mean Years of Schooling, http:// data.uis.unesco.org/index.aspx?queryid=3803. 17 UNESCO Institute for Statistics. More than One-Half of Children and Adolescents Are not Learning Worldwide, Fact Sheet no. 46, September 2017 (New York: UNESCO Publications, 2017), 2. 18 UNESCO Institute for Statistics. More than One-Half of Children and Adolescents Are not Learning Worldwide, 2. 19 The World Bank Data, Pupil-Teacher Ratio Primary, https://data.worldbank. org/indicator/SE.PRM.ENRL.TC.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=false. 20 Referring to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “cultural goods are defined as consumer goods that convey ideas, symbols and ways of life, i.e., books, magazines, multimedia products, software, recordings, films, videos, audiovisual programs, crafts and fashion.” Cf. The 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics (Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2009), 87. 21 UNESCO Institute for Statistics Website/International Trade in Cultural Goods, http://data.uis.unesco.org/?lang=en&SubSessionId=f7c1c9f4-951848f5-a823-39be879bab28&themetreeid=-200. 22 UNESCO Institute for Statistics Website/Researchers by sex per million inhabitants, http://data.uis.unesco.org/index.aspx?lang=en&SubSessionId=b 7951eaf-45f3-4541-9b24-b63aeddad366&themetreeid=-200. 23 Scimago Journal & Country Rank (a), https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank. php? year=2018. 24 Scimago Journal & Country Rank (a), https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank. php? year=2018. 25 World Bank data/Individual using the Internet 2017 (% of population), https:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?mostrecent_year_desc=true. 26 UNESCO, Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All: EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2013-2014 (New York: UNESCO Publishing, 2014), 17. 27 For more information concerning the 2018 statistics related to the GDP in this paragraph, see the World Bank data available at https://data.worldbank. org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD. 28 UIS UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Out-of-School Children and Youth (New York: UNESCO Publications, 2020). For more on the 2017 statistics related to the “out-of-school children, adolescents and youth,” see the UIS data available at http://data.uis.unesco.org/?lang=en&SubSessionId=67b1e20c-e2cc4527-be6f-bcf69ebaa3bf&themetreeid=-200, accessed June,  24, 2019 or

144  Mongi Serbaji https://web.archive.org/web/20200326082221/http://data.uis.unesco.org// Index.aspx?QueryId=3369. 29 This comparison rests on data collected from the World Bank website. Data regarding the research expenditure can be found at https://data.worldbank. org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS and data regarding the military expenditure can be found at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND. GD.ZS (Accessed October 21, 2020). 30 Cf. OECD report (2018a), “Country notes: France,” in Equity in Education: Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility (Paris: OECD publishing, 2018), https://www.oecd.org/pisa/Equity-in-Education-country-note-France.pdf. 31 Cf. OECD report (2018b), “Country notes: United States,” in Equity in Education: Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility (Paris: OECD publishing, 2018), https://www.oecd.org/pisa/Equity-in-Education-country-note-US. pdf. 32 Cf. Pell Institute, Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United States, http://pellinstitute.org/indicators/reports_2019.shtml. 33 Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture (Thousand Oaks and London: Sage Publishing, 1977), 11. 34 Axel Honneth, “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination: Some Problems in the Analyses of Hidden Morality,” PRAXIS International 2, no. 1 (1982): 18. 35 Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Life World and System: A Critique of a Functionalist Reason, 330. 36 Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Epistemologies of the South (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 15. 37 Santos, Epistemologies of the South, 123. 38 Santos, Epistemologies of the South, 123. 39 Florence Piron, “Justice et injustice cognitive: de l’epistémologie à la matérialité des savoirs humains,” in Les Classiques des Sciences Sociales: 25 ans de Partage des savoirs dans la Francophonie (Québec: ESBC, 2018), 267. 40 Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Public Sphere and the epistemologies of the South,” African Development 37, no. 1 (2012): 52. 41 Paulin Hountondji, “Knowledge of Africa, Knowledge by Africans: Two perspectives on African Studies,” in RCCS Annual Review 1/2009 (Coimbra: Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, 2009), 128. 42 Paulin Hountondji, “Recherche et extraversion: éléments pour une sociologie de la science dans les pays de la périphérie,” Africa Development 15, no. 3–4 (1990): 152. 43 Raewyn Connell, “Social Sciences on a World Scale. Connecting the Pages,” Journal of the Brazilian Sociological Society 1, no. 1 (2015): 4. 44 Albert Memmi (1920–2020). 45 Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (London: Earthscan Publishings, 2003), 150. 46 Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 150. 47 W. Marçais, quoted by Mondher Kilani, “Langue et domination de la relation coloniale à la relation de dépendance,” Revue Européenne des sciences sociales 15, no. 40 (1977): 136. 48 Mondher Kilani, “Langue et domination de la relation coloniale à la relation de dépendance,” 134. 49 Nabiha Jerad, “La Politique Linguistique de la Tunisie Postcoloniale,” in Trames de Langues. Usages et Métissages Linguistiques dans l’histoire du Maghreb (Rabat: Istitut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain, 2004), 429. 50 Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 158.

Cultural Impoverishment  145 51 INS, Institut National de Statistiques, “Caractéristiques d’éducation de la population,” Recensement General de la Population et de l’Habitat 2014/4, January 2017 (CEDEX TUNIS: Institut National de la Statistique, 2017), 13. 52 INS, Institut National de Statistiques, “Caractéristiques d’éducation de la population,” p. 19. 53 Iyad Dhaoui,“Efficacité du Système Educatif Tunisien: Analyses et Perspectives,” Notes et Analyses de L’ITCEQ, No. 29, June 2015 (Tunis: Institut Tunisien de la Compétitivité et des Etudes Quantitatives, 2015), 41–43. 54 Cf. Bibliographie Nationale Tunisienne 2018. ed. Bibilothèque Nationale de Tunisie (Tunisian National Library: Tunis, 2018), 1, https://www.bibliotheque.nat.tn/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Bibliographie-fr2018.pdf. 55 Youssra Sghir, “Academic Publishing in Tunisia: Between Economic Pressures and the Challenges of the Digital Environment,” The Maghrebian Review of Documentation and Information 1, no. 28 (2019): 237–255. 56 Imen Kochbati, “L’enseignement universitaire tunisien dans les régions: inégalité des chances et disparité démographique,” in University and Society within the Context of Arab Revolutions and New Humanism (Tunis: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2017), 196. 57 Mouldi Guessoumi, “Tunisian University and Society under the Condition of the New Global Division of Labor” (Al-ǧāmiʿaẗ al-tūnisiyaẗ wāl-muǧtamaʿ fī ẓil al-taqsīm al-ʿālamī al-ǧdīd lil-ʿamal,) in University and Society within the Context of Arab Revolutions and New Humanism (Tunis: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2017), 103. 58 SJRWebsite(b),https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?region=ARAB%20 COUNTRIES. 59 Khaireddin Pasha At-tunisi (1820–1890): Tunisian politician and reformer. His major book is The Surest Path to knowledge regarding the Condition of Countries (ʾAqwam al-masālik fī maʿrifaẗ āḥwāl al-mamālik). An English translation of the introduction of this treatise was done by Leon Carl Brown, The Surest Path: The political Treatise of a Nineteenth-Century Muslim Statesman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967). 60 Tahar Haddad (1899–1935) was a Tunisian author and reformer. He is known for his audacious attitude regarding Women’s rights. His major book Muslim Woman in Law and Society (Imraʾatunā fī al-šarīʿaẗ wāl-muǧtamaʿ) was translated by Ronak Husni and Daniel L. Newman (London and New York: Routledge, 2007). 61 Moncef Ouannass, The State and the Cultural Issue in The Maghreb (Ad-dawlaẗ wal-masʾalaẗ aṯ-ṯwaqāfīyaẗ fī al-maġrib al-ʿarabī) (Tunis: Ceres, 1995), 201. 62 Amor Belhadi, “L’inégale développement régional en Tunisie. Accumulation spatiale et littoralisation,” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 49 (1994), 153. 63 Office of Fatwa (1957). 64 Higher Islamic Council (1989). 65 Ouannass, The State and the Cultural Issue in The Maghreb, 105. 66 Mehdi Mabrouk, “Tunisia: The Radicalisation of Religious Policy,” in Islamist Radicalisation in North Africa. Politics and Process (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 66. 67 Mohammed Hadj Salem, “Towards a Psycho-social Approach to the Phenomena of Salafism in Tunisia” (Min āǧl muqārabaẗ nafsiyaẗ iǧtimāʿiyẗ lizẓāhiraẗ al-salafīyaẗ fī tūnis) in The Salafism Djihadist in Tunisia (As-slafīyaẗ al-ǧihādiyaẗ fī tūnis. Al-wāqiʿ wāl-maʾālāt) (Tunis: Tunisia Institute for Strategic Researches, 2014), 171. 68 Santos, Epistemologies of the South, 133.

146  Mongi Serbaji

Bibliography Belhadi, Amor. “L’inégale développement régional en Tunisie. Accumulation spatiale et littoralisation.” Cahiers de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine, no. 49 (1994): 133–149. Bibliographie Nationale Tunisienne 2018. Bibilothèque Nationale de Tunisie. Tunis: Tunisian National Library, 2018. Accessed October 21, 2020. https:// www.bibliotheque.nat.tn/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Bibliographie-fr2018. pdf. Bourdieu, Pierre and Jean-Claude Passeron. Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture. Thousand Oaks and London: Sage Publishing, 1977. Brown, Leon Carl. The surest path. The Political Treatise of a Nineteenth-Century Muslim Statesman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. Connell, Raewyn. “Social Sciences on a World Scale. Connecting the Pages.” Journal of the Brazilian Sociological Society 1, no. 1 (2015): 1–16. Dhaoui, Iyad. “Efficacité du Système Educatif Tunisien: Analyses et Perspectives.” Notes et Analyses de L’ITCEQ, No. 29. June 2015. Accessed October 20, 2020. http://www.itceq.tn/wp-content/uploads/files/notes2014/efficacite-dusysteme-educatif-Tunisien.pdf. Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and Ethics of Knowing. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Guessoumi, Mouldi. “Tunisian University and Society under the Condition of the New Global Division of Labor.” (Al-ǧāmiʿaẗ al-tūnisiyaẗ wāl-muǧtamaʿ fī ẓil al-taqsīm al-ʿālamī al-ǧdīd lil-ʿamal) In University and Society within the Context of Arab Revolutions and New Humanism, 95–108. Edited by Mohsen El khouni, Mouldi Guessoumi and Mohamed S. Omri. Tunis: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2017. Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of the Communicative Action, Volume 2: Life World and System: A Critique of a Functionalist Reason. Boston: Bacon Press, 1987. Haddad, Tahar. Muslim Woman in Law and Society (Imraʾatunā fī al-šarīʿaẗ wālmuǧtamaʿ). Translated by Ronak Husni and Daniel L. Newman. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Hadj Salem, Mohammed. “Towards a Psycho-social Approach to the Phenomena of Salafism in Tunisia.” (Min āǧl muqārabaẗ nafsiyaẗ iǧtimāʿiyẗ liz-ẓāhiraẗ al-salafīyaẗ fī tūnis) In The salafism Djihadist in Tunisia (As-slafīyaẗ al-ǧihādiyaẗ fī tūnis. Al-wāqiʿ wāl-maʾālāt), 149–179. Edited by Mohammed Hadj Salem. Tunis: Tunisia Institute for Strategic Researches, 2014. Human Development Report 1997. Published for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Honneth, Axel. “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination: Some Problems in the Analyses of Hidden Morality.” PRAXIS International 2, no. 1 (1982), 12–25. Hountondji, Paulin. “Recherche et extraversion: éléments pour une sociologie de la science dans les pays de la périphérie.” Africa Development 15, no. 3–4 (1990): 149–158. Hountondji, Paulin. “Knowledge of Africa, Knowledge by Africans: Two Perspectives on African Studies.” RCCS Annual Review 1/2009, 121–131. Coimbra: Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, 2009.

Cultural Impoverishment  147 Institut National de Statistiques. “Caractéristiques d’éducation de la population.” Recensement General de la Population et de l’Habitat 2014/4, January 2017. TUNIS: Institut National de la Statistique, 2017. Jrad, Nabiha. “La Politique Linguistique de la Tunisie Postcoloniale.” In Trames de Langues. Usages et Métissages Linguistiques dans l’histoire du Maghreb, 427–443. Edited by Jocelyne Dakhlia. Tunis: Istitut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain, 2004. Kilani, Mondher. “Langue et domination de la relation coloniale à la relation de dépendance.” Revue Européenne des sciences sociales 15, no. 40 (1977), 133–147. Kochbati, Imen. “L’enseignement universitaire tunisien dans les régions: inégalité des chances et disparité démographique.” In University and Society within the Context of Arab Revolutions and New Humanism, 189–200. Edited by Mohsen El khouni, Mouldi Guessoumi and Mohamed S. Omri. Tunis: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2017. Mabrouk, Mehdi. “Tunisia: The Radicalisation of Religious Policy” In Islamist Radicalisation in North Africa. Politics and Process, 48–70. Edited by George Joffé. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized. London: Earthscan Publishings, 2003. Meyer-Bisch, Patrice. “Le droit de participer à la vie culturelle, premier facteur de liberté et d’inclusion sociale.” In Le rôle de la culture dans la lutte contre la pauvreté et l’exclusion sociale Vol. 19, 53–80. Bruxelles: Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Service général de la Jeunesse et de l’Education permanente, 2013. Ouannass, Moncef. The State and the Cultural Issue in The Maghreb (Ad-dawlaẗ wal-masʾalaẗ aṯ-ṯwaqāfīyaẗ fī al-maġrib al-ʿarabī). Tunis: Ceres, 1995. OECD report (2018a). “Country notes: France.” In Equity in Education: Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility. Paris: PISA, OECD Publishing, 2018. Accessed October 20, 2020. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/Equity-in-Educationcountry-note-France.pdf. OECD report (2018b). “Country notes: United States.” In Equity in Education: Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility (Paris: PISA, OECD Publishing, 2018). Accessed October 20, 2020. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/Equity-inEducation-country-note-US.pdf. Pell Institute. Indicators of Higher Education equity in the United States. Accessed July 15, 2019. http://pellinstitute.org/indicators/reports_ 2019.shtml. Piron, Florence. “Justice et injustice cognitive: de l’epistémologie à la matérialité des savoirs humains.” In Les Classiques des Sciences Sociales: 25 ans de Partage des savoirs dans la Francophonie, 259–273. Edited by Emilie Tremblay and Ricarson Dorcé. Québec: ESBC, 2018. de Sousa Santos, Boaventura. “Public Sphere and the epistemologies of the South.” African Development 37, no. 1 (2012), 43–67. de Sousa Santos, Boaventura. Epistemologies of the South. London and New York: Routledge, 2016. Sen, Amartya. “Development as Capability Expansion.” Journal of Development Planning 19 (1989), 41–58. Scimago Journal & Country Rank (a). 2020. Accessed June 30, 2020. https:// www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php? year=2018.

148  Mongi Serbaji Scimago Journal & Country Rank(b). 2020. Accessed July 10, 2020. https:// www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?region=ARAB%20COUNTRIES. Sghir, Youssra. “Academic Publishing in Tunisia: Between Economic Pressures and the Challenges of the Digital Environment.” The Maghrebian Review of Documentation and Information 1, no. 28 (2019). The World Bank Open Data. 2019. Accessed November 24, 2019. https://data. worldbank.org/. UNESCO. Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies: World Conference on Cultural Policies. Mexico City: UNESCO Publishing, 1982. UNESCO.Teaching and Learning:Achieving Quality forAll: EFA Global Monitoring Report, 201-3/4. New York: UNESCO Publishing, 2014. https://en.unesco.org/ gem-report/report/2014/teaching-and-learning-achieving-quality-all The 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics, Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2009. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. More than One-Half of Children and Adolescents Are not Learning Worldwide, Fact Sheet No. 46, September 2017. New York: UNESCO Publications, 2017. Accessed September 26, 2020. http:// uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs46-more-than-half-children-notlearning-en-2017.pdf. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. New Methodology Shows that 258 Million Children, Adolescents and Youth Are Out of School, Fact Sheet 56, September 2019. New York: UNESCO Publications, 2019. Accessed September 26, 2020. http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/new-methodology-shows258-million-children-adolescents-and-youth-are-out-school.pdf. UIS UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Out-of-School Children and Youth. New York: UNESCO Publications, 2020. Accessed September 26, 2020. http://uis. unesco.org/en/topic/out-school-children-and-youth. UNESCO Institute for Statistics Website. International Trade in Cultural Goods. http://data.uis.unesco.org/?lang=en&SubSessionId=f7c1c9f4-9518-48f5a823-39be879bab28&themetreeid=-200 [14 Occtober 2020a] UNESCO Institute for Statistics Website. Mean Years of Schooling. http://data. uis.unesco.org/index.aspx?queryid=3803 [04 September 2020b] UNESCO Institute for Statistics Website. Researchers by sex per million inhabitants. 2020c. Accessed October 21, 2020. http://data.uis.unesco.org/index.asp x?lang=en&SubSessionId=b7951eaf-45f3-4541-9b24-b63aeddad366&theme treeid=-200. World Bank. Individuals using the Internet 2017 (% of population). 2020a. Accessed October 6, 2020. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET. USER.ZS?mostrecent_year_desc=true. World Bank. Research and development expenditure. 2020b. Accessed October 21, 2020. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS. World Bank. Military expenditure. 2020c. Accessed October 21, 2020. https:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS. World Development Report: Attacking Poverty 2000/2001. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Accessed October 20, 2020. http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/230351468332946759/pdf/226840WDR0 0PUB0ng0poverty0200002001.pdf.

8 “Detention and Torture Centers” in Latin American Dictatorships Places of Subjective and Social Reconfiguration* José Santos Herceg As is well known, a cycle of civil–military dictatorships took place during the second half of the twentieth century in the Southern Cone of Latin America—in Brazil (1964–1985), Uruguay (1973–1985), Chile (1973– 1990), and Argentina (1976–1983). This social-political context had an undeniable impact on the field of philosophy. The effect, first of all, has been concrete: many philosophers have been expelled from universities, persecuted, imprisoned, murdered, and exiled; philosophy programs have been closed, or heavily interfered with, and specific topics and authors have been censored and prohibited. The impact of dictatorships on the field of philosophy is also theoretical, since it provides themes, issues, and research topics, especially in the field of political philosophy. The relationship of Latin American political philosophy with these dictatorships began during the dictatorships. Some of these reflections sought to direct and express criticism toward them. It is what Luis Scherz has called “informal intelligentsia” or “counterintelligentsia,” which is characterized by its criticism of the official regime and its eagerness to replace it.1 Another portion of philosophers, on the other hand, dedicated their thinking to supporting and substantiating these dictatorial regimes. These were part of what José Jara has called “word allies,” that is, those who “through various means and occasions publicly enunciate [their word], or in some cases, behind the scenes of the established military power, to give a theoretical justification.”2 Latin American political philosophy has maintained a thematic relationship with dictatorships even after they have ended. There have been multiple issues that have interested philosophers during this time. Among them, one that stands out is the thematic area related to political prisons. Political imprisonment during the dictatorships was a massive phenomenon. Thousands of people were incarcerated during the years of the dictatorships, most of these people being tortured. Hundreds of places were established for this purpose. As recognized in the “Valech Report”3 during the Chilean * This work is part of the research project “Tortura: concept and experience“ (FONDECYT No. 1180001).

150  José Santos Herceg dictatorship, there were reportedly 1,1324 of these places.5 In Argentina, on the other hand, 640 came into existence, although since many were only temporary, the number stabilized at 364 such sites. “Concentration Camps” has been used as a name for these places. (This name is a possible translation of the German term “Konzentrationslager.”) It is a fact that there are some respects in which what happened during the Southern Cone dictatorships resembles the Nazi phenomenon, which would explain matches between the two phenomena and even justify the use of the same name. Without claiming to be exhaustive, it could be said that from their appearance, there is something in these places used in Latin America that is reminiscent of those used in Germany—i.e., watchtowers, barbed wire, heavy weaponry, etc. On the other hand, there is something in the disproportionate magnitude of what happened, of what was damaged, that would make it possible to relate both phenomena since the disproportion of horror is present in both cases in a notable way. The fact that the existence of these places is the result of a state policy also allows a link between the phenomena. In both cases, on the other hand, the places are intended for the isolation of certain types of subjects: political opponents or Jews. The elimination of these groups, either through death or through terror and the dismantling of the organization in question, is, in both cases, the aim. These similarities between the two phenomena justify the use of the same name: concentration camp. The pertinence of the use of this term for the case of Latin American dictatorships, however, has been the subject of controversy. For some, it is justified and necessary to insist on the use of the name;6 for others, using the name would no longer be justified.7 The starting point for the position against the use of the name lies in the differences between what happened in Germany and what happened in the Southern Cone. The differences are, in fact, most remarkable when looked closely at the two historical realities. The detention centers used during the dictatorships of the Southern Cone were qualitatively different from the Konzentrationslager. Mariela Avila points out that “it is possible to see certain structural similarities between the Latin American concentration camps and the Nazi Lager. However, it is necessary to emphasize that these places have numerous differences.”8 These differences concern, for example, their location and construction. In Latin America, existing spaces located in urban centers were mainly used, while Lager were mostly built especially in isolated places outside the cities. The Nazi Konzentrationslager and the Latin American experience also differ in terms of the population of these places. It is different having been a “deportee” than a “prisoner of war” or a “political detainee.” Being imprisoned in a Lager did not necessarily have to do with political affiliation; in the case of Latin America, however, this is precisely the reason someone was detained. On the other hand, it was a characteristic of the Konzentrationslager that the deportees were systematically

Detention and Torture Centers  151 and permanently subjected to forced labor, even to death. Forced labor only occurred as an exception to the rule in the Southern Cone; and, as far as we know, prisoners were not made to work as a means of collective extermination, nor was forced labor used as a productive force in the way the Nazis did. Death was a permanent presence in both places; nevertheless, it was different both qualitatively and quantitatively. According to the way in which it occurred, the Nazi extermination took forms such as the “final solution” (Endlösung) with its concretion in gas chambers and transports, death by medical experimentation, death by an excess of work and lack of food, etc. In the case of Latin America, death has taken the form of executions, of the “escape law” in Chile, and of “flights of death” in Argentina. “Forced disappearance” is, without a doubt, a very particular way of extermination typical of Southern Cone dictatorships. Considered from a quantitative point of view, both experiences of death also differ radically. In the case of the Konzentrationslager, there were between 15 and 20 million deaths. In the Southern Cone, the death victims are much lower, despite the fact that there are more than thousands of deaths.9 Although they have much in common with Konzentrationslager, the phenomenon of imprisonment in the Southern Cone dictatorships was different. The analyses that have been made, however, have been based largely on analyses already existing regarding the reality of the Nazis. In this way, the tendency has been to resort to existing theoretical work from the European philosophical domain. When analyzing the reality of the political prison in the Southern Cone, the constant and permanent references are the works of Giorgio Agamben, and Hannah Arendt, although authors such as Michel Foucault, Robert Antelme, Walter Benjamin, and Viktor Frankl, among others can also often be found. The works of Avila,10 López,11 and Raffin,12 among others, are examples of this. This fact is clearly not surprising at all. Western European philosophy has systematically and deeply given thematic attention to many topics, and, without a doubt, it seems reasonable to explore the way they have done it. In this body of work there is a large collection of reflections, concepts, and categories that are extremely useful and necessary for thinking philosophically that would be unreasonable to ignore or devalue. From this perspective, approaching the European authors who have thought about Konzentrationslager in order to elucidate what happened with the Latin American political imprisonment seems to be reasonable. The use of the categories and conceptual developments designed to understand the reality of Konzentrationslager for the Latin American case has nevertheless had two possibly undesirable effects. On the one hand, it could prevent us from finding exactly what we are looking for. Whoever has insights from the Nazi case will try to find this in the Southern Cone, for example, forced labor, industrial extermination, medical experiments, etc. No matter how much effort is made, no matter how

152  José Santos Herceg flexible the analysis becomes in looking for analogies, nothing of the sort will be finally found. This experience can lead to the sensation that the Latin American experience is less horrifying, a bad copy, or a washedout imitation of the Shoah.13 From this, it is, as López says, logical that it becomes uncomfortable to use the same categories and that they are merely qualified with quotation marks. What happened in the Southern Cone would have been something like “concentration camps,” but without the crematoriums, without the forced labor until death, etc. Making use of categories and conceptual developments created to apprehend the particular case of Nazism in order to think about the case of the Southern Cone has the consequence that it becomes impossible to see the particular reality, the novelty of what happened in these countries during their military dictatorships. Within examples of imprisonment in the Southern Cone, the atrocities committed are no less horrific than those of Nazism, but they were nevertheless different. In Chile, for example, there were instances of permanent torture, constant transfers; there were bandages, “poroteos,” war trials, executions, and mock drills, “ley de fuga,” etc. In Argentina, there were also “chupaderos,” death flights, etc. Whoever allows themselves to be uncritically guided by the case of Nazism and the theory that has been built on understanding it and insists on using some categories and names coined for other contexts without caution will not notice the specificity of the horror of the political prison during these dictatorships: a horror, which, as such, is incomparable. Jorge Montealegre notes for the Chilean case that more than forty years since the military coup, it has become necessary to start the work of seeking a particular representation and, therefore, original and adequate names for the phenomena concretely and theoretically. Montealegre maintains that Nazi imaginary can be used but only when it is relevant. This appeal cannot, however, be “mechanical,”14 nor can the identification be total. The risk of not operating with these precautions is that “projections and transfers end up being deformed in an impertinent frame of the memory to be recovered.”15 The invitation is to a “creative confrontation of the new realities that bring their own words and images” that could be delayed by a “world of appearance, which facilitates the first relationships of similarity.”16 The excessive and uncritical use of Nazi imaginary could end up hiding the reality of the political prison. Reflection on dictatorship goes through a conceptual, categorical exercise, namely creating concepts and categories that correspond to the particularity of the Latin American experience, which can show that it was something new and different. What was previously said explains the proposals for different names being given to the places where imprisonment was carried out. In the case of Argentina, the terms “Centros clandestinos de detención, tortura y exterminio” (CCDTyE),17 “Centros clandestinos de detención” (CCD),18 or “Centros clandestinos de detención y tortura” (CCDyT)19 are used.20

Detention and Torture Centers  153 For the Chilean case, the “Rettig Report”21 uses the category “Recintos de detención”22 or “Lugares de detención,”23 but for other cases classified as “special,” it uses the generic category “Campo de detención.”24 I have proposed the use of the generic name “Centros de detención y/o tortura”25 for the Chilean case.26 In any case, no generic name has been determined as of yet in Chile. There are differing proposals to name these places depending on their functions.27 Studies about CCDyT have transcended the problem of the name and have gone on to other issues. In this sense, the work of some Latin American intellectuals who have made an effort to develop adequate concepts to understand the specific reality of these places should be mentioned.28 As is well known, Hannah Arendt called Nazi camps “laboratories of total domination.”29 This name is not random, because it gives an account of the purpose of these spaces: to experiment with the humanity of men/ women. The aim of Arendt’s analysis is to show that in the camps, the aim is to exorcize every trace of humanity from the imprisoned. In the Southern Cone CCDyT, it is possible to find traces of the same objective. However, this was not its ultimate purpose. They were places that had a very specific political purpose: destruction and reconfiguration of the subjects as well as of social structures. The CCDyT were, therefore, the place from which reconfiguration of entire societies was projected. To achieve this goal, torture played a key role. Among the many specific characteristics of the political prison in Latin America, the presence of torture undoubtedly has a prominent place. This becomes evident just by observing that it was a massive and systematic practice. Practically all of those who were imprisoned in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina during their respective dictatorships were tortured. Thousands of people were tortured in the CCDyT. Torture is not a specific or particular phenomenon of Southern Cone dictatorships. In fact, it extends to all corners of the world, and, as Briceño has written, “the practice of torture is as old as humanity.”30 The way in which torture was practiced during military dictatorships in the Southern Cone, however, is marked by its own particular contours, thus making torture in this region a specific and particular phenomenon. As a result, a critical reflection has emerged in Latin America in recent times. Part of this work focuses on the phenomenon of torture in the Southern Cone in general.31 There is also, however, a prolific theoretical framework for the subject from the point of view of each country: Chile, Argentine, Uruguay, and Brazil. The torture practiced during dictatorship was especially characterized by its purposes. In literature, torture has always been considered to be a means to a further end. It works as a tool with a goal that transcends it. In the case of Latin American dictatorships, that goal is characterized by being multiple and changing. Briseño,32 for example, lists eleven purposes of torture applied in Latin America during military dictatorships,

154  José Santos Herceg but there could be more. In a recently published text, I have tried to demonstrate that all of these purposes constitute a coordinated system of intentions that justify the very existence of torture.33 From my point of view, three types of purposes can be distinguished: subjective ones, strategic ones, and political ends. Subjective purposes are those motivations that the torturer may have at the time of torture that individually move them to engage in the practice.34 Among these types of objectives, there were, for example, revenge, celebration, pleasure, and enjoyment of power, etc. According to Vidal, in some cases, the torturer, when exercising their function, also carries out a kind of ritual in which the victors “orgiastically celebrate their victory.” It would be “the violent and pleasant relaxation of energies accumulated by hatred.”35 This purpose was undoubtedly present in the case of Southern Cone military dictatorships, although it is not exclusive to this experience. Torture also provides the executioner the subtle enjoyment of having the victim at his mercy, of exercising absolute control over their body, intimacy, dignity, if not over their convictions. Torture awakens a fantasy of elementary omnipotence in its manifestations since it is an immediate way to reach the other person in depth.36 This enjoyment of omnipotence is something that usually emerges in the testimonies of tortured Latin Americans when they describe the reactions of their executioners. The strategic objective of torture, on the other hand, does not have to do with the torturer’s individual motivations, but with purposes that affect the victim. The strategic objective of torture is the complete destruction of the tortured subject. As Le Breton has written, torture “sometimes translates a pure will to annihilate the other, martyring, staining and reducing them to an object. The imposition of pain and humiliation pursues a logic of invalidation of the victim.”37 Marrades warns that “[it] matters … to specify the conceptual sense of that destruction or annihilation of the other carried out by torture.”38 He immediately clarifies that, even if it could happen, “it is not about killing.”39 The objective of torture in dictatorship was never concrete annihilation; according to the author, it was about the “destruction of the personal world.”40 In Vidal’s terms, “the main objective in inflicting torture is to disintegrate the identity of the victim, both personally and in relation to society.”41 Bulo states that in torture, the subject is transformed “into a clean slate, an actual blank page on which the design can be written from scratch, and a perfect system can be implemented.”42 The objective would be, according to the author, to “empty the other, to neutralize it, to leave it without relief, without texture, without text.”43 This is achieved by transforming the tortured into what has been called the absolute victim.

Detention and Torture Centers  155 Adriana Cavarero has coined the term “horrorism” to designate that extreme violence characterized by being indiscriminate and aimed to the unarmed, that is to say, to “those who are in a condition of passivity and suffer violence that they cannot escape or respond to.”44 Torture is, as the author maintains, a paradigmatic case of this “horrorism;” therefore, its victims have precisely these two characteristics: their passivity and their total exposure and vulnerability. This is what makes the victim of Latin American torture a victim of horrific, horrifying, and disgusting violence into an “absolute victim.” The victim of torture, like any other victim, is, by definition, a passive person on whom the harm is exerted. The passivity of the victim can be understood in different ways. On the one hand, torture is something that always happens to someone against their will, without wanting or seeking it: there is no consent. The imposing and violent nature of torture implies that it is always exercised against the will of the tortured one. The victim’s passivity, however, does not only refer to a lack of will, but also to a complete absence of action. When the torment is being executed, the subject is always immobilized or is moved by another person. Body displacements in torture are never intended or provoked by the victim. If there is any action on the part of the tortured, it would simply be the act of receiving the punishment. This is clearly not a proper action, but the fact of being available to the executioner, without any possibility of opposing, of protecting themselves: they simply cannot do anything but observe the action upon them. Their body and mind are violated without limit, not being able to do anything to avoid it. The victim of torture is completely subjugated. The torturer holds the action, and the victim is reduced to a secondary place, deprived of any agency and subjected to the will, designs, and even the whims of their executioner. Therefore, the victim is an exposed subject reaching the limit of the most absolute vulnerability. The subject is open, defenseless, literally and metaphorically naked, in extreme exposure. The feeling of helplessness is repeated in all the testimonies of those who have been tortured. In torture, in a very succinct way, one could say that the subject is exposed in his condition of being vulnerable; and everything ends right there, there is nothing more: the consensual relationship with others is missing, the possibility, even minimal, of being able to determine how to live is missing, the presence of shelter is missing. In a sense, everything is missing.45 The victim of torture during the dictatorships of the Southern Cone was a particularly helpless subject. In fact, if there is something that characterizes such a victim, it is the most absolute helplessness. That is to say, it is the awareness that no one will come to the victim’s aid, that no one will stop the pain unless the torturer wishes to do so, or death comes.

156  José Santos Herceg Those tortured under dictatorships were exposed to the most serious damages. The damage to the victim is completed when the victim is subjected to an enormous amount of pain and suffering. The verification of pain and/or suffering is essential to talk about torture, and it is present in all existing definitions. Following Le Breton’s suggestion to distinguish between types of pain—acute pain,46 persistent pain,47 chronic pain,48 and total pain49—the case of Latin American torture can be qualified as “total pain.” Although the author refers to terminal patients, it resembles the pain present in torture. Le Breton writes, “Total pain signals the moment when the individual is no longer bound to the world except by the irruption of his pain; his sensations or feelings are immersed in suffering that surrounds him completely.”50 Total pain is associated with the anguish of impending death; it is “an absolute pain that annihilates the subject and only leaves a residual consciousness. Life has ceased to be of interest; curled up in his hell, the individual wishes to die as soon as possible.”51 This experience is repeated in many testimonies given by tortured people. The pain of torture is so intense that only death seems to be the way out, and it is desired, requested, and demanded. Going through torture and suffering this “total pain” cannot leave anyone unharmed. Corbi states that “torture is undoubtedly a paradigmatic case of damage… The description of how someone has been the victim of torture grants sense to some of the most characteristic aspects of damage.”52 There are many damages caused by torture, giving rise to what Thiebaut has called “total damage,” that is to say, the damage from torture “is not only being or falling into a relatively specific state but something that is integrated into a whole life, damaging it.”53 Successful torture, when achieved, generates what in the Chilean case is known as “los quebrados” (the broken ones) and in Argentina “los arrasados” (the devastated ones). Here we can precisely talk of a “demolition.”54 To achieve this complete destruction is one of the central purposes of the torture that was practiced in the Latin American CCDyT. The damage to the victim, however, does not end when he or she is released from prison and is no longer subjected to direct torture. Torture does not end when the act of torturing ends; that is a fact corroborated in the Latin American case. It is permanent: it is forever attached to the victim. Rojas mentions an “acute exogenous reaction that describes by enumerating a series of disorders at the level of conscience, mimetic disorders, disorders of perception as well as disorders of thought and imagination.”55 Full recovery seems ultimately impossible. According to Rojas, the phrase that is repeated most frequently in consultations is: “I was never the same again.”56 Moulian has written that a tortured person “carries the mark forever… He survived hell, and that footprint goes with him to the end.”57 From Corbi’s perspective, the victim of torture loses confidence in the world.58 Uribe extends this statement by saying that, in reality, the tortured person loses the world itself: they become inhabitants of a non-world.59

Detention and Torture Centers  157 The political objectives that torture had during the Southern Cone dictatorships are closely related to this disarticulation of the victim. Among political purposes, there are four that stand out. In the first place, there is clearly the search for information, “intelligence.” They torture to know, to access the data that allows them to have an advantage, disrupt a group, capture more subjects, etc. Second, there is the purpose of terrorizing and intimidating a group or even the entire population. In the case of dictatorial Chile, for example, as Moya says, “it was applied to terrorize an entire society.”60 Calveiro has written that torture “allows terror to spread on and off the field.”61 This leads us to a third political objective that, as López and Otero have written, refers to the educational nature of torture. “Torture educates: replaces criticism with consent. It models in a certain way that it interests power. It is a form of pedagogy, but in its own version: it is a pedagogy of terror.”62 Finally, it follows from the previous purpose that torture was used in order to dismantle the social fabric. Marrades shows that torture destroys trust in others.63 In Bulo’s terms, “torture is the exercise of unwriting a we, tearing it apart, breaking the general body, the collective body.”64 Mistrust, betrayal, and suspicion of collaboration rot away the social fabric until it breaks down. Torture was, during these dictatorships, a powerful tool in the dismantling of the existing social structure and in the imposition of a new form of relationship between the subjects. In order to achieve this objective, professional torturers, with special preparation and training, were required. These subjects were part of well-organized groups that acted in a coordinated manner under the protection of institutions. The torture was never carried out by a solitary individual, but rather was a collective exercise.65 In most cases, it is not possible to argue that the torturer was the only one who directly and concretely performed the action on the victim’s body. The torturer was always accompanied by a set of subjects who performed different functions in the act of torture. That is what Moulian has called the “device.”66 In Argentina these were called “Intelligence teams,”67 and in Chile “Operating Groups.”68 Torture is a crime of collective action, i.e., it is committed by a collective, which raises problems regarding the issue of moral and criminal responsibility. The presence of a collective torture community is also linked to the character of “civil servant” who have been party to torture.69 The torture community is in these cases related to institutions that are organized hierarchically. Institutions have also been responsible for developing structures for the formation of torturers. A common subject is taken and transformed, through a systematic training process, into a torturer. In the CCDyT “torture is exercised by normal subjects.”70 Mallol points out that “Any human being, ordinary, good father, good neighbor, can be found, potentially, in the turns of life, performing tasks of an efficient torturer.”71 He wonders, then: How do you get there?72 The answer is that they have been trained to perform that function. Those who torture

158  José Santos Herceg within the framework of dictatorships possessed technical knowledge, acquired through systematic training and perfected with experience. For their part, those who develop and teach torture have scientific knowledge, formed from a systematic and informed investigation. As Pérez Vilar writes, The search for making suffer implies a sophistication of the methods used to generate the greatest amount of pain in the most effective way possible. This economy of the painful puts science and technology to operate at the service of the mechanisms to exert torture. Anatomy and technology provide where and how to use the devices to torture.73 Natalie Pérez speaks of an “economy of the painful” that is embodied in the preparation of a technique. The list of torture techniques used during dictatorships is huge74 and has been described multiple times. These include Latin American tortures like “pau de Arara,” the dove,75 the telephone,76 “la parrilla,” the submarine,77 etc. Others were part of the initial training. Through well-trained torturers acting in coordination within an institutional framework, torture in the CCDyT achieves its political goals. The required information is obtained so that more subjects can be tortured. A great mass is reached, which is what happened during these dictatorships: everyone who was imprisoned was tortured. Through massiveness, fear is spread throughout the population. The educational function of torture is implemented in this way. Finally, the social fabric is dismantled as mistrust, betrayal, and suspicion take over the people. A new mode of relationships is installed among the subjects, to the point that we can speak of a new model of society. The achievement of this objective was one of the main objectives of the CCDyT of the Latin American dictatorships. They were places that had the specific purpose of destroying and reconfiguring subjects as well as social structures. As I have said before, the CCDyT were the place from which reconfiguration of the entire societies was projected. Torture is not just another phenomenon that took place during imprisonment but is a central element in understanding the functioning and importance of these places. That is why one of the generic names used for them is “Detention and Torture Centers,” including this phenomenon in the name itself.

Notes 1 Luis Scherz, “La intelectualidad crítica en el Chile de hoy, Santiago de Chile: Instituto Chileno de Estudios Humanísticos,” in La Universidad chilena desde los extramuros. Obra y vida de Luis Scherz G. (Santiago de Chile: Universidad Alberto Hurtado, 2004), 4.

Detention and Torture Centers  159 2 José Jara, “Un siglo corto de filosofía,” Archivos. Revista de Filosofía 1 (2009), 84. 3 “Valech Report” is the name given to the report of the “Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura” (National Commission on Political Prison and Torture) summoned by President Ricardo Lagos in 2003. 4 Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura, Informe Valech: Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (Santiago de Chile: Ministerio del Interior, 2004), 261. 5 This amount is, without a doubt, less than what was the reality. Considering the clandestine nature of most of these places, there are some of which we still do not have knowledge. 6 Mariela Avila, “Campos de concentración de las dictaduras latinoamericanas. Una mirada filosófica,” La Cañada. Revista del pensamiento filosófico en Chile 4 (2013). 7 Jorge Montealegre, “Construcción social de la memoria: presencia del imaginario del holocausto en testimonios latinoamericanos” [Social Construction of Memory: Presence of Holocaust Images in Latin American Testimonies], Alpha 36 (2013); José Santos Herceg, “Konzentrationslagern en Chile. Sobre la (im)pertinencia del nombre,” Hermenéutica Intercultural, Revista de Filosofía 26 (2016). 8 Avila, “Campos de concentración de las dictaduras latinoamericanas. Una mirada filosófica,” 225. 9 In Chile, the “Comisón nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación” (Truth and Reconciliation National Commission) established, after some corrections, that there were 1,319 deaths and 979 disappeared, that is, a total of 2,298 politically motivated deaths in the period from 1973 to 1990. The National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation (1992) added 776 dead and 123 disappeared persons. In Argentina the figure given by human rights organizations is 30,000 dead/disappeared. The Argentine Secretariat for Human Rights, working on the basis of the people who received compensation from the State up to 2003, speaks, however, of 13,000 victims of state terrorism. The CONADEP (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) in 1984 collected 9,089 cases of enforced disappearance. 10 Cf. Avila, “Campos de concentración de las dictaduras latinoamericanas. Una mirada filosófica” (2013). 11 Cf. Loreto López, “De los Centros de Detención a lugares de Memoria del terrorismo de Estado,” Revista Praxis 15 (2009). 12 Cf. Marcelo Raffin, La experiencia del horror. Subjetividad y derechos humanos en las dictaduras del Cono Sur (Buenos Aires: Editorial Del Puerto, 2006). 13 Cf. María José López, Tiempo de oscuridad. Diálogos con Hannah Arendt (Santiago de Chile: Universitaria, 2018). 14 Montealegre, “Construcción social de la memoria: presencia del imaginario del holocausto en testimonios latinoamericanos,” 129. 15 Montealegre, “Construcción social de la memoria: presencia del imaginario del holocausto en testimonios latinoamericanos,” 129. 16 Montealegre, “Construcción social de la memoria: presencia del imaginario del holocausto en testimonios latinoamericanos,” 130. 17 Clandestine detention, torture, and extermination center. 18 Clandestine detention center. 19 Clandestine detention, and torture center. 20 Cf. Valeria Durán, Luciana Messina and Valentina Salvi, “Dossier ‘Espacios de memoria: controversias en torno a los usos y las estrategias de representación’,” Clepsidra. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios sobre Memoria

160  José Santos Herceg (2014); Ana Guglielmucci and Loreto López, “Restituir lo político: los lugares de memoria en Argentina, Chile y Colombia,” Kamchatka. Revista de análisis cultural (2019). 21 “Rettig Report” is the name given to the report of the “Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) summoned by President Patricio Aylwin in 1994. 22 Detention facilities. 23 Places of detention. 24 Detention camp. 25 Detention and/or torture center. 26 José Santos Herceg, “Konzentrationslagern en Chile. Sobre la (im)pertinencia del nombre,” Hermenéutica Intercultural, Revista de Filosofía (2016). 27 Macarena Silva and Fernanda Rojas, Sufrimiento y desapariciones. El manejo urbano-arquitectónico de la memoria urbana traumatizada, in Seminario de investigación, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo (Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile, 2004), 47–48; Loreto López, “De los Centros de Detención a lugares de Memoria del terrorismo de Estado,” Revista Praxis 15 (2009). 28 Cf. Pilar Calveiro, Poder y desaparición. Los campos de concentración en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Colihue, 2006 [1984]); Pilar Calveiro, “La verdad de la tortura en las democracias,” Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales 14, no. 2 (2008); Pamela Colombo, Espacios de desaparición. Espacios vividos e imaginarios tras la desaparición forzada de personas (1974–1983) en la provincia de Tucumán (Argentina, 2013); Jorge Montealegre, Derecho a fuga. Una extraña felicidad compartida (Santiago de Chile: Asterión, Colección Tierras Altas, 2018); Jorge Montealegre, Memorias eclipsadas. Duelo y resiliencia comunitaria en la prisión Política (Santiago de Chile: Asterión/USACH, 2013); Jorge Montealegre, “Construcción social de la memoria: presencia del imaginario del holocausto en testimonios latinoamericanos” [Social Construction of Memory: Presence of Holocaust Images in Latin American Testimonies], Alpha (Osorno) 36, (2013); Estella Schindel, “En los zapatos del que sufre. Aproximaciones epistemológicas y éticas a los ex Centros Clandestinos de Detención. O ¿con qué calzado visitar un camp o de concentración?” Papeles del CEIC-International Journal On Collective Identity Research 1, no. 93 (Leioa, Spain: Centro de Estudios sobre la Identidad Colectiva/Universidad del País Vasco, 2013); Estela Schindel, Espacios de Memoria (Argentina: Magoya Films, 2012); Luis Vitale, La vida cotidiana en los campos de concentración en Chile (Caracas, Venezuela: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1979); Pía Montalva, Tejidos Blandos. Indumentaria y Violencia política en Chile, 1973–1990 (Santiago de Chile, FCE, 2013); José Santos Herceg. Lugares espectrales. Topología testimonial de la prisión política en Chile, Colección IDEA, Segunda Época (Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, 2019), among others. 29 Hannah Arendt, Los orígenes del totalitarismo (Madrid: Taurus, 1998), 533. 30 Lesley Briceño, “Tortura y torturadores,” Encuentro XXI (Santiago de Chile: LOM Ediciones, 1998), 29. 31 The figure of Pilar Calveiro (2006 and 2008) stands out again, but we also need to mention the works of Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, “Dictaduras, tortura y terror en America latina,” Bajo el Volcán (México: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2001); Luciano Oliveira, Do nunca mais ao eterno retorno: uma reflexão sobre a tortura, 2 (São Paulo, Brasil: Brasiliense, 2009); Luciano Oliveira, “Ditadura militar, tortura e história: a ‘vitória simbólica‘ dos vencidos,” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais 26 (2011); Olga Alicia Paz,

Detention and Torture Centers  161 La Tortura, Efectos y Afrontamiento: Estudio Psicosocial (Guatemala: ECAPF&G Editores, 2004); Daniel Pereyra, “Argentina: militares torturadores,” in Mientras Tanto, No. 90 (Barcelona, Spain: Icaria Editorial, 2004); Natalia Pérez Vilar, “La tortura como inscripción del dolor en el cuerpo,” TRAMAS 32 (2009); Eduardo Subirats, Pilar Calveiro, Contra la tortura: Cinco ensayos y un manifiesto. (Fineo, México: Editorial Fineo, 2006); José Santos Herceg, “Konzentrationslagern en Chile. Sobre la (im)pertinencia del nombre,” Hermenéutica Intercultural, Revista de Filosofía 26 (2016), among others. 32 Cf. Lesley Briceño, “Tortura y torturadores,” Encuentro XXI (Santiago de Chile: LOM Ediciones, 1998). 33 Cf. José Santos Herceg, “La tortura como sistema coordinado de finalidades múltiples,” Revista Encuentros Latinoamericanos, segunda época. Los derechos humanos en el siglo XXI, Vol. IV, No. 1 (2020). 34 Cf. Bernhard Kraak, “Was motiviert Folterer? Eine handlungstheoretische Analyse,” Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie 4, no. 2 (1996). 35 Hernán Vidal, Chile: poética de la tortura política (Santiago de Chile: Mosquito Editores, 2000), 42. 36 David Le Breton, Antropología del dolor (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1999), 248. 37 Le Breton, Antropología del dolor, 247. 38 Julina Marrades, “La vida robada. Sobre la dialéctica de dolor y poder en la tortura,” Pasajes: Revista de pensamiento contemporáneo 17 (2005), 32. 39 Marrades, “La vida robada. Sobre la dialéctica de dolor y poder en la tortura,” 32. 40 Marrades, “La vida robada. Sobre la dialéctica de dolor y poder en la tortura,” 32. 41 Vidal, Chile: poética de la tortura política, 11. 42 Valentina Bulo, “Tabula rasa de los cuerpos,” La Cañada. Revista del pensamiento filosófico chileno 4 (2013), 209. 43 Bulo, “Tabula rasa de los cuerpos,” 210. 44 Adriana Cavarero, Horrorismo. Nombrando la violencia contemporánea (México: Anthropos, 2009), 59. 45 Ignacio Mendiola, Habitar lo inhabitable. La práctica político-punitiva de la tortura (Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2014), 142. 46 Le Breton, Antropología del dolor, 28. 47 Le Breton, Antropología del dolor, 29. 48 Le Breton, Antropología del dolor, 31. 49 Le Breton, Antropología del dolor, 34. 50 Le Breton, Antropología del dolor, 34. 51 Le Breton, Antropología del dolor, 35. 52 Josep E. Corbi, Morality, Self-Knowledge and Human Suffering. An Essay on the Loss of Confidence in the World (New York: Routledge, 2012), 45–47. 53 Carlos Thiebaut, “La experiencia del daño y su resolución. Una indagación conceptual,” Confrontando el mal, Ensayos sobre violencia, memoria y democracia (Plaza y Valdés, España, 2017), 16. 54 Natalia Pérez Vilar, “La tortura como inscripción del dolor en el cuerpo,” TRAMAS 32 (México: UAM-X, 2009), 113. 55 Baeza Paz Rojas, “Torturas. Romper el silencio,” in De la tortura no se habla, Agüero Versus Meneses (Catalonia, Chile: Patricia Verdugo, 2004), 167–198. 56 Paz Rojas, “Torturas. Romper el silencio,” 172. 57 Tomás Moulián, “El gesto de agüero y la amnesia,” in De la tortura no se habla, Agüero Versus Meneses (Catalonia, Chile: Patricia Verdugo, 2004), 54. 58 Josep E. Corbi, Morality, Self-Knowledge and Human Suffering: An Essay on the Loss of Confidence in the World (New York: Routledge, 2012), 455.

162  José Santos Herceg 59 Ángela Uribe Botero, “Sobre la construcción del no-mundo en la tortura,” REVISTA FILOSOFÍA UIS 13, no. 2 (2014), 1. 60 Laura C. V. Moya, Tortura en poblaciones del gran Santiago (1973–1990) (Santiago: Corp. José Domingo Cañas, 2005). 61 Pilar Calveiro, “La verdad de la tortura en las democracias,” Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales 14, no. 2 (2008), 79. 62 Ricardo López Pérez and Edison Otero, Pedagogía del terror: un ensayo sobre la tortura (Santiago de Chile: Atena, 1989), 77. 63 Julina Marrades, “La vida robada. Sobre la dialéctica de dolor y poder en la tortura,” Pasajes: Revista de pensamiento contemporáneo 17 (2005), 31. 64 Bulo, “Tabula rasa de los cuerpos,” 209. 65 Rafael Egaña Rojas, Narraciones de la tortura. Su representación en tres textos dramáticos (Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile, 2005), 92; Corporación de defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo (CODEPU), Informe de Denuncia CODEPU (Santiago de Chile, 1985), 16; Tomás Moulián, “El gesto de agüero y la amnesia,” (Catalonia, Chile: Patricia Verdugo (comp), 2004), 49; López and Otero, Pedagogía del terror: un ensayo sobre la tortura, 127. 66 Moulián, “El gesto de agüero y la amnesia,” 49. 67 Pilar Calveiro, Poder y desaparición. Los campos de concentración en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Colihue, 2006 [1984]), 35–36. 68 Marcia Merino (Flaca Alejandra) in her testimony includes detailed descriptions in this regard, she dedicates specific chapters to describe the administrative structure in José Domingo Cañas (2003: 60–62), in Villa Grimaldi (82–89)—she establishes names, ranks, positions, headquarters, functions, brigades, groups, etc.—and even writes a chapter entitled “III Structure of the DINA“ Marcia Merino, Mi verdad: más allá del horror, yo acuso (Santiago de Chile: ATGSA, 1993), 106–119. 69 Corporación de defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo (CODEPU). Informe de Denuncia CODEPU (Santiago de Chile, 1985), 17; López and Otero, Pedagogía del terror: un ensayo sobre la tortura, 111. 70 Corporación de defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo (CODEPU), Informe de Denuncia CODEPU, 37. 71 Cristián Mallol Comandari, “Renacer en la Agonía. De la sobrevida a la vida,” Estudios Públicos 115 (2009), 46. 72 Mallol Comandari, “Renacer en la Agonía. De la sobrevida a la vida,” 46. 73 Pérez Vilar, “La tortura como inscripción del dolor en el cuerpo, 108–109. 74 Confinement and overcrowding, beatings, stoning, plucking of nails, eyebrows, hair and other parts of the body, dragging on the ground tied to the neck or limbs, throwing excrement and filth on the detainee, suffocation, ice baths, cuts in hands, veins and other parts of the body, shots next to the ears, drugs and hypnosis, exposure to ultraviolet or infrared rays, exposure to very high or very low temperatures, removal of body parts, fractures of body parts, systematic hitting to an area of the body, gunshot wounds, standing indefinitely, obligation to remain in forced positions, genital burns, acid burns in the eyes, mouth, nose, vagina, testicles or other parts of the body, nudity, sensory deprivation (isolation, prohibition of speaking, hoods or bandages to cover vision), food and water deprivation, ingestion of feces, vomiting and filth, abortions caused by fists and feet beating, sexual abuse, including rape and the use of specially trained animals. 75 “The dove” consists of tying the detainee‘s hands to his back and hanging him/her by the hands; his feet are often tied. Then the detainee is beaten or receives electric shocks. This is also performed in tubs or pools, and then “the dove” is applied.

Detention and Torture Centers  163 76 “The telephone” consists of hitting with open palms in both ears at the same time. 77 “The submarine” consists of tying the detainee‘s feet and hands and immersing him/her in a tank of foul liquid (urine, sewage, oil), which causes a temporary asphyxiation.

Bibliography Arendt, Hannah. Los orígenes del totalitarismo. Translated by Guillermo Solana. Madrid: Taurus, 1998. Avila, Mariela. “Campos de concentración de las dictaduras latinoamericanas. Una mirada filosófica.” La Cañada. Revista del pensamiento filosófico en Chile vol. 4, 215–231. Edited by José Santos Herceg and Alvaro García San Martín. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones La Cañada, 2013. Briceño, Lesley. “Tortura y torturadores.” Encuentro XXI, 8–36. Edited by Maria E. Horvitz and Carlos Zuniga. Santiago de Chile: LOM Ediciones, 1998. Bulo, Valentina. “Tabula rasa de los cuerpos.” La Cañada. Revista del pensamiento filosófico chileno 4, 206–214. Edited by José Santos Herceg and Alvaro García San Martín. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones La Cañada, 2013. Calveiro, Pilar. Poder y desaparición. Los campos de concentración en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Colihue, 2006 [1984]. Calveiro, Pilar. “La verdad de la tortura en las democracias.” Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales 14, no. 2 (2008): 75–94. Cavarero, Adriana. Horrorismo. Nombrando la violencia contemporánea. México: Anthropos, 2009. Colombo, Pamela. Espacios de desaparición. Espacios vividos e imaginarios tras la desaparición forzada de personas (1974–1983) en la provincia de Tucumán. Argentina, Tesis para optar al grado de doctor en Sociología. 2013. Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación. Informe Rettig: Informe de la Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación. Santiago de Chile: La Nación - Ediciones del Ornitorrinco, 1991. Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura. Informe Valech: Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura. Santiago de Chile: Ministerio del Interior, 2004. Corbi, Josep E. Morality, Self-Knowledge and Human Suffering. An Essay on the Loss of Confidence in the World. New York: Routledge, 2012. Corporación de defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo (CODEPU). Informe de Denuncia CODEPU. Santiago de Chile, 1985. Durán, Valeria, Luciana Messina and Valentina Salvi. “Dossier ‘Espacios de memoria: controversias en torno a los usos y las estrategias de representación’.” Clepsidra. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios sobre Memoria 2, 5–11. Edited by Claudia Feld and Santiago Garaño Buenos Aires, Argentina: Núcleo de Estudios sobre Memoria, Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social, 2014. Egaña Rojas, Rafael. Narraciones de la tortura. Su representación en tres textos dramáticos. Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile, 2005. Figueroa Ibarra, Carlos. “Dictaduras, tortura y terror en America latina.” In Bajo el Volcán, segundo semestre, 53–74. México: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2001.

164  José Santos Herceg Guglielmucci, Ana, and Loreto López. “Restituir lo político: los lugares de memoria en Argentina, Chile y Colombia.” Kamchatka. Revista de análisis cultural, Topografías de la memoria: de usos y costumbres en los espacios de violencia en el nuevo milenio 13, 31–57. Edited by Marisa González de Oleaga and Carolina Meloni. València: Universitat de València, 2019. Jara, José. “Un siglo corto de filosofía.” Archivos. Revista de Filosofía 1, 75–88. Reprint. La Cañada. Revista de pensamiento filosófico chileno 3 (2012): 10–27. Kraak, Bernhard. “Was motiviert Folterer? Eine handlungstheoretische Analyse.” Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie 4, no. 2 (1996): 155–161. Le Breton, David. Antropología del dolor. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1999. López, Loreto. “De los Centros de Detención a lugares de Memoria del terrorismo de Estado.” Revista Praxis 15 (2009): 131–140. López, María José and García de la Huerta, Marco. Tiempo de oscuridad. Diálogos con Hannah Arendt. Santiago de Chile: Universitaria, 2018. López, Ricardo, and Edison Otero. Pedagogía del terror: un ensayo sobre la tortura. Santiago de Chile: Atena, 1989. Mallol Comandari, Cristián. “Renacer en la Agonía. De la sobrevida a la vida.” Estudios Públicos 115 (2009), 31–48. Marrades, Julina. “La vida robada. Sobre la dialéctica de dolor y poder en la tortura.” Pasajes: Revista de pensamiento contemporáneo 17 (2005): 28–39. Mendiola, Ignacio. Habitar lo inhabitable. La práctica político-punitiva de la tortura. Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2014. Merino, Marcia. Mi verdad: más allá del horror, yo acuso. Santiago de Chile: ATGSA, 1993. Montalva, Pía. Tejidos Blandos. Indumentaria y Violencia política en Chile, 1973–1990. Santiago de Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2013. Montealegre, Jorge. Memorias eclipsadas. Duelo y resiliencia comunitaria en la prisión Política. Santiago de Chile: Asterión/USACH, 2013. Montealegre, Jorge. Derecho a fuga. Una extraña felicidad compartida. Santiago de Chile: Asterión, Colección Tierras Altas, 2018. Montealegre, Jorge. “Construcción social de la memoria: presencia del imaginario del holocausto en testimonios latinoamericanos.” [Social Construction of Memory: Presence of Holocaust Images in Latin American Testimonies] Alpha (Osorno) 36, 119–134. 2020. Accessed November 10, 2020. http://dx.doi. org/10.4067/S0718-22012013000100009. Moulián, Tomás. “El gesto de Agüero y la amnesia.” In De la tortura no se habla, Agüero Versus Meneses, 45–60. Catalonia, Chile: Patricia Verdugo (comp), 2004. Moya, Laura C.V. Tortura en poblaciones del gran Santiago (1973–1990). Santiago: Corp. José Domingo Cañas, 2005. Oliveira, Luciano. Do nunca mais ao eterno retorno: uma reflexão sobre a tortura, 2nd ed. São Paulo, Brasil: Brasiliense, 2009. Oliveira, Luciano. “Ditadura militar, tortura e história: a ‘vitória simbólica’ dos vencidos.” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 26, no. 75 (2011): 7–25. Paz, Olga Alicia. La Tortura, Efectos y Afrontamiento: Estudio Psicosocial. Guatemala: ECAP-F&G Editores, 2004. Pereyra, Daniel. “Argentina: militares torturadores.” Mientras Tanto 90 (2004): 79–96.

Detention and Torture Centers  165 Pérez Vilar, Natalia. “La tortura como inscripción del dolor en el cuerpo.” TRAMAS 32 (2009): 99–120. Raffin, Marcelo. La experiencia del horror. Subjetividad y derechos humanos en las dictaduras del Cono Sur. Buenos Aires: Editorial Del Puerto, 2006. Rojas, Baeza Paz. “Torturas. Romper el silencio.” In De la tortura no se habla, 161–180. Chile: Catalonia, 2004. Santos-Herceg, José. “Konzentrationslagern en Chile. Sobre la (im)pertinencia del nombre.” Hermenéutica Intercultural, Revista de Filosofía 26 (2016): 29–56. Santos-Herceg, José. Lugares espectrales. Topología testimonial de la prisión política en Chile. Colección IDEA, Segunda Época. Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, 2019. Santos-Herceg, José. “La tortura como sistema coordinado de finalidades múltiples.” Revista Encuentros Latinoamericanos, segunda época. Los derechos humanos en el siglo XXI 4, no. 1 (2020): 57–83. Scherz, Luis. “La intelectualidad crítica en el Chile de hoy, Santiago de Chile: Instituto Chileno de Estudios Humanísticos.” In La Universidad chilena desde los extramuros. Obra y vida de Luis Scherz G., 167–189. 1982. Reprint. Santiago de Chile: Universidad Alberto Hurtado, 2004. Schindel, Estela. Espacios de Memoria. Argentina: Magoya Films, 2012. Schindel, Estela. “En los zapatos del que sufre. Aproximaciones epistemológicas y éticas a los ex Centros Clandestinos de Detención. O ¿con qué calzado visitar un camp o de concentración?” Papeles del CEIC-International Journal On Collective Identity Research 1, no. 93 (2013): 2–30. Silva, Macarena and Fernanda Rojas. Sufrimiento y desapariciones. El manejo urbano-arquitectónico de la memoria urbana traumatizada, Seminario de investigación, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo. Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile, 2004. Subirats, Eduardo and Pilar Calveiro. Contra la tortura. Cinco ensayos y un manifiesto. Fineo, México: Fineo, 2006. Thiebaut, Carlos. “La experiencia del daño y su resolución. Una indagación conceptual.” In Confrontando el mal, Ensayos sobre violencia, memoria y democracia, 11–30. Mexico City: Plaza y Valdés, 2017. Uribe Botero, Ángela. “Sobre la construcción del no-mundo en la tortura.” REVISTA FILOSOFÍA UIS 13(2). Bucaramanga (Santander), Columbia: Universidad Industrial de Santander, 2014. Verdugo, Patricia (ed.). De la tortura no se habla. Agüero versus Meneses. Catalonia, Santiago de Chile, 2004. Vidal, Hernán. Chile: poética de la tortura política. Santiago de Chile: Mosquito Editores, 2000. Vitale, Luis. La vida cotidiana en los campos de concentración en Chile. Caracas, Venezuela: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1979.

Part IV

Intercultural Approaches to Reconciliation

9 Confucian Remonstrance in the Dialectics of Self-Conscious Identity between the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong* James Garrison Introduction Though it might not be intuitive or obvious to analyze current events in Hong Kong in terms of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Master–Slave Dialectic and what he identifies as the resultant Unhappy Consciousness, there is in fact good reason to do so. Beyond the long history of using Hegelian thinking to conceptualize real-world colonialism, there is a trend across the political spectrum of turning to this framework to help process historical and contemporaneous events in China more particularly, which likely results from influence of Hegelian-Marxist philosophy on the official ideology of the Communist Party of China (CPC).1 However, Hegelian thinking does not play a particularly prominent role in the more particular current discourse unfolding in Hong Kong. So, while it is certainly not the only lens through which to view events there, this approach can be useful for two interrelated reasons. First, for political philosophy *  Professors Liya Wang and Kelly Coble of Baldwin Wallace University deserve thanks for taking time to read an early draft of this paper. Likewise, the crucial support of Baldwin Wallace University’s Faculty Development Summer Grant must be acknowledged. Finally, I absolutely must express my profound and enduring gratitude to Professor Roger T. Ames and the late Professor Henry Rosemont, Jr. for all that they each have done in their classrooms, in their texts, and in their personal lives to show what it truly means to be a junzi 君子 or exemplary person. A note on the representation of Chinese terms: Language politics represent a point of contention between Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China [PRC], where the former uses traditional script (fantizi 繁體字) and the latter uses simplified script (jiantizi 简体字) to depict the same characters/terms. In any case, differences between the two different styles should not hinder capable readers of Chinese. So, with this in mind, and in order to make it easier to search out information, this article will use traditional script when referring to terms from classical Chinese history (as this was the style of writing used at the time) or when referring to matters specific to Hong Kong (where it is still the official standard). Likewise, simplified script will be used when referring to things having to do primarily with the PRC (where, almost since its founding in 1949, the government has been standardizing and promoting simplified script). Additionally, bibliographic entries will represent author names in line with how they are represented in the work being cited, so as to facilitate follow-up research (even if widespread inconsistency in the rendering of names English over the years proves maddening for readers of Chinese).

170  James Garrison qua philosophy, this approach enriches Hegel’s thinking by taking part of the long-enduring project undertaken by thinkers throughout the world of applying the Master–Slave Dialectic to real-world power disparities. Second, for political philosophy qua politics, this approach helps in anticipating possible ways in which conceptual dynamics might develop in the relation between Mainland China and Hong Kong, particularly as “philosophy with Chinese characteristics”—i.e., Confucianism—can add to these Hegelian insights in a way that speaks to the political situation more on China’s own terms, with particular focus on criticism as remonstrative. With that said, where precisely does one begin in rendering Chinese history with a particular focus on Hong Kong in any way, let alone through a Hegelian matrix? For the purposes of this examination of events in Hong Kong in the early decades of the 2000s, which, as will be argued here, have had the major effect of constructing a distinct stage of selfconscious Hongkonger identity, it seems smart to look at the beginnings of the construction of Chinese self-conscious identity in Hegelian terms. This means looking to where a primal conflict with “The Other” has prompted to China to see itself through the eyes of another (and examining Hong Kong in turn). It turns out though that neither China nor Hong Kong can account for the construction of their respective forms of self-conscious identity in terms of a singular existential conflict with one and only one big, bad “Other,” which is quite different than what one sees in Hegel’s account. In the real world, self-conscious Chinese identity and self-conscious Hong Kong identity were not built in one day; rather, an ongoing series of interconnected conflicts has been necessary. In the real world, conflict takes place on particular territory; particular people, places, events inexorably determine how broad conceptual dynamics (which tend to be explicable only retrospectively) actually unfold in the moment. In the real world, conflict is not just limited to two parties; there are many groups seeking to secure their continued existence, with alliances, proxies, and valences to conflict developing almost inevitably. In short, looking for the grounds of self-conscious, seeing-self-from-the-outside Chinese identity (and then Hong Kong identity) becomes more and more complex upon delving into practical concerns. And so, first a preliminary (and overly brief) recounting of the history of the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong is in order, before moving on to an examination of that history in light of Hegel’s Master–Slave Dialectic.

Historical Overview Colonial-era encounters with China initially did not go well for Western powers, as there was often not a similar of interest in trade for European goods.2 Great Britain, however, could create “loyal” and ultimately

Confucian Remonstrance  171 dependent consumers with a rather profitable product—opium produced in its Indian colony.3 And so, being armed with opium and advanced weaponry, British forces pressed the issue in the coastal towns of China.4 Flooding these areas with opium and subjugating local populations, Great Britain was quickly rebuked by China’s Qing imperial court, leading to the First and Second Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860, respectively), whereby Western Powers led by Great Britain (along with the then-westernizing Japan) routed Chinese forces and obtained extraterritorial concessions up and down the Chinese coast, with the result being that Western law would reign in a manner that often enslaved local populations.5 This period, referred to colloquially in China as the “Century of Humiliation [bainian chiru 百年恥辱],” would come to an end first with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 and finally with the end of World War II in 1945 and the subsequent Communist Revolution of 1949, but not before leaving territories like Hong Kong and Macau in the hands of the British and Portuguese respectively as part of unequal 100-year-long treaties forced on China in the 1800s, setting the stage for more recent developments.6 As the British lease was coming to an end, so too was the feasibility of its continued presence in Hong Kong, given China’s rising economic and military power.7 And so, conceding to the inevitable in anticipation of the end of colonial rule in 1997, Britain sought and obtained a series of guarantees ensuring that Hong Kong would be governed with a degree of independence as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) according to the democratic principles of its founding Basic Law under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems一国两制” for fifty years and its full reversion to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2047.8 As of 2020, Hong Kong is administered as a quasi-foreign domain within the PRC, with its own passport, border control, flag, currency, language standards, legal codes, and liberal democratic framework; however, 2047 looms. And so, Hong Kong is very much in a period of transition, and it has been one of sadly predictable rising unrest. Democratic norms and material wealth have grown side by side in Hong Kong, and there is a great deal of worry on the part of citizens of diverse political leanings that one or both are under threat at the moment. However, to understand how this unrest might arise and to get a better grasp on the particular way in which Hongkongers might feel their position to be precarious, this historical overview needs to go back a bit further. During the “Reform and Opening up Movement 改革开放” led by Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the PRC moved to a kind of state-managed capitalism officially heralded as “socialism with Chinese characteristics 中国特色的社会主义” after decades of ideologically stringent Maoist leadership following the 1949 Communist Revolution.9 At the same time, the then-British colony of Hong Kong rose to prominence as a major economic force on the world

172  James Garrison stage. A chief reason for this was and continues to be Hong Kong’s ability to leverage its combination of geographical position, cultural connection, and rule-of-law apparatus to become a base for shipping, banking, and administration for major business interests operating in the PRC’s growing industrial centers.10 However, this growth throughout the 1980s and early 1990s also occurred with the 1997 handover well in view, since: (1) the date was set forth as part of the 100-year “lease” that the British government “negotiated” with Imperial China at gunpoint as part of the conclusion of the Opium Wars (well before the founding of the PRC); and (2) as mentioned, the British position on Hong Kong was becoming politically and militarily untenable amid the rise of the PRC. Again, this is all against the backdrop that Hong Kong, along with what was Portugal’s colony of Macau, was one of the last vestiges of Western extraterritorial domination over China’s coastal region in the period referred to in China with a distinct lack of nostalgia as “the century of humiliation.” Suffice to say that things could not help but be volatile. And so, despite the formal handover of Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997 actually going relatively smoothly in terms of the niceties of diplomacy and international law, tensions have in fact been building. Figuring out what precisely Hong Kong will look like moving forward has been quite contentious (to say nothing of what this might mean for any kind of collective Hongkonger identity). This is all amid increasing demand from the PRC on Hong Kong to integrate and adopt norms more akin to those on the Chinese mainland than to those familiar to citizens of liberal democracies. This pressure has been building in advance of the end of the “One Country, Two Systems” arrangement in 2047 negotiated with Great Britain as part of the 1997 handover and with the PRC’s thorough crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square in 1989 haunting pro-democracy Hong Kong activists and sympathizers.11 In any case, this dynamic has accelerated greatly since Xi Jinping 習近平 ascended to power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012, with a number of measures being introduced that many Hongkongers see as being at odds with democratic principles, a threat to economic stability, or both. While a certain level of dissent with the PRC’s control over Hong Kong was inevitable, given the entrenchment of democratic norms during the later years British colonial rule and the nascent independence movement, a series of cultural and national security measures introduced by the PRC has been met with increasingly widespread unrest within Hong Kong. 2019 saw this dynamic intensify amid a great deal of tumult in Hong Kong as the government of the PRC sought to solidify its position in its semi-independent polity. This has come about with the introduction of measures withdrawn in the face of mass protest that would have facilitated the already-occurring extradition of Hong Kong citizens—including high-profile political dissidents like Lee Bo 呂波 and Lam Wing-kee

Confucian Remonstrance  173 林榮基—to the PRC, which many observers saw as threatening democratic reform and Hong Kong’s autonomy.12 This led to a series of conflicts occurring somewhere on the continuum between protest and riot, where many Hongkongers aligned themselves socially and economically (often using smartphones) with either the generally younger “yellow” pro-democracy bloc or with the generally older “blue” pro-police side, which tends to represent the Mainland PRC interest in maintaining social harmony.13 Even though the extradition law was withdrawn, further standoffs with police led to the imposition of additional laws aimed at limiting the activity of dissidents, including laws prohibiting the use of laser pointers and of masks (even amid the COVID-19 outbreak), and these laws in turn have led to heightened opposition, culminating in the triumph of the pro-democratic bloc in 2019 elections.14 However, with the COVID-19 crisis gripping East Asia and crippling the ongoing street actions that had been propelling the yellow pro-democracy bloc and amid dissatisfaction that local authorities had been unable to implement the kind of domestic security laws mandated by Section 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the PRC government enacted a series of laws in 2020 that have had a chilling effect on all forms of protest and are widely seen by observers as introducing unprecedented limits on free speech rights in Hong Kong.15 Indeed, the United States government has weighed in and indicated that it will cease recognizing Hong Kong as a separate entity for trade purposes in protest of what it sees as an abrogation by the PRC of the principles of the 1997 handover and the promise to retain the “One Country, Two Systems” framework.16 Furthermore, United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has signaled that his government might also offer some form of long-term right of abode to a large number of former British colonial subjects seeking to flee Hong Kong,17 a prospect which would almost certainly raise the ire of the PRC in the process. At the time of this essay’s composition, it is unclear where precisely things will go, but widespread unrest looks likely to continue. However, what is clear is that the status of Hong Kong moving forward is a point of active contention. This contention is playing out not just physically on the streets of Hong Kong but also in the hearts and minds of people in Hong Kong, in the Mainland PRC, and beyond. This contention ultimately is about determining what it means for China to be Chinese, for Hong Kong to be Hong Kong, and for Hong Kong to be Chinese. Moreover, it turns out that Western powers have acted collectively for quite some time as the “Other,” as foreignness incarnate, the mere presence of which leads to conflict over who gets to continue their way of existence and who will be subjugated and ultimately condemned to see themselves painfully through the eyes of that “Other.” As such, the question of how it is that any such sense of identity might emerge from such conflict calls for examination; and it is here that Hegel’s thinking can be helpful.

174  James Garrison

Conflict, the Other, and Self-Conscious Identity The resonances with Hegel’s account soon become clear. First, consider in detail the Hegelian account of self-consciousness, terms from which have already been informally introduced in this argument. Hegel’s magnum opus The Phenomenology of Spirit [Phänomenologie des Geistes] is, by its very design as well as the time and place of its composition, far from speaking to Hong Kong’s contemporary situation directly. Instead, in this work Hegel aims to give an account of how the phenomenon Geist, meaning spirit or mind, has a certain necessary logic underlying its development arising from a fundamental tension between two poles of being—being-for-self and being-in-self. Here, Geist can and perhaps should be read in a manifold of senses, which would encompass the course of human spirit on the macro-level of the history of humanity and the development of an individual mind on a micro-level. In any case, what Hegel presents unfolds through a series of conceptual stages driven by a basic tension that he takes to be inherent in being, splitting all existence in two—being-for-self and being-in-self. Hegel’s account attempts the impossible, namely giving a comprehensive, multivalent, yet rigidly dualistic account of human development, and so it would be odd to expect him to succeed on all counts. Initiating all of this are Hegel’s key words: “Self-consciousness exists in an for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged [recognized].”18 It is in the fateful encounter with the “Other” that the self-conscious “I” emerges, per Hegel’s crucial insight. One can imagine that amid all the simple things that exist in what is here being called infantile consciousness (manifesting being-for-self), there might be a kind of not-so-simple thing, which is to say another person (manifesting being-in-self).19 Prior to becoming conscious of this other person as another person (e.g., as happens with real-life infants and the dawning realization that an infant’s mother might just have her own independent existence), there might have been a feeling of self-certainty with regard to other things, the feeling that one is at the very center of existence. When that “Other” comes on to the scene and fails to act like a thing that simply exists for this infantile consciousness, there is thus a threat to the feeling of self-certainty that places one’s simple consciousness at the center of all things.20 However, since there can be only one center of all being, one side’s existence has to prove itself to be necessary over and against its “Other.” This occurs by showing that the other side’s existence is only contingent, i.e., that it is the sort of thing whose existence could end.21 This means, quite simply, a fight to the death. What does this lead to? Eventually one side either stops existing or yields to its “Other,” acknowledging the necessity of the victor’s existence at the center of all being. Acknowledgement/recognition then becomes

Confucian Remonstrance  175 key to having a sense of self. These two parties are split into necessary and contingent—into recognized and recognizer22—with the losing side bonded to the victorious “Other,” depending on it as an absolute lord for continued existence. What emerges is a polar dynamic between what in German are called “Herr” and “Knecht,” which best translate respectively word-for-word as “Lord” and “Servant,” though the discussion has rather famously entered English-language discourse as the Master–Slave Dialectic.23 Initially, the Master–Slave Dialectic casts the Master after winning the conflict with the “Other” as once again being content. By making the Slave into an instrument of that desire, the Master continues to exist as the veritable center of all being. However, this continuation of the infantile mindset cannot continue, for it is undercut by its own basic logic. Why? The fight to the death occurred in order to prove one party’s existence as necessary and that of “the Other” as contingent. However, that necessary party—the Master—comes to depend on its “Other”—the Slave—for both recognition and the fulfillment of desire through work.24 Moreover, that recognition rings hollow, as it is recognition from an inferior, which cannot effectively validate the supposed “truth” of the Master’s existence at the center of all being. Thus, for Hegel, “[t]he outcome is a recognition that is one-sided and unequal.”25 This means that the Master’s self-consciousness comes to be contingent on the Slave, who becomes necessary in a strange, truncated way. Meanwhile, the Slave, initially cast as abject and contingent, takes on features of its “Other”— the Master—including a sense of necessity and recognition from outside. The Slave, it turns out, is required to complete desire. Desire alone does not bring an apple, an orange, or any other good; work is needed, as it takes over where desire ends. Hegel, engaging in his characteristic approach of treating concepts as terrain with quasiphysical borders, declares “Work… is desire held in check” (translated more literally: “Work...is desire hemmed in [ist gehemmte Begierde]”).26 Hence the Slave’s story ceases to be solely about recognizing the Master and also includes an acquisition of mastery over things and a recognition of self in the activity of forming permanent, lasting things in connection to “natural existence.”27 This means that the supposedly contingent Slave comes to be necessary (and to be self-consciously aware of this). Hence, Mastery and Slavery, as concepts, each show themselves to be the reverse of what the purport to be.28 Hence, for Hegel, the intertwined modes of being of the Master and Slave, each being drawn into such a contradiction, must end and only serve as a stage in the development of human spirit. As part of Hegel’s more general method, such contradiction means that what was the current stage must be negated. However, rather than just being annihilated, this now-old stage is instead preserved, thereby determining content for the next upheaval (Aufhebung) and unfolding of spirit.29

176  James Garrison What remains is self-consciousness as constituted by mutual dependence, but still not yet formed by full and proper mutual recognition. However, the primary conflict with, and dread of, “the Other” that started everything off all remains unresolved. And so, on both sides there is a similar unhappiness with self-consciousness existing in limbo between necessity and contingency. For Hegel, this means that, after selfconsciousness initially forms through conflict with “the Other,” what then comes is a state of Unhappy Consciousness. Now, ultimately the whole dynamic leading to Unhappy Consciousness is about continued existence, which is to say being at the center of all things, yet independent of determination by anything else, by anything “Other.” With the whole dynamic being about continuing to exist at the center of all being and with the Master–Slave Dialectic having taught that dependence on material things implodes on conceptual level,30 a quasiStoic withdrawal into existence as a matter of absolute, inflexible principle makes a certain amount of sense.31 Hegel describes this Stoic turn within Unhappy Consciousness thusly, “[i]ts principle is that consciousness is a being that thinks, and that consciousness holds something to be essentially important, or true and good only in so far as it thinks it to be such.”32 That Stoic side to Unhappy Consciousness is built on repudiation of dependence/materiality. Stoic withdrawal into pure existence as a matter of principle means thoroughly disavowing bodily life, and this in turn requires a curious dependence on what is disavowed. Sadly, self-conscious formed in this way can never be absolutely certain of itself, since it always needs to consign part of itself to the shadows. On this point, Hegel writes: The Unhappy Consciousness, on the other hand, is, conversely, the tragic fate of the certainty of self that aims to be absolute. It is the consciousness of the loss of all essential being in this certainty of itself, and of the loss even of this knowledge about itself-the loss of substance as well as of the Self.33 Unhappy Consciousness is thus formed upon what might be called “the loss of loss,” for what has been repudiated/disavowed/lost cannot be recognized as having anything to do with constituting one’s sense of self—loss itself is lost. As such, Stoic Unhappy Consciousness is always haunted by a self-repudiation that creates the specter of “the Other” within itself,34 now recapitulating the unhappiness of the conflict driving the Master–Slave Dialectic within self-consciousness. For Hegel, the Stoic spirit of Unhappy Consciousness thus has a mirror in a Skeptical spirit that is always waiting to undermine.35 On this point Hegel writes, “[i]t is clear that just as Stoicism corresponds to the Notion of the independent consciousness which appeared as the lord and

Confucian Remonstrance  177 bondsman relationship, so [Skepticism] corresponds to its realization as a negative attitude towards otherness, to desire and work.”36 The existence of an “Other” within itself means that there is a skeptical force always undercutting the integrity of the self-conscious identity that might have tried to retreat in a Stoic-like manner into the principle of self-certain existence such that “consciousness truly experiences itself as internally contradictory.”37 Here the Stoic, self-serious part stands as “the simple Unchangeable” sternly monitors what Hegel likens to “the squabbling of self-willed children”—“the protean Changeable” which is the Skeptical part of Unhappy Consciousness.38 Self-consciousness thus finds no solace after the external conflict with “the Other” and the restaged version of it that gave rise to a new internal bifurcation. Here self-consciousness shows itself to be “absolute dialectical unrest”39 where “[t]his unhappy, inwardly disrupted consciousness, since it’s essentially contradictory nature is for it a single consciousness, must for ever have present in the one consciousness the other also.”40 … And so getting back to the matter at hand, after conflict with the “Other” and becoming Slave to what turns out to be a dependent Master, the question turns to how self-conscious identity that inherits the contradictions arising from external conflict might unfold when it is constituted by an internal split leading to profound existential unhappiness. On the one hand, this is the theoretical question that Hegel’s Master–Slave and Unhappy Consciousness collectively pose. On the other, it is also, sadly, a question that is very much practical in the run-up to 2047 and the current unhappy reckoning with the meaning of having Hong Kong as an “Other” which the PRC depends upon for global trade and which simultaneously threatens the principles of “Harmonious Society” and “The Chinese Dream” upon which the PRC stakes its continued existence.

Conflict, the Other, and Self-Conscious Identity: Considering the PRC and Hong Kong So, for the time being, the resonances with Hegel’s accounts of the Master– Slave Dialectic and the ensuing development of Unhappy Consciousness call for analysis, with two questions coming to the fore. First, there are apparent similarities between this theoretical approach and the real-world situation in Hong Kong, but to what degree? Second, once the similarities and dissimilarities are established, can Hegel’s dialectical thinking be of use in figuring out how things might play out in Hong Kong and/or in China more broadly? Now, Hegel’s byzantine theoretical commitments preclude wholesale adoption of his framework to process events unfolding in Hong Kong in relation to the Mainland PRC, and so it may be best to stop the wholesale adoption of Hegel’s framework at this point. Why?

178  James Garrison Before even thinking about proceeding, if there is merit in turning to Hegelian thought to help in understanding historical and recent events in China (certainly not a trifling “if”), it must be conceded that constitutive encounters with the “Other” have taken place on multiple, sometimes overlapping levels, all of which would confound any attempt to render a linear narrative. There seem to be at least two levels, and if there were further valences, that would only highlight the difficulty in anticipating that narrative’s future trajectory all the more. First, the foregoing exposition would seem to indicate that a series of conflicts in the Opium Wars made China see itself through the eyes of the “Other” in colonial masters, recover some dignity as the dependence of those old colonial masters on material goods became increasingly clear, and enter into to an uneasy, unhappy détente whereby the PRC now stakes its existence on certain principles, namely “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” as defined over and against a creeping bourgeois, global materialism growing from within. This seems to fit the Hegelian template for self-consciousness, broadly speaking. However, there is also the second dynamic where Hong Kong has increasingly come into its own and developed a sense of self through conflict with the PRC serving as the dominant “Other” which comes to depend on its inferior (here in terms of Hong Kong’s infrastructure for facilitating exchange of capital and goods in global markets for the PRC) and likewise enter into a fractious, unhappy state of affairs, where, as a matter of principle, the PRC simultaneously repudiates and depends upon what Hong Kong represents. Hong Kong’s way of being is thus cast as “Other,” monitored, and, when necessary, disciplined. This too seems to correspond to major features in Hegel’s account. Understanding this second dynamic of Hong Kong’s self-conscious identity emerging through conflict does not even begin to address the complexities of the situation though. The Hegelian approach developed here does not reckon with Japan’s historical role as a colonizing “Other” throughout the region, including Hong Kong, nor does it deal with the way in which Hong Kong’s quasi-democratic existence is interwoven into the PRC’s claim over Taiwan, nor is attention given to what are China’s own arguably neo-colonial ambitions in its periphery and in Africa. It is at this point that the analogy drawn between the situation in Hong Kong and Hegel’s dialectic is exposed as precisely that—an analogy and not an equation. But even granting that such breakdowns in correspondence inevitably arise with this type of analogical reasoning, there is still a major problem remaining. Even if Hegel could be used in any way to anticipate how events in the region might unfold on a conceptual level, the multiple and interwoven iterations of Hegelian dialectic at play here seem to preclude any attempt at prognostication. How so? Hegel’s own account would suggest that a mediator might intercede to counsel from outside and serve as an external moderator for the internal

Confucian Remonstrance  179 conflict between the two extreme poles of Stoicism and Skepticism.41 However, the parties that might counsel the PRC and Hong Kong—either the United States or global institutions led by the United States and its allies—cannot. This is because, in a cruel twist of historical irony, the socalled “Western powers” cannot act as even vaguely neutral mediators because they are too busy acting as the “Other” in what is here identified as a prior and primary conflict with the PRC in its ongoing work to define itself (with some right) over and against the patently unjust humiliation it suffered at the hands of those same powers in earlier conflicts with the “Other” in the Opium Wars. Hence, the resolution of the dilemma of Unhappy Consciousness through external mediation is one area where Hegel’s singular, linear dialectic breaks down in real-world application. Additionally, the clock ticking down to the end of the PRC’s commitments to retain Hong Kong’s Basic Law that comes in 2047 has no correspondent element whatsoever in Hegel’s rather theoretical account. This is another such area of breakdown. Therefore, Hegel can be of help primarily in giving vocabulary and concepts with which to begin to come to grips with the situation in Hong Kong, but going further and applying this for the purpose of forecasting future developments is problematic. So, can any practical lesson be drawn by mapping Hegel’s conceptual dynamic on to the events unfolding in and around Hong Kong? The historical and material factors are so great that it must be conceded that the foregoing analysis is in no way predictive of how things might unfold nor does it give any material tools for working through the issues at hand. Nonetheless, this decidedly conceptual (and not materially historical) analysis can yield commensurately conceptual insight and resources. So without commenting on real-world persons, economic data, military strengths, or any other material factors, what emerges from this analysis is a contest over Chinese identity as a concept, as a principle. Thus, examining these political issues through the vantage of philosophy has merit on yet another level, since China’s leading local philosophical tradition—Confucianism—provides the principles, the “Chinese characteristics” that, one way or another, are likely to be ­crucial points of contention. A proper analysis of Confucianism and Chinese identity in the context of events in Hong Kong would be a book-length project unto itself. However, it is possible in light of the foregoing analysis to set forth some initial directions for investigation, using Hegel’s thinking to hone the discussion. The idea here is that Confucianism, with its well-developed local tradition of insights into society and governance, can also extend the Hegelian account, which is overly burdened by Hegel’s dualistic commitment to parity and symmetry, by looking at political protest in terms of constitutive power disparities that unfold asymmetrically, particularly in terms of authoritative rulers/parents and remonstrative ministers/ children.

180  James Garrison This is not about an “Other” and its equally other “Other” fighting with equal strength to dominate the abstract center of capital-B Being. Rather this is about materially unequal parties—the PRC and Hong Kong— struggling to determine their continued existence on real-world terrain. And so, if the parts of Chinese identity that grow from the insights of Kong Zi [Confucius] are likely to be matters of contention, then the question becomes: How might such a struggle play out in Confucian terms while Hong Kong’s protest spirit undermines the principle of the PRC’s stable, integrated existence?

Political Unrest in Confucianism In my 2015 essay “Confucianism’s Role-Based Political Ethic: Free Speech, Remonstrative Speech, and Political Change in East Asia” I delineate major differences between respective protest cultures and the nature of political change in Euro-American and in East Asian contexts. On the one hand, there is what Michel Foucault identifies as a fundamentally Socratic approach of an individual combatively speaking truth to power (parhessia παρρησία) and engaging in martyrdom in defense of eternal truths to effect major, A->B political change.42 On the other hand, there is what Virginia Suddath points to as the restorative, gradual, A->A′, ritual-based approach of Confucianism and its promotion of criticism as remonstrance.43 Hong Kong, while greatly influenced by Western ideas of confrontational, pseudo-Socratic political engagement during its time as a British colony ending in 1997, should also be considered along Confucian lines, even if such sentiments are not readily apparent amid the very public forms of activism that have been capturing headlines in Hong Kong for years. Of course, it should be said that Hong Kong identity cannot be reduced down to Chinese identity as such. A main reason why this is so has to do with the sense of Hong Kong civic identity has developed through conflict with the “Other” over and against the ethno-national claim of Chinese identity advanced by the PRC. Nor can Chinese identity be reduced down to Confucianism, for China’s sense of self is not just a matter of this dominant philosophical local tradition, and the complexity of local traditions in China has developed more recently through conflict with the “Other” over and against a liberal, capitalist, Western-led global order. Nevertheless, the meaning of what it means to be Chinese is most certainly being contested right now between activists in Hong Kong and government officials in the PRC and, as such, the meaning of Confucianism’s moral and political insights are also in play. How so? With regard to the PRC, on the level of ideas what is most at stake in Hong Kong are notions of “Harmonious Society” (hexie shehui 和 谐社会) and “The Chinese Dream” (zhongguo meng 中国梦). Now, at first glance, these terms might seem to be not much more than generally

Confucian Remonstrance  181 optimistic political rhetorical turns. However, “Harmonious Society” and “Chinese Dream,” as applied to discussions within the context of Chinese culture, are in fact technical concepts and should be regarded as points of terminology. These phrases represent extended philosophies of governance advanced respectively by former CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao 胡锦涛 and the leader of the PRC-led pressure in Hong Kong since 2012, CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping 習近平. While, yes, these terms can be regarded as political slogans, as indeed, these somewhat vague phrases are prominent in public spaces in the PRC, they nonetheless also figure substantively into its policy and actions. And so, the notion of “Harmonious Society” is, given the earlier rejection of all things Confucian under Mao Zedong 毛澤東,44 rather bold in its adoption of Confucian language.45 This ultimately counts as something of an official endorsement of Confucianism’s promotion of social order occurring through a musically inspired ritual choreography that establishes stable patterns of superiority and deference in everyday interaction. Meanwhile, the more recent notion of “The Chinese Dream” advanced by General Secretary Xi is less forthrightly Confucian, though it is clearly positioned in official CPC party literature as extending the idea first advanced by his predecessor Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平 during the PRC’s “opening up and reform” in the 1980s of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,”46 which would fuse together presumably Confucian cultural resources with socialist views and aspirations for rising material affluence amid the PRC’s integration post-Mao into global trade and finance systems. These ideas of the “Harmonious Society” and “Chinese Dream” are very much at work in the rhetoric around events unfolding in Hong Kong.47 And it is in this regard that it makes sense to examine what has been happening in Hong Kong in light of Confucianism, which, in turn, can enable a deeper and more locally attuned appreciation of the Hegelian dynamics at play. So what is the Confucian notion of social harmony and how does it manifest in relations between Hong Kong and the PRC? The crucial concept is the so-called “Rectification of Names,” which Kong Zi is recorded as clearly setting out as the first task of governance and required above all else to keep social disorder at bay.48 In an earlier work of mine, “Confucianism’s Role-Based Political Ethic: Free Speech, Remonstrative Speech, and Political Change in East Asia,” I make an admittedly out-ofplace and anachronistic reference to more recent Irish poet W.B. Yeats in order to draw out key features of this classically Confucian idea, writing: Key here is the definitive statement on the rectification of names from the Analects – unless titles are fulfilled in action, unless ‘the ruler rules, and the ministers minister, fathers father, and sons act as sons’, the social structure is for naught… Though a bit incongruous and anachronistic, this recalls William Butler Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’:

182  James Garrison The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… Conversely, things hold together when reciprocal relationships obtain such that the falcon can hear the falconer, which is to say when rulers rule, fathers father, and so on.49 And so, Confucianism makes social harmony clearly dependent upon the fulfillment of socially named roles in practice. However, what is the nature of that harmony? Does harmony here mean a nullification of criticism? What exactly does it mean for a ruler to rule and for a minister to minister, since that would seem to be the exemplary political relationship that is relevant here? More to the point with regard to Hong Kong, how does Confucianism deal with heterodoxy, with political controversy, with protest?

Authoritarianism and Remonstrance in Confucianism Even though it is more than a bit reductive, it seems here useful to begin responding to these questions by juxtaposing two interrelated quotes from the Confucian canon, which each correspond to two possible poles within contemporary discourse. First, comes a famous and contentious quote from Confucianism’s main text, The Analects: The Governor of She in conversation with [Kong Zi] said, “In our village there is someone called ‘True Person.’ When his father took a sheep on the sly, he reported him to the authorities.” [Kong Zi] replied, “Those who are true in my village conduct themselves differently. A father covers for his son, and a son covers for his father. And being true lies in this.”50 When combined with the strong warning that “To become accomplished in some heterodox doctrine will bring nothing but harm,”51 a trend emerges in the Confucian texts that also manifests in China’s real-world history, which is characterized by authoritarianism, brooking no open dissent. Even leading voices like Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock, who are relatively sanguine about the prospects for Confucian culture to thrive amid and within modern liberal democracy, readily concede that the controversy over the value of Confucianism in the construction of a new China—does it serve as an authoritative or an authoritarian normative force?—still divides our best interpreters of Chinese culture in our own historical moment.52 And so, with Confucianism having become state orthodoxy for successive dynasties in China and with these dynasties having appealed to

Confucian Remonstrance  183 various sources within the Confucian canon to justify oppressive rule and more recent generations grappling with that cultural inheritance,53 it seems undeniable that there is at least a side of Confucianism that can be characterized as authoritarian. However, this is far from the whole of the story. Even on a textual level, and without getting into sociological or historical observation, Confucianism cannot simply be reduced down to authoritarianism; there is considerably more nuance in both the early classics and the subsequent tradition. It is necessary here to understand that, while Confucianism might not be keen on open dissent, other possibilities for voicing dissent might exist—namely, remonstrance [jian 諫]. To wit, The Analects records Kong Zi as saying “In serving your father and mother, remonstrate with them gently. On seeing that they do not heed your suggestions, remain respectful and do not act contrary. Although concerned, voice no resentment.”54 Extended to political rule, Kong Zi likewise demands, “Let there be no duplicity when taking a stand against [one’s lord],” where such remonstrance occurs “only once they have won the confidence of their lord… otherwise, their lord would think himself maligned.”55 This presents the spirit of remonstrance within Confucian political culture. Taking the clear template analogizing parent–child and ruler–minister relations that runs throughout Confucian texts and post-Confucian culture, it seems as though there might be space within the decidedly Confucian concept of “Harmonious Society” to articulate a more private type of political criticism (one which admittedly is quite different from the direct physical confrontations that have played out on the streets of Hong Kong). Nonetheless, within the principle held onto with almost Stoic-like tenacity by the PRC, remonstrance may stand as an antithesis that complicates the authoritarian picture and its promotion of social harmony for social harmony’s sake. Alongside the early remarks by Kong Zi decrying heterodox doctrine and the kind of social chaos that develops when names and language are not properly rectified and made good on in practice, there is also a clear preference for harmony as both stable and complex, which means not taking harmony to be reducible to uniformity. This is what is conveyed in the key statement from The Analects, wherein Kong Zi proclaims that “Exemplary persons seek harmony not sameness; petty persons, then, are the opposite.”56 This complex harmony uses that diversity of opinion to attain stability, and this ultimately happens through remonstrance—a mode of private, non-intrusive criticism that preserves social harmony while calling attention to deviation from roles. It is all about saving “face”—a notion with deep roots in Confucian culture.57 And so, extending and crucially modifying what may be called an authoritarian streak within Confucianism, comes a complementary spirit—a remonstrative spirit, which uses diversity of gently, discreetly voiced opinion to maintain social harmony.

184  James Garrison This side of Confucianism is well encapsulated by a second exemplary quote, this time from the similarly canonical entry The Classic of Family Reverence (Xiaojing 孝經). Here Kong Zi offers an account that is decidedly skeptical of simply doing what the father, and by extension the ruler, might command without in turn offering any protest whatsoever, remarking: Thus, if confronted by reprehensible behavior on his father’s part, a son has no choice but to remonstrate with his father, and if confronted by reprehensible behavior on his ruler’s part, a minister has no choice but to remonstrate with his ruler. Hence, remonstrance is the only response to immorality. How could simply obeying the commands of one’s father be deemed filial?58 And so, working with this understanding of criticism in the context of family loyalty and filial conduct, in an earlier article I thus sum up the complex picture that Confucianism presents when it comes to remonstrance and its significance for political culture in China moving forward, where I write: To weave a few disparate threads together, this means fulfilling the Confucian demand to rectify names in practice and pointing out when leaders are kept from leading, when advisors and experts are unable to give expert advice, and when “the centre cannot hold” in the Middle Kingdom, lest “things fall apart.”59 And so, to the extent that the meaning of social harmony is being contested in a Chinese context, Confucian vocabulary and concepts cannot help but be part of the discussion. Understanding the scene in Hong Kong in terms of Hegel’s dialectic helps at getting at what it means for the principle of “One Country, Two Systems” to play out in terms of the conceptual logic of recognition through the eyes of the “Other.” Further examining this dynamic in terms of Confucianism allows for a more locally attuned understanding of how rhetoric around social harmony might play out along the poles of authoritarianism and remonstration in Confucianism. There is reason to think that both strands of Confucianism might manifest as things develop. Drawing upon Confucian-rooted authoritarianism makes sense as a primary option for the PRC, very much in line with a general aim of preserving stability, but the situation in Hong Kong, with its many diverse factions, means there is the need to show the positive appeal of the PRC’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics” ahead of 2047. A simply authoritarian insistence on principle has its limits to the extent that quasi-Stoic principle is staked on social harmony, which is imperiled by authoritarianism. The logic of the situation may demand that the goal be harmony,

Confucian Remonstrance  185 not sameness. Authoritarianism’s peril to social harmony is spelled out where Confucius is recorded as drawing a distinction between authoritarian rule and a ritual-based approach more in line with Confucianism’s notion of spontaneous order coalescing around a stable North Star or Middle Kingdom, remarking: Lead the people with administrative injunctions (zheng 政) and keep them orderly with penal law (xing 刑), and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence (de 德) and keep them orderly through observing ritual propriety (li 禮) and they will develop a sense of shame, and moreover, will order themselves.60 This means that there ought to be conceptual room for something that complements, yet calls into question, an authoritarian principled insistence on social harmony for social harmony’s sake. The further implication here is that remonstration can do this and can do so in a way that can preserve harmony by taking place in private while still taking a stand where necessary to prevent a descent into social chaos. Such contemporary remonstration in Hong Kong might be akin to what nowadays is called a back-channel overture, in this case with characteristically Confucian emphasis on the need to fulfill roles in practice. However, what this specifically would look like is difficult to say, since the Confucian model of remonstration is in fact private and since, as will be shown by way of conclusion, the language of remonstrance may prove difficult to hear amid the cacophony of public events.

Conclusion: Authoritarianism and Remonstrance in Hong Kong With the PRC’s imposition of new authoritarian laws greatly limiting public dissent in Hong Kong in 2020, there is a great deal of fear as to how the latter’s robust protest culture will survive. This is not just due to COVID-19, as the PRC has sent clear signals that an authoritarian approach to dissent in Hong Kong is likely, including the appointment hard-liner Zheng Yanxiong 郑雁雄 to lead the new Hong Kong Committee for Safeguarding National Security in the aftermath of his famous crackdown on land disputes in Wukan.61 Indeed, the end of 2020 saw Hong Kong’s resistance movements suffering extensive losses as institutional groups like Demosisto were forced to wind down, as youth activists were charged and in some cases sentenced to multi-month prison terms, and as pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai 黎智英 was charged with foreign collusion.62 All of these high-profile occurrences have likely had a major effect on everyday people, with the broader activist-aligned “yellow” economy having well receded from public view,63 as strong government reprisal has become increasingly the norm.

186  James Garrison Additionally, the combination of the decision to bar opposition candidates from taking part in 2020’s Legislative Council elections and the decision by PRC-leaning Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor 林鄭月娥 to delay that election due to COVID-19 has created what pan-democratic lawmakers see as a constitutional crisis, which has heightened with moves made in early 2021 to overhaul elections and further entrench the domination of the process by PRC loyalists.64 This is all indeed cause for great concern, and no attempt is made within this essay to reckon with the gravity of that situation or with possibilities for future open conflict. However, the suggestion being made here for observers on all sides is that if such open conflict in Hong Kong can be avoided (a big “if”), one possible and plausible route might be to resituate conflict away from overt resistance in the streets by way of remonstrance. This is so because the precise meaning of any possible “Chinese Dream” of a “Harmonious Society” (with all of its Confucian inflections) is still up for grabs, and Hongkongers are uniquely poised to pose the remonstrative question of whether these are genuinely being enacted and if the actions of those in power do in fact live up to the best expression of the role of leader. How? Well, put simply, what happens in Hong Kong will one way or another decisively show what the Confucian rhetoric of harmony really means in contemporary geopolitical practice. The ability to heed remonstrative challenges to dominant opinion is, in the Confucian view, what creates genuine harmony over and above sameness. The PRC’s rhetoric of harmony will eventually be shown to serve one option over the other. If all parties truly seek genuine, pluralistic harmony, then remonstrance—by definition the mode of protest that seeks to preserve harmony amid disparate viewpoints and that works to enable superior and inferior parties to remain and thrive in their respective roles—must be kept as an option on the table. Otherwise, without something like remonstrance as the ground of the “Harmonious Society,” the options are either open resistance or sameness crushing that open resistance under the false guise of “harmony,” neither of which sounds like a particularly good “Chinese Dream.” However, with public conflict ratcheting up and dissenting voices being forcibly removed from the conversation, remonstrative appeals may become difficult, if not impossible. There is, of course, a certain sad irony as regards the prospects for remonstration today, as both Hong Kong and the PRC have come into their own until fairly recently through repudiating the imperial roots of Confucianism’s political culture. With the former there is a de-institutionalized “New Confucianism” that has often been at odds with and critical of the liberal, democratic rights-based conception of governance in Hong Kong.65 With the latter there was the ardent rejection during Mao’s time of what it deemed to be the Confucian tradition’s inherent backwards feudalism and parochialism.66 As a result, despite being a major bulwark of traditional culture and also despite providing what

Confucian Remonstrance  187 Tu Wei-Ming 杜維明 calls “an ethic for the man on the street” in Hong Kong,67 Confucianism has been—both there and in the PRC—displaced. And so to sum up, it seems that, after existential conflict leading to a sense of self that is defined by the “Other” and the resulting unhappiness of two sides contesting one identity, part of what is being contested is social harmony as a principle. Moreover, it appears on the basis of this argument that the effect could be to bring Confucian ideals like remonstrance back into political discourse more explicitly. However, it remains unclear whether Confucianism, having been repudiated and displaced within its own traditional home as political philosophy and relegated to cultural background, is still able to provide technical resources for centering debate and reconciling the two systems operating within the one Middle Kingdom. For the time being though, the Hegelian logic of the scene indicates that the PRC’s commitments to social harmony ought to allow at least a conceptual space for an alternative to potentially destabilizing authoritarian rhetoric, if it is taken as a base premise that civil war would spell the end of self-conscious identity defined around any principle of social harmony. The major point here is that, absent a decision by the PRC to quit dealing with Hong Kong as a political question and instead to resort to overwhelming force, the conceptual space afforded by remonstrance accordingly stands as an alternative and is worth exploring as a locally developed conceptual resource. This is not to deny that material concerns may well overwhelm the conceptual dynamics laid out in this piece. There is always the possibility of the wrong person with the wrong real-world biography being exposed, criticized, injured, or even killed, where any of these prospects would likely provoke the other side in question to answer with force. There is always the prospect of the wrong activist or the wrong police officer being photographed in just the “right” unflattering way, which would almost certainly lead inevitable consequences playing out on the world stage. There is always the possibility of a particular call to arms on social media trending and creating widespread street action, which tends to lead the powers that be to crack down. And all of these possibilities can very easily lead to the kind of overwhelming public chaos that may make it impossible to hear the subtle language of private remonstrance. Additionally, whether or not impending waves of migration out of Hong Kong occur with an explicit basis in the Confucian insistence that one should “not enter a state in crisis… [or] tarry in one that is in revolt”68 where the Way [dao 道] does not prevail, this mass migration will likely reduce the number of people who might, even just on the level of implicit cultural background, be inclined to think and act along the lines suggested by this account of remonstrance. Put simply, for both the PRC and parties in Hong Kong, the material logic of proportional response might very easily endanger the conceptual possibility presented by the necessary

188  James Garrison limits of authoritarian Confucian appeals here—i.e., the possibility of remonstrance. Remonstrance and Confucian political culture more generally are, with China’s increasing economic, strategic, and cultural influence around the world, potentially poised to become more prominent in geopolitical discourse. In his article in this volume, Henning Hahn writes: Perhaps we must look out for non-Western sources such as Zhao Tingyang’s (2009) reactualization of the Confucian idea of “all under heaven” (tian xia). In it, he outlines the narrative of a global order in which not only persons or nations, but the world as a whole obtains political agency. In any case, a first step towards global political reconciliation would be to include marginalized voices, inside and outside liberal societies.69 It remains to be seen whether or not any kind Confucian-influenced model for governing “all under heaven” with the tradition’s goal of rich, pluralistic harmony that would reconcile critical voices through ritualand role-based remonstrance can succeed on the world stage. However, the rise of the PRC is almost certain to bring Chinese, and indeed longstanding Confucian norms, to greater prominence in global politics. These developments should be understood, appreciated, and critically analyzed within the context established by Confucian thinkers and by East Asian cultures more generally (and then, where warranted, subsequently joining other voices in mutually reciprocating, non-“Othering” discussion—what Franz Martin Wimmer calls “polylog”).70 As regards the main inquiry here though, the question regarding the effectiveness of remonstrative appeals more locally in contemporary Hong Kong still remains. And so, the call here is for all sides, despite the material force of events and the “logic” of proportional (or often disproportional) response, to preserve remonstrance as conceptual resource in the political culture of the region. Confucianism and Chinese history each show in varying ways the dangers of roles breaking down and what happens when remonstrance in response to such social instability then goes unheeded. Moving from social harmony to anti-social chaos should be worrisome to all parties to the extent that an overt military response from the PRC would most probably leave Hong Kong in ruins—certainly a loss for Hong Kong, but also likely a bitter, pyrrhic non-victory for the PRC. And so, absent a clearly preferable alternative path out of the dilemmas posed by the situation in Hong Kong, there is merit in renewing and applying conceptual resources like Confucian remonstrance. It certainly does not present a comprehensive solution, but the Confucian approach to remonstrance can perhaps help Hong Kong to move beyond the vicissitudes of a local version of Unhappy Consciousness someday and in making it possible to find and hold the center in the Middle Kingdom.

Confucian Remonstrance  189

Notes 1 Cf. Tom Rockmore, “Hegel and Chinese Marxism,” Asian Studies 7, no. 1 (2019): 55–73; John Fitzgerald, “China and the Quest for Dignity,” The National Interest, no. 55 (1999): p. 57. 2 Cf. Zhuang Guotu, “Tea, Silver, Opium and War: From Commercial Expansion to Military Invasion,” Itinerario, 17, no 2 (1993): 10–36. 3 Carl A. Trocki, Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade, 1750–1950 (London: Routledge, 1999), 163; Hunt Janin, The India-China Opium Trade in the Nineteenth Century (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1999), 34. 4 Weimin Zhong, “The Roles of Tea and Opium in Early Economic Globalization: A Perspective on China’s Crisis in the 19th Century,” Frontiers of History in China 5, no. 1 (2010): 87–96. 5 Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 47–49. 6 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation, 60–61; Chiang Kai-shek, China’s Destiny and Chinese Economic Theory (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 44–75. 7 Stephen Seawright, “Hard-fought Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong revealed in declassified files,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), August 18, 2013. 8 Harminder Singh. “Everything you need to know about Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), July 1, 2016. 9 Cf. 邓小平 [Deng Xiaoping]. “高举毛泽东思想旗帜，坚持实事求是的原则 [Hold High the Banner of Mao Zedong Thought, Uphold the Principle of Seeking Truth from Fact],” in 邓小平文选, 1975–1982: 第一卷 [Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 1975–1982: First Volume] (Beijing: Renmin University of China Press, 1993), 126. 10 Leo F. Goodstadt, Uneasy Partners: The Conflict Between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), 1–18. 11 Antony Dapiran, “The Anxious 1980s and Remembering Tiananmen,” City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong (New York: Penguin Books), 2017. 12 “Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announces formal withdrawal of the extradition bill and sets up a platform to look into key causes of protest crisis,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), September 4, 2019. 13 Hannah Beech, “Hong Kong Businesses Taking Stands on Either Side of the Beijing Rift,” The New York Times, January 20, 2020. 14 Chris Lau, “Boy, 16, is first to be convicted of possessing laser pointer at Hong Kong protests,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), November 7, 2019; Chris Lau, Jasmine Siu and Alvin Lum. “Hong Kong mask ban legal when aimed at unauthorised protests, Court of Appeal rules in partially overturning lower court verdict,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), April 7, 2020. 15 Tony Cheung. “Beijing expands proposed national security law for Hong Kong to prohibit ‘activities’ that would ‘seriously endanger national security,’” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), May 26, 2020; Cissy Zhou. “Hong Kong security law: any US attempt to destroy city’s financial hub status would be a challenge, analysts say,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), June 5, 2020. 16 Edward, Wong, “U.S. Is Preparing To Punish China Over Hong Kong,” The New York Times, May 28, 2020.

190  James Garrison 17 Boris Johnson, “For Hongkongers fearing for their way of life, Britain will provide an alternative,” The South China Morning Post, June 3, 2020. 18 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V.N. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), §178; cf. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, in Vol. 3 of Werke, eds. Eva Moldenhauer & Karl Markus Michel. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970). 19 Ibid., §184. 20 Ibid., §179–181. 21 Ibid., §186–188. 22 Ibid., §185. 23 Ibid., §189. 24 Ibid., §192. 25 Ibid., §191. 26 Ibid., §195. 27 Ibid., §194–197. 28 Ibid., §193. 29 Ibid., §113. 30 Ibid., §199. 31 Ibid., §201. 32 Ibid., §198. 33 Ibid., §752. 34 Ibid., §200. 35 Ibid., §202. 36 Ibid., §202. 37 Ibid., §206. 38 Ibid., §205, §207–208. 39 Ibid., §205. 40 Ibid., §207. 41 Ibid., §226–230. 42 Cf. Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech, ed. Joseph Pearson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2001). 43 Virginia Suddath, “Ought We Throw the Confucian Baby Out with the Authoritarian Bathwater? A Critical Inquiry into Lu Xun’s Anti-Confucian Identity,” Confucian Cultures of Authority, eds. Peter D. Hershock and Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 221–222. 44 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], “‘批林批孔’运动 [‘Criticize Lin, Criticize Kong’ Movement],” 中国共产党新闻 [Communist Party of China News] (Beijing), July 4, 1973; “Carry the Struggle to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius Through to the End,” Peking Review 17, no. 8. (1974), 5–6. 45 Daniel A. Bell, “China’s leaders rediscover Confucianism,” International Herald Tribune (New York), September 14, 2006. 46 “中国梦为中国特色社会主义注入新能量 [The Chinese Dream Infuses Socialism with Chinese Characteristics with New Energy],” 求是 [Seeking Truth], May 1, 2013; cf. 邓小平 [Deng Xiaoping], “高举毛泽东思想旗帜，坚 持实事求是的原则 [Hold High the Banner of Mao Zedong Thought, Uphold the Principle of Seeking Truth from Fact].” 47 Bernard E.S. Lee, “We need to share our economy's success for a harmonious society,” Letter to the Editor, The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), December 22, 2013; Christine Loh, “Hong Kong has a role to play in creating the ‘Chinese dream’—if it can tread the middle ground,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), April 8, 2018.

Confucian Remonstrance  191 48 The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, trans. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), §13.3. 49 James Garrison, “Confucianism’s Role-Based Political Ethic: Free Speech, Remonstrative Speech, and Political Change in East Asia,” in NonWestern Encounters with Democratization: Imagining Democracy after the Arab Spring, eds. Christopher K. Lamont, Jan van der Harst, and Frank Gaenssmantel (Surrey, UK: Ashgate 2015), pp. 34; Analects, §12.11; cf. William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming,” in The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats. Vol. 1: The Poems. 2nd ed., ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York: Scribner, 1997), 189. 50 Analects, §13.18. 51 Ibid., §2.16. 52 Peter D. Hershock and Roger T. Ames, Confucian Cultures of Authority (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), xv. 53 Cf. Tan Sor-hoon. “Democracy in Confucianism.” Philosophy Compass 7, no. 5 (2012), 293–294; cf. Tan Sor-hoon. “Authoritative Master Kong (Confucius) in An Authoritarian Age,” Dao 9, no. 2 (2010), 137–149. 54 Analects. §4.18. 55 Ibid., §14.22; §19.10. 56 Ibid., §13.23. 57 Cf. Wenshan Jia, “The Wei (Positioning)–Ming (Naming)–Lianmian (Face)–Guanxi (Relationship)–Renqing (Humanized Feelings) Complex in Contemporary Chinese Culture,” Confucian Cultures of Authority, eds. Peter D. Hershock and Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 49–64. 58 “The Classic of Family Reverence (Xiaojing).” The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence: A Philosophical Translation, ed. and trans. by Henry Rosemont, Jr, and Roger T. Ames (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), §15. 59 Garrison, “Confucianism’s Role-Based Political Ethic,” 45; cf. Analects, §12.11; Yeats, “The Second Coming,” 189. 60 Analects, §2.3. 61 Tony Cheung, “National security law: Beijing appoints tough-talking party official Zheng Yanxiong to lead powerful new agency in Hong Kong,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), July 3, 2020. 62 Tony Cheung, “Hong Kong opposition trio Joshua Wong, Ivan Lam, and Agnes Chow face jail after pleading guilty to charges over police headquarters siege,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), November 23, 2020; Clifford Lo and Jeffie Lam, “National security law: Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai charged with foreign collusion,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), December 11, 2020. 63 Cannix Yau and Denise Tsang, “‘Yellow economic circle’ takes a hit as protest-friendly shops in Hong Kong back off amid uncertainty over national security law,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), June 30, 2020. 64 Phila Siu and Christy Leung, “Hong Kong leader delays legislative elections, asks Beijing to resolve legal questions, citing coronavirus pandemic dangers,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), July 31, 2020; Jeffie Lam and Lilian Cheng. “How Beijing is now taking the lead in overhaul of Hong Kong’s election systems,” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), March 5, 2021. 65 Tu Wei-Ming, “Hong Kong, Singapore, and Overseas Chinese Communities,” in Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons, ed. Tu Wei-Ming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 259–261; cf. Ambrose

192  James Garrison King, “The Transformation of Confucianism in the Post-Confucian Era: The Emergence of Rationalistic Traditionalism in Hong Kong,” Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons, ed. Tu Wei-Ming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1996). 66 Cf. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], “‘批林批孔’运动 [‘Criticize Lin, Criticize Kong’ Movement];” “Carry the Struggle to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius Through to the End.” 67 Tu Wei-Ming, Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity, 261. 68 Analects, §8.13; cf. Analects, §15.7; §18.4. 69 Henning Hahn, “Political Reconciliation in Liberal States,” in Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective: Power Relations in a Global World, ed. Edited by James Garrison, Bianca Boteva-Richter and Sarhan Dhouib (New York: Routledge, 2021), 234; cf. Zhao Yingtang, “A Political World Philosophy in terms of All-under-heaven (Tian-xia),” Diogenes 221 (2009), 5–18. 70 Cf. Franz Martin Wimmer, “Thesen, Bedingungen und Aufgaben interkulturell orientierter Philosophie,” polylog 1 (1998); Franz Martin Wimmer, Interkulturelle Philosophie: Eine Einführung (Vienna: WUV, 2004).

Bibliography The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. Translated by Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998. Beech, Hannah. “Hong Kong Businesses Taking Stands on Either Side of the Beijing Rift.” The New York Times, January 20, 2020. Bell, Daniel A. “China’s leaders rediscover Confucianism.” International Herald Tribune (New York). September 14, 2006. Carry the Struggle to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius Through to the End. Peking Review 17, no. 6 (1974) 5–6. Cheung, Tony. “Beijing expands proposed national security law for Hong Kong to prohibit ‘activities’ that would ‘seriously endanger national security.’” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), May 26, 2020a. Cheung, Tony. “Hong Kong opposition trio Joshua Wong, Ivan Lam, and Agnes Chow face jail after pleading guilty to charges over police headquarters siege.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Nov. 23, 2020b. Cheung, Tony. “National security law: Beijing appoints tough-talking party official Zheng Yanxiong to lead powerful new agency in Hong Kong.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), July 3, 2020c. Chiang, Kai-shek. China’s Destiny and Chinese Economic Theory. Leiden: Brill, 2012. The Classic of Family Reverence (Xiaojing). The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence: A Philosophical Translation. Edited and translated by Henry Rosemont, Jr, and Roger T. Ames, 105–118. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. Dapiran, Antony. “The Anxious 1980s and Remembering Tiananmen.” City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong. New York: Penguin Books, 2017. 邓小平 [Deng Xiaoping]. “高举毛泽东思想旗帜，坚持实事求是的原则.” [Hold High the Banner of Mao Zedong Thought, Uphold the Principle of Seeking

Confucian Remonstrance  193 Truth from Fact]. In 邓小平文选, 1975–1982: 第一卷 [Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 1975–1982: First Volume]. Beijing: Renmin University of China Press, 1993. Fitzgerald, John. “China and the Quest for Dignity.” The National Interest, no. 55 (1999): 47–59. Foucault, Michel. Fearless Speech. Ed. Joseph Pearson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2001. Garrison, James. “Confucianism’s Role-Based Political Ethic: Free Speech, Remonstrative Speech, and Political Change in East Asia.” In Non-Western Encounters with Democratization: Imagining Democracy after the Arab Spring. Edited by Christopher K. Lamont, Jan van der Harst, and Frank Gaenssmantel, 31–47. Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2015. Goodstadt, Leo F. Uneasy Partners: The Conflict Between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005. Hahn, Henning. “Political Reconciliation in Liberal States.” In Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective: Power Relations in a Global World. Edited by James Garrison, Bianca Boteva-Richter and Sarhan Dhouib. New York: Routledge, 2021. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phänomenologie des Geistes. In Werke, Vol. 3. edited by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V.N. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Hershock, Peter D. and Roger T. Ames. Confucian Cultures of Authority. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announces formal withdrawal of the extradition bill and sets up a platform to look into key causes of protest crisis. The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), September 4, 2019. Janin, Hunt. The India–China Opium Trade in the Nineteenth Century. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1999. Jia, Wenshan. “The Wei (Positioning)-Ming (Naming)-Lianmian (Face)-Guanxi (Relationship)-Renqing (Humanized Feelings) Complex in Contemporary Chinese Culture.” Confucian Cultures of Authority. Edited by Peter D. Hershock and Roger T. Ames, 49–64. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Johnson, Boris. “For Hongkongers fearing for their way of life, Britain will provide an alternative.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), June 3, 2020. King, Ambrose. “The Transformation of Confucianism in the Post-Confucian Era: The Emergence of Rationalistic Traditionalism in Hong Kong.” In Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons. Edited by Tu Wei-Ming, 265–276. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Lam, Jeffie and Lilian Cheng. “How Beijing is now taking the lead in overhaul of Hong Kong’s election systems.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), March 5, 2021. Lau, Chris. “Boy, 16, is first to be convicted of possessing laser pointer at Hong Kong protests.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), November 7, 2019.

194  James Garrison Lau, Chris, Jasmine Siu and Alvin Lum. “Hong Kong mask ban legal when aimed at unauthorised protests, Court of Appeal rules in partially overturning lower court verdict.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), April 7, 2020. Lee, Bernard E.S. “We need to share our economy’s success for a harmonious society”. Letter to the Editor. The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), December 22, 2013 Lo, Clifford and Jeffie Lam. “National security law: Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai charged with foreign collusion.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), December 11, 2020. Loh, Christine. “Hong Kong has a role to play in creating the ‘Chinese dream’ – if it can tread the middle ground.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), April 8, 2018. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong]. “‘批林批孔’ 运动 [‘Criticize Lin, Criticize Kong’ Movement].” 中国共产党新闻 [Communist Party of China News] (Beijing), July 4, 1973. Rockmore, Tom. “Hegel and Chinese Marxism.” Asian Studies 7, no. 1 (2019): 55–73. Seawright, Stephen. “Hard-fought Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong revealed in declassified files.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), August 18, 2013. Singh, Harminder. “Everything you need to know about Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), July 1, 2016. Siu, Phila and Christy Leung. “Hong Kong leader delays legislative elections, asks Beijing to resolve legal questions, citing coronavirus pandemic dangers.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), July 31, 2020. Suddath, Virginia. “Ought We Throw the Confucian Baby Out with the Authoritarian Bathwater? A Critical Inquiry into Lu Xun’s Anti-Confucian Identity.” In Confucian Cultures of Authority, edited by Peter D. Hershock and Roger T. Ames, 215–245. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Tan, Sor-hoon. “Democracy in Confucianism.” Philosophy Compass 7, no. 5 (2012): 293–303. Tan, Sor-hoon. “Authoritative Master Kong (Confucius) in An Authoritarian Age.” Dao 9, no. 2 (2010): 137–149. Trocki, Carl A. Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade, 1750–1950. London: Routledge, 1999. Tu, Wei-Ming. “Hong Kong, Singapore, and Overseas Chinese Communities.” In Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons. Edited by Tu WeiMing, 259–262. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Wang, Zheng. Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Wimmer, Franz Martin. “Thesen, Bedingungen und Aufgaben interkulturell orientierter Philosophie.” polylog 1. (1998): 5–12. Wimmer, Franz Martin: Interkulturelle Philosophie: Eine Einführung. Vienna: WUV, 2004. Wong, Edward. “U.S. Is Preparing To Punish China Over Hong Kong”. The New York Times, May 28, 2020.

Confucian Remonstrance  195 Yau, Cannix and Denise Tsang. “‘Yellow economic circle’ takes a hit as protestfriendly shops in Hong Kong back off amid uncertainty over national security law.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), June 30, 2020. Yeats, William Butler. “The Second Coming.” The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats. Vol.1: The Poems. 2nd ed. Edited by Richard J. Finneran, p. 187. New York: Scribner, 1997. Zhao, Yingtang. “A Political World Philosophy in terms of All-under-heaven (Tian-xia).” Diogenes 221 (2009): 5–18. Zhong, Weimin. “The Roles of Tea and Opium in Early Economic Globalization: A Perspective on China’s Crisis in the 19th Century.” Frontiers of History in China 5, no. 1 (2010): 87–96. 中国梦为中国特色社会主义注入新能量 [The Chinese Dream Infuses Socialism with Chinese Characteristics with New Energy]. 求是 [Seeking Truth]. May 1, 2013. Zhou, Cissy. “Hong Kong security law: any US attempt to destroy city’s financial hub status would be a challenge, analysts say.” The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), June 5, 2020. Zhuang, Guotu. “Tea, Silver, Opium and War: From Commercial Expansion to Military Invasion.” Itinerario 17, no. 2 (1993): 10–36.

10 Politics and Reconciliation The Issue of Comfort Women in the Dynamics of Political Reconciliation between Japan and South Korea Naoko Kumagai 10.1 Introduction The issue of reconciliation became a distinctive agenda item in international politics after World War II when the feeling of need to punish the vanquished countries gave way to an emphasis on ways of living together among former adversaries and on restoring damaged relationships between them, even though post-World War II reconciliation still embraced notions of territorial resettlements and state reparations. Such interstate reconciliation was mostly the result of cost–benefit calculations amid the geopolitical background of the Cold War. At the same time, however, reconciliation on an individual basis has slowly become a growing topic in postwar international politics. Veterans and noncombatants, dissatisfied with interstate peace treaties, have demanded apologies and individual compensation. The trend has intensified since the end of the Cold War with the universalization of human rights norms and growing activism. With the growing voices of postwar individual compensation, the meaning of reconciliation has come to assume more individual-based precepts. It has come to take on a more ethical meaning with a heavier weight being placed on the elements of apologies, remorse, forgiveness, and confidence-building than on cost–benefit calculation and coexistence. Accordingly, emotional factors, such as despair, dignity, pride, humiliation, shame, and healing, have become involved in the reconciliation process. Thus, reconciliation is no longer as simple as the traditional measures of state reparation and territorial compensation. Reconciliation in postwar individual compensation issues also posed legal questions to governments, since most issues involving postwar individual compensation had already been settled by intergovernmental agreements under the cause of diplomatic protection. This is the question of how to respect and reflect the voices of the victims while maintaining the stability of law required to achieve reconciliation on individual basis.

Politics and Reconciliation  197 Efforts at postwar individual compensation as regards the issue of comfort women faced a significant challenge due to the survivors’ adamant demand for legal responsibility which the Japanese government could not accept. Comfort women were young women from many parts of Asia who were taken to Japanese military compounds and, in many cases, forced to provide sexual services to officers and soldiers in the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II. Though Japan has been able to undertake measures aiming at the political settlement of moral atonement with the Philippines and the Netherlands, South Korea has been adamant about legal responsibility. This chapter explores Japan’s reconciliation efforts with South Korea to examine the complexity and dynamism of reconciliation in postwar individual compensation issues. Even in comparison with other similarly polemical cases, such as issues of individual compensation for Taiwanese and Korean soldiers who fought for Japan, the issue of comfort women demonstrates a higher level of tension and complexity in reconciliation efforts, and thus remains unresolved.1 The issue of comfort women involves the diversity of actors involved, various emotions related to nationalism, the novel nature of the problem of sexual violence against women on the battlefield, retroactive morality, and subsequent progress of legal codes. The analysis relies on the concept of political reconciliation, as suggested by Andrew Schaap,2 to highlight dynamic interactions among relevant actors in the reconciliation process with incommensurability and uncertainty. Schaap explores Hannah Arendt’s idea of worldly ethics and her view of politics as open-ended interactions toward commonality3 in examining political reconciliation, while taking into consideration Carl Schmidt’s notion of politics as the friend–enemy relation of interminable conflict among actors with senses of fear and enmity.4 Dynamics of political reconciliation are not only competitive and antagonistic but also communicative, serving as a public space of dialogue. Schaap refers to Arendt’s idea that politics is an arena in which people form intersubjective reality through their discourse and actions being heard and seen, albeit with frustration and uncertainty.5 Schaap sees political reconciliation as an incessant and continual discourse toward the possibility for commonality, but also as conditioned by an “awareness of its own impossibility.”6 Political reconciliation does not expect natural harmony.

10.2 Political Reconciliation Political reconciliation involves diverse actors and their mutual influences at every stage, thus making it neither progressive nor regressive automatically. Contemporary interdisciplinary conflict resolution studies, with numerous cases of conflicts involving non-state actors, accordingly capture diverse steps of reconciliation, addressing the perpetrator’s acknowledgment of

198  Naoko Kumagai the facts of perpetration and acceptance of responsibility, as well as the victim’s forgiveness of apologies for offensive deeds and cooperation in reconciliation policies (compensation, memorials, etc.).7 Politics, whether conflictual or cooperative, unfolds with the dynamism of self-identities of the actors involved. Tetsurō Watusji’s explanation of human existence will help to clarify the complex dynamics of identity formation in political reconciliation as regards postwar individual compensation. According to Watsuji, a human being exists in a space in which one connects with others through diverse acts.8 These acts involve the dual character of individuals as both social and historical beings who never exist as purely atomic entities. Historically, an individual’s past and their memories affect their consciousness, thus establishing their active selves. Moreover, individuals are affected by the social environment that constitutes an interconnected network of influences between people and the environment. Actions then constitute a dialectic process with others through language and consciousness under certain tempo-spatial circumstances.9 In this process, individuals emancipate their viewpoints, undergo dynamic self-formation, and form an intersubjective understanding and new mutual perceptions with new identities.10 Throughout the dialectical process, individuals transcend the limit of their private being and become a public being.11 In the issue of postwar individual compensation, complex dialectical interactions take place. At base, this occurs between the perpetrator side and the victim side. Furthermore, internal dynamics also exist within each side involving diverse actors, such as victims (or perpetrators), their families, supporter groups, and their governments. Dialectical integration, once achieved between the victim and perpetrator sides, means the creation of a new acceptable reality,12 which would transcend the identities of both perpetrator and victim. Political reconciliation as regards the issue of individual compensation sits on a spectrum between pragmatism and genuine morality. States’ pragmatic interest calculations based on Max Weber’s notion of the “ethic of responsibility,”13 with the duty of self-preservation for the population in question,14 are influenced by diverse voices of individuals and groups. Political reconciliation reaching genuine remorse and forgiveness, with the perpetrator’s full acknowledgement of guilt without any excuse and the victim’s forgiveness, is surely ideal. The perpetrator side would neither hold victims in contempt nor make a hypocritical or insincere apology for the sake of evading responsibility. The victim side would go beyond grudges and have no desire for revenge15 or to abuse its moral superiority, turning it into power over the perpetrator.16 Still, the dialectic process is not necessarily smooth. In the process of acknowledgement of facts causing offense, diverse tensions unfold. Some resistant members in the community remain private, and thus the dialectical process among the community members does not completely form a new community identity. Some individuals on the perpetrator

Politics and Reconciliation  199 side might minimize the facts of their perpetration or offer one or more of the following excuses: it was not their original plan; it was due to a misunderstanding; there was no other option; it was for self-defense. Hardline conservatives in Japan are reluctant to be remorseful about Pearl Harbor, since it was, for them, a matter of Japan’s self-defense under the allied embargo. The moral excuse of patriarchal pride often supports deniers in the argument that contemporary ethical standards should not be used to judge past actions, with licensed prostitution being the excuse for the engagement of comfort women in Japan. Behind this revisionism lies a sense of ontological insecurity in that the meaning of one’s existence as set in his/her relation to the surrounding is threatened.17 An actor experiencing ontological insecurity senses that the external world does not approve the actor’s narrative about the self, and thus the actor suffers from humiliation and great loss in the sense of psychological integrity. The actor comes to treat its identity as an end in itself, assuming an uncompromising narrative and sticking to its “realities” without adjusting itself to the external world. There is no space for self-emancipation. Norihiro Katō, a Japanese literature critic, analyzes the recurring revisionist remarks in Japan as a phenomenon of resistance in which those revisionists cannot accept the prevailing narrative in the world regarding Japan’s culpability and loss in the Asia-Pacific War.18 Ambiguity in the victim–offender dichotomy also causes controversy in the acknowledgement of the facts of offense. Japan’s strong sense of victimhood due to massive aerial bombings and atomic bombs obscures Japan’s offenses in China and its attack on Pearl Harbor. Notions of collective guilt and the generational idea of responsibility are often ambiguous and complex, thus distracting from political reconciliation. Collective guilt, when attributed to national character, can be reduced to personal irresponsibility19 or to stereotyping moral degradation of a group,20 though people on the perpetrator side are politically guilty as a collective.21 Though younger generations of the perpetrator side are free from guilt, they are responsible for the acknowledgement of the past and for not making the same mistakes in the future due to the fact that they are members of the political entity that committed the historical wrongdoing.22 However, younger generations often confuse guilt and responsibility. Ambiguous acknowledgement of guilt and responsibility leads to reluctance in apologies and thus to a vicious spiral of mutual suspicion between the perpetrator and the victim. Japan’s official apologies were often followed by controversial revisionist remarks by nationalistic hardliners,23 which deepened international society’s doubts about Japan’s sincerity. Furthermore, forgiveness is not so easy for the victims. Naturally victims, out of moral outrage, desire to accuse the perpetrators. It is not only indignation in that the victim protests against the violation of the value by

200  Naoko Kumagai the perpetration, but also resentment in that the victim defiantly reaffirms his/her rank and value that have been degraded by the perpetration.24 Revisionist remarks by the perpetrator side make forgiveness even more difficult. Though Crocker interprets reconciliation as “democratic reciprocity,” a process of deliberation with respect for the autonomy of each individual concerning the past perpetration and the future relationship,25 it can happen that the victim side neglects the aspect of “democratic reciprocity,” by exaggerating the facts of the sufferings and even abusing the moral high ground,26 thus transforming retribution into vengeance, which is without constraint and is outside of any institutional context.27 Excessive victimhood appears among dogmatized activists supporting victims and members of the younger generation, full of a sense of justice while devoid of actual experiences of suffering. Schaap suggests a political function of forgiveness to facilitate dialogue. Schaap argues that dialogue often starts from the victim side, when the victim side, particularly the victim’s family, seeks truth to make sense of the meaning of what happened to their loved ones.28 The initiative from the victim side is an attempt to restore the victim’s dignity by remembering the victim in the context of society.29 At this point, as a new view of the transgressor, forgiveness can come first before apologies, transcending a resentful view.30 It is an “offer of trust in advance,”31 though it never means any obligation of the victim side to forgive or any right of the perpetrator side to seek forgiveness.32 Forgiveness does not condition the overcoming of resentment. A voluntary offer of forgiveness creates room for a common sharing of facts and for dialogue regarding truth. Tendering forgiveness motivates the perpetrator, finding emotional connection with the victim and thus reducing the caution of the victim, to confess the truth and to bear political responsibility, as demonstrated by the example of South Africa.33 Forgiving does not mean forgetting past wrongdoing. The victims’ position of social inferiority as a result of harm inflicted on them34 does not last eternally. Forgiving is “anamnesis,” as a step toward common memory, rather than “amnesia.”35 In reality, it is unrealistic to wait for total clarification of facts about who did what to whom and where36 before the beginning of forgiveness. Schaap argues that a common understanding of and broad agreement on the significance of past wrongs is adequate for the beginning of reconciliation.37 Schaap sees that, through the process of dialogue once opened, facts can be jointly interpreted in the context of contemporary society, instead of being memorized as objective facts. “Knowing forgetting” takes place in this process.38 Forgiveness provides a possibility of interaction without the past constantly weighing in.39 This way we avoid the risk of making the past determine the possibilities of the present. This also avoids the humiliation of the perpetrator by the victim. The so-called “worldly

Politics and Reconciliation  201 ethics” tells us that we have to live together on Earth. Therefore, forgiving serves us by allowing us to create our life in common through assessing the past in its meaning in the present world and through settling the meaning of past wrongs.40 The initiative to forgive can avoid the risk of total nonacceptance of responsibility that comes from the perpetrator side’s satisfaction at the confession of guilt. As Schaap explains, Arendt points out the danger of a sense of vicarious guilt backed by cynicism, thus leading to a cheap sentimentality and solidarity only with self-satisfaction.41 The initiative can also help avoid excessive scrutiny of the apology. Skepticism about the sincerity of the confession of guilt leads to the scrutiny of apologies as public professions of guilt, leading in turn to questions of whether the apology is just “self-enactment,” just a matter of gesture. The focus shifts to the expression of sincere remorse from discussion of the meaning of the significance of past events.42 Such distraction hampers the reconciliation process. Political leadership matters for the maintenance and navigation of political dialogue, particularly when political dialogue suffers from radical and objectionable stances from certain participants exhibiting ontological insecurity and cynicism. Political leadership can guide people in self-reflection, navigate discourses, and affect people’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to each other,43 thus preventing the reconciliation process from straying away from the sense of reciprocity between the actors.44 This process includes relieving the fear of the victims concerning oblivion and unrestored dignity as well as the fear on the perpetrator side of eternal stigmatization. Dialogue would help both sides acquire new identities and coexist in a new reality. Political leadership could also avoid the trap of symbolism. Though symbols work to commemorate and to evoke narratives about the past to make sense of the present, to validate past trauma, and to heal deep psychological wounds,45 once symbols are idolized, they deprive people of self-reflection and lead to dogmatization,46 which may lead to radicalized victimhood. Thus, all in all, political leadership functions to avoid an exchange of unilateral claims devoid of dialectical process with one’s emancipation of identity and to maintain political prudence for a constructive common vision.47 Dialogue as political reconciliation provides a realistic process of reconciliation in which relevant actors objectify themselves, establishing and renewing their mutual perceptions through affecting processes of the acknowledgement of perpetration, forgiveness, and memories. The following sections introduce the issue of comfort women and examine the case of South Korea to see how dialectical processes in political reconciliation have worked.

202  Naoko Kumagai

10.3 The Beginning of the Issue of Comfort Women The issue of comfort women gained international attention after the first confession by a former Korean comfort woman, Kim Hak-sun, in August 1991. Though magazine articles and former soldiers’ memoirs published in the 1970s and 1980s48 indicated the existence of comfort women during wartime, at the time they did not stir controversy either in Japanese or Korean society. It was only with the rise of democratization in South Korea in the late 1980s and human rights awareness after the end of the Cold War that the issue was recognized as a social concern. When the issue emerged, the Japanese government conducted two investigations and issued the Kōno Statement in 1993, which admitted the Japanese wartime authority’s involvement in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and expressed sincere apologies and remorse to the former comfort women.49 The Japanese government then established the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF) with moral atonement as the project’s aim. The Japanese government, claiming that the 1965 bilateral agreement on the settlement of claims with South Korea had already resolved the issue, denied any state compensation. The atonement project included atonement money that had been privately raised, medical/welfare financial support, and a letter of apology from the Japanese Prime Minister. The project was conducted in South Korea, Taiwan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Indonesia, though with some difference in the project content.50 However, the dilemma of legal and political settlement appeared and the AWF became the main point of debate. While many survivors sought state compensation and legal settlement, some accepted moral atonement from the AWF and others did not. Most survivors in Taiwan, the Netherlands, and the Philippines accepted the AWF, while not many South Korean survivors did so.51 The following section will discuss the dialectical process of political reconciliation between Japan and South Korea. The discussion includes examination of the internal dialectical processes in these two countries, through considering the formation of each country’s self-identity as regards this issue.

10.4 South Korea In Japan’s reconciliation efforts with South Korea, difficulty in factual acknowledgement of coercive recruitment led to difficulty in dialectic integration within Japanese society and South Korean society and between Japan and South Korea as political entities. Controversy over factual acknowledgement led to a fierce and lasting domestic cleavage between those who were sympathetic to the victims and those who were

Politics and Reconciliation  203 deniers. Japan’s weak domestic dialectical integration as regards the issue of comfort women enhanced suspicions about the sincerity of Japan’s remorse in the eyes of both South Korea and international society. In South Korea, supporter groups’ rather stubborn dogmatic stance, constituting South Korea’s public stance, failed to provide any offer of forgiveness to Japan. Thus, Japan’s reconciliation with South Korea has been very rocky. Debate over factual acknowledgement of coercive recruitment was due to the absence of official documents and the survivors’ statements that indicate that the recruitment was through coaxing and deception rather than coercion. Japanese conservatives maintain that the coaxing and deception were done by illegal brokers, while Koreans argue that they constitute “coercive” recruitment insofar as this occurred against the will of the victims. This debate was also due to factual confusion regarding comfort women within the Women’s Volunteer Corps, which was the wartime mobilization of a volunteer corps of students, both Japanese and Korean, to work at munitions factories, enhancing a strong impression of forced recruitment of comfort women. Such confusion persisted among activists, the media, and the general public through the early 1990s, though scholarly research has clarified that these two categories were totally separate.52 The name of the main supporter activist group also contributed to the continued confusion; the Japanese and Korean name of the main group was literally the Korean Council on Measures to Address the Volunteer Corps Issue (Korean Council), though its English name was the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. The equivocal expression on the nature of recruitment in the Kōno Statement, the Japanese chief cabinet minister’s acknowledgement, and apologies issued in 1993 also intensified the debate. The Kōno Statement included an assertion that “recruitment, transfer, control, etc., were conducted generally against their will, through coaxing, coercion, etc.,” in view of comfort women’s testimonies of harsh experiences at comfort stations, even though no official document on coercive recruitment was found.53 Japanese hardline conservatives demanded that the Kōno Statement be retracted,54 while South Korean activists used the Kōno Statement as a point of reference and expanded discourse regarding Japan’s coercive recruitment in international society, as seen in the setting up of comfort woman statues and legislative resolutions on the issue of comfort women being in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Netherlands, the European Parliament, as will be explained later. The debate over the nature of recruitment did not create a momentum for joint investigation or for the Korean side to offer forgiveness in pursuit of an investigation of historical truth. The main supporter group in South Korea declined to cooperate with the Japanese government’s interviewing of Korean victims.55

204  Naoko Kumagai Hardline Japanese conservatives, protesting governmental approval in May 1996 of seven junior high school history textbooks describing comfort women, went so far as to form the Japan Society for History Textbook Reform in January 1997, aiming to remove any content regarding the issue of comfort women from junior high school history textbooks. They claimed that comfort women were not victims, but rather that they had earned a large amount of money, often more than Japanese officers.56 Debate over factual acknowledgement has led to another fierce controversy over the nature of Japan’s responsibility, which made the AWF’s aim of moral atonement very difficult and, as of 2020, increased hostility between the two countries. While South Koreans argued for legal responsibility and state compensation, the Japanese government maintained that the 1965 Agreement on the Settlements of Claims and the principle of diplomatic protection had resolved all legal issues, including that of comfort women. Castigating the AWF’s moral atonement as a maneuver to escape legal responsibility, the Korean side declined to set up any counterpart to the AWF which could have worked administratively for the Korean survivors. The Korean Council, the most adamant claimant for state compensation, naturally declined the AWF’s request of cooperation. Those who agreed to support the Korean Council set up a group to terminate the AWF.57 The hardened stance of the Korean Council shifted away from a victimcentered approach. The Korean Council criticized those who accepted atonement money since the money was not based on legal responsibility. Some went so far as to perceive the recipients of the moral atonement money to be prostitutes, because this was “private” money from Japanese nationals.58 Largely due to strong pressure from the Korean Council, fewer than one-third of registered former Korean comfort women accepted it.59 The Korean Council’s criticisms against the AWF assumed a more ritualistic and semantic tone, scrutinizing every move of the AWF in a negative way. It condemned the AWF’s confidential operation to protect the privacy of the victims as secretive.60 Additionally, it problematized the details of the wording in the Japanese Prime Minister’s letter of apologies. For example, the Korean Council interpreted the expression of “my feelings” in the letter as the state avoiding any official apologies.61 This episode shows the absence of dialectical integration between Japan and South Korea in political reconciliation. South Korea’s skepticism of Japan, nurtured by occasional revisionist remarks from Japanese hardline conservatives, failed to understand the AWF’s effort to express total sincerity to survivors with the unprecedented style of the personified style of an official letter from the Prime Minister to each survivor.62 The harsh denial from Japanese hardline conservatives was due to ontological insecurity and then a sense of national humiliation. They are uneasy with the American-imposed democratic postwar constitution and

Politics and Reconciliation  205 long for the restoration of the prewar system of statism. Furthermore, they legitimize the war and feel that the honor of their fathers and brothers who fought for Japan should not be tarnished,63 thus supporting the Prime Minister’s official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals as well as the war dead are among those enshrined.64 From the Korean point of view, it must be acknowledged that comfort women served “against their will” and not voluntarily, in order to defend the women’s honor, innocence, and chastity in Korean society, with its own strong patriarchal values.65 Accordingly, the clear locus of legal responsibility was also expected to serve the recovery of the dignity of the victims. One former comfort woman expressed her wish to prove that what she testified to as being her experience was not a lie.66 Survivors, encouraged and supported by activists, sued the Japanese government for individual compensation. The plaintiffs’ ultimate purpose of seeking a judicial solution was not money, but official acknowledgement of responsibility.67 The stance of South Korea, all in all, was led by the Korean Council. The South Korean government, in the face of the strong advocacy of the Korean Council, insisted on Japan’s acknowledgment of coercive recruitment in the drafting stage of the Kōno Statement, even with no official documents on coercive recruitment being found,68 whereas it had not officially either confirmed or denied the validity of the 1965 agreement as regards the case of comfort women. In March 1993, South Korean President Kim Young-sam expressed that his government would not demand financial compensation from Japan, but would still demand from Japan an investigation into historical truths.69 In the face of the massive protest of the Korean Council against the AWF’s atonement project, the South Korean government decided to adopt the Korean Council’s stance.70 When the AWF provided the letter of apology and atonement money to seven Korean former comfort women in January 1997, the Korean government commented that it was “extremely displeased.”71 Japan’s semantic arguments aiming to resolve the misunderstanding of coercive recruitment were counterproductive to building confidence in political reconciliation. Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s terminological explanation in October 2006 and March 2007 that Japan’s recruitment style was not coercive in the narrow sense of the term72 drew criticism from Korean activists and even major Western newspapers as lacking the viewpoints of victims.73 In turn, the international coalition campaign of Korean activists, spreading the discourse of coercive recruitment internationally, led to a full-page advertisement titled “The Truth about Comfort Women” in the Washington Post on April 26, 2007, at a time when Prime Minister Abe was visiting Washington, DC. Japanese hardline conservatives protested with a full-page public statement in the Washington Post on June 14, 2007, which asserted that comfort women were voluntary prostitutes who were earning incomes. To many,

206  Naoko Kumagai however, this sounded like a completely revisionist, denialist argument, showing disrespect for the feelings of the victims and thus closing off any chances for dialogue. The Korean Council started a tour with public testimonies from some survivors in the U.S. Congress and in legislatures in Europe, which led to legislative resolutions in 2007 and 2008—mainly in the U.S., the Netherlands, and South Korea—demanding apologies from Japan.74 Behind international criticisms of Japan over coercive recruitment lay skepticism about Japan’s remorse about the past war itself. Some voiced concerns over the threat of Japanese rearmament amidst the increasingly conservative tenor in Japanese politics since the early 1990s. They interpreted Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto’s 1996 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals are enshrined alongside other Japanese war dead, as a step toward remilitarization.75 Prime Minister Koizumi visited Yasukuni for six consecutive years from 2001 to 2006, which also stirred international criticism. The vicious cycle escalated with the South Korean government’s tougher stance after the adoption of a new interpretation concluded by the Roh administration’s investigation in 2005 and a 2011 verdict of the Constitutional Court of Korea, both of which interpreted the 1965 agreement as inconclusive in resolving the issue of comfort women. The Korean government, in neglect of the AWF’s efforts, started demanding Japan’s sincere atonement to the victims. South Korean President Park’s declaration in 2013 about the eternal victim–perpetrator relationship at the commemoration ceremony of an annual nationalist demonstration begun in 1919 demonstrates the failed dialogue for political reconciliation with Japan. The Korean Council’s establishment of a statue depicting a comfort woman in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in December 2011, for which the Constitutional Court decision served as a momentum, and which violates the prohibition on the “impairment of the dignity” of diplomatic missions outlined in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, hardened the stance of the Japanese government and wider Japanese public opinion since the statue symbolized the activists’ accusation against Japan by describing the victims as “sex slaves” rather than only serving as a memorial of the victims. The Japanese government called for the statue’s removal. Conservative journals in Japan started carrying numerous articles disputing the terminology of sex slaves and insisting that such terminology degrades Japan’s dignity and morality. Local assemblies from at least six prefectures in Japan issued statements and resolutions calling upon the Japanese government to issue correctives in international forums about coercive recruitment and to restore Japan’s dignity. The continuous establishment of comfort woman statues and memorials not only in South Korea but also abroad, particularly in the United States,76 further deepened Japan’s suspicion of South

Politics and Reconciliation  207 Koreans’ abuse of victimhood for anti-Japanese sentiment at the expense of reconciliation. The deepened breach between Japan and South Korea even spread to other diplomatic issues. South Korea suddenly canceled a military information security agreement with Japan in June 2012. President Lee landed on disputed islands, Takeshima (Dokto in Korean), in August 2012, thus provoking Japan. South Korean President Park and Japanese Prime Minister Abe did not have a summit meeting in 2013 or 2014. The power shift in the Far East, with the rise of China and the shrinkage in the power gap between South Korea and Japan, also enhanced South Korea’s uncompromising stance toward Japan. South Korea, with its growing political economic interdependence with China, pivoted there, in keeping with the traditional Korean policy of Jidaiseisaku, the following of the powerful for its survival as a small peninsular state.77 President Park set up a historical discourse with China on various occasions, including the establishment of the An Jung-geun Memorial Hall at Harbin Station in China in 2014, named for the man who assassinated Ito Hirobumi, the first resident-general of Korea, at Harbin Station in the northeastern part of China in 1909. He is seen as a national hero in Korea, while the Japanese government considers him to be a terrorist. There was a brief moment offering forgiveness from some activists who issued a statement in 2014 that they would no longer seek to establish Japan’s legal responsibility, but would instead seek recognition of Japan having been a victimizer, along with apologies based on that admission and compensation as proof of contrition.78 But it did not create a breakthrough. It was rather the United States’ geopolitical concern about the growing nuclear and missile crisis of North Korea that pushed Japan and South Korea toward the 2015 agreement to resolve the issue of comfort women between the two countries.79 The 2015 agreement80 was a product of prudent political decisions from both sides to address common threats from North Korea as well as to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the normalization of their diplomatic relationship. Accordingly, the agreement indicated compromise on the part of both sides, creating a momentum and arena for dialogue and then for dialectical integration. The Japanese government acknowledged its ­ ­responsibility and the Korean government acknowledged Japan’s ­previous and current efforts. Through this, both sides could prevent any battle over ­terminology. The Korean side acknowledged Japan’s p ­ revious and current efforts at atonement, thus implicitly downgrading the a­ ctivists’ ­anti-Japanese actions, and promised to endeavor to have the statue in front of the embassy removed, which shows another step forward in view of the past reluctance on the part of the South Korean government. The two governments also agreed that the Korean government would set up a new foundation, the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, with

208  Naoko Kumagai funding from the Japanese government, to assuage the wounds of the victims.81 The 2015 agreement was acclaimed internationally as historic82 and was expected to serve as an impetus for dialectical process and for mutual confidence. In practice, more than two-thirds of the survivors accepted the monetary provision under the foundation’s project. However, the dialectical process did not last. Instead, a unilateral exchange of views ensued. The Korean Council, dissatisfied with the absence of legal responsibility in the 2015 agreement, took regressive actions against the 2015 agreement, starting with the installation of new statues next to the Consulate General of Japan in Busan and in other countries. Castigating the agreement as being made without any consultation with the survivors, the Korean Council demanded its repeal. The South Korean government remained disengaged, commenting that it was the act of a private organization. Eventually, President Moon, who succeeded President Park, problematized the 2015 agreement by unilaterally deciding to shut down the foundation in 2019 without consulting Japan. The South Korean government avoided any efforts that might have helped Korean domestic dialectical integration not to succumb to strong anti-Japanese sentiment within Korean society. The strong voices of the Korean Council, which often ignore the demands of survivors, have had a significant influence on the Korean government, as testified to by a former Korean government officer who engaged in negotiations with Japan on the issue of comfort women in the early 2010s.83 A former Korean comfort women, Lee Yong Soo, also complained of the Korean Council’s neglect of the survivor voices. She criticized the Korean Council’s use of the term, “sex slave,” and its withholding from survivors of information about a 2015 plan agreed to by the Japanese and Korean governments.84 Strong manifestations of Korean collective memory of colonialism have supported, both explicitly and implicitly, the activists’ regressive moves and abuse of victim status as well as the South Korean government’s passivity. The issue of comfort women symbolizes the exploitation of Chōson (Korea) under Japanese colonial rule.85 Also, activist groups strategically formed a nationalist discourse, instead of a feminist discourse, to draw the attention of the whole of Korean society, in which male Koreans in particular were originally reluctant to deal with the sensitive issue of sex. The collective memory of the issue of comfort women became a dogmatized reassertion of South Korea’s stigmatized identity to Japan. With the negative stereotype of Japan as military ruler and racist, wartime Korean collaborators of Japan, even those soldiers under the Japanese Imperial Army, were thus labeled as Shinnichi, pro-Japanese,86 such that any interpretation of comfort women other than the narrative of young Chōson girls being coercively abducted by Japan was criticized.

Politics and Reconciliation  209 The Japanese government’s rather unilateral stance was not conductive to a constructive dialogue with South Korea, either. The Japanese government reasoned that it had completed its duty under the 2015 agreement by paying one billion JPY (approx. 10 million USD) to South Korea and demanded the relocation of the statue. Furthermore, the detached and impromptu comment by Prime Minister Abe on October 3, 2016 in response to a question at the Budget Committee of the Lower House of the Diet that he did not have the slightest intention of writing a letter to the survivors was a great disappointment to Korean society collectively and made Korean society doubt Japan’s sincerity.87 Surely, these statements do not constitute a departure from the agreement. Furthermore, there exists a condition of apology exhaustion in Japanese society since South Korea moved the goalposts regarding issues of historical understanding every time Japan made any effort.88 Still, the delicate issue of comfort women requires any statement to be considerate to the victims and not to lose the momentum of dialogue opened up in the 2015 agreement particularly in view of nearly three decades of tension between the two countries. The past cannot be mastered89 due to the diversity of the victims’ experiences and feelings. Some victims were criticized and abandoned by their families, being tormented by questions from their children whose fathers were Japanese soldiers visiting the comfort station. Others remained single for life, having to forgo marriage due to their traumatic experiences as comfort women. Accordingly, reconciliation is a sensitive process of dialogue involving diverse voices. This requires humility, especially from the perpetrator side. The political reconciliation process between Japan and South Korea ended up in the exchange of unilateral claims. Sound and prudent political leadership to navigate constructive dialogue was missing on both sides. The Korean activists’ dogmatism utilized victimhood to the extent that it harmed some survivors whom the activists were supposed to support. It was desired that Japan understood reconciliation as a long process in great need of sensitivity to victims. Japanese leadership lacked humility as a sense of the “unacknowledgeability of suffering.”90 It is tragic that these two states could neither transcend this tit-for-tat situation nor form a new vision based on mutual confidence with new mutual perceptions beyond victim and perpetrator.

10.5 Conclusion The case of Japan and South Korea has been characterized by difficulty in sustaining dialogue for political reconciliation. South Korean society, with strong activist voices being backed by the collective memory of colonial experiences and patriarchal social background, has maintained that Japan’s current reckoning with moral responsibility with regard to

210  Naoko Kumagai comfort women is unacceptable. The South Korean government, being pragmatic in compromising in the 2015 agreement, but ultimately passive, failed in leading a domestic dialectical discourse toward a new domestic integration. The private voices of activists in Korean society constituted the public voice of South Korea. There was little room for the Korean side, particularly activists, to overcome resentment, as seen in the mounting of the statue of the comfort woman which Japan perceived as a humiliation. Even with the 2015 agreement being brokered with a push from the United States’ geopolitical concerns, only an exchange of claims has taken place; there has been little in the way of dialogue, much less of dialectic interaction. South Korean activists’ radicalized sense of victimhood, which has often harmed even the survivors, stimulated already vocal Japanese hardline conservatives, thereby escalating vicious cycles of mutual doubt. Meanwhile, Japan’s semantic arguments regarding coercive recruitment and recurring revisionist remarks show inadequate dialectic integration within Japan, much as happens within South Korea. Japan thus clearly has its own difficulties in domestic integration. The goodwill expressed in the Kōno Statement and the AWF was diminished by occasional revisionist voices gripped by ontological insecurity. The entanglement of the public and the private continued in Japan without a solid domestic consensus being reached. Furthermore, South Korean activists, skeptical about Japan’s sincerity and grounded in Korean society’s past memories of colonialism, have remained extremely cautious about governmental reconciliation efforts. Japan also failed to undertake dialectical discourse with international society, which has largely perceived Japan’s stance as an excuse. Throughout the process of political reconciliation, the Japanese government has focused too much on diplomatic formality, with little consideration being given to political reconciliation being a long process that requires the highest sensitivity to the dignity of victims. Lessons from political reconciliation processes show the twin dangers of uncompromising activism and revisionist backlash, which together stifle dialectical process toward integration with self-emancipation. The nonexistence of dialectical interaction, both in Japan and in South Korea, and between the two, highlights the importance of political leadership in breaking through such deadlocks.

Notes 1 After the judicial rejections of the individual compensation lawsuits for Taiwanese and Korean former soldiers, the Japanese parliament enacted the Law Concerning Condolence Payments to Survivors of War Dead Who Have Lost Japanese Nationality Based on the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 2000. As for the Nanjing Massacre, one of the most significant cases of Japan’s war crime, the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal sentenced to death four Imperial

Politics and Reconciliation  211 Japanese Army officers. The Chinese government gave up any compensation in 1972. 2 Cf. Andrew Schaap, Political Reconciliation (London: Routledge, 2005). 3 Cf. Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968). 4 Carl Schmitt, Definition of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 15–23. 5 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 60; Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 50–58. 6 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 149. 7 Louis Kriesberg. Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 352. 8 Tesurō Watsuji, “The Spatiality of a Human Being,” in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan (Albany: State University of New York, 1996), 155–179. 9 Watsuji, “The Spatiality of a Human Being,” 157. 10 Watsuji, “The Spatiality of a Human Being,” 177. 11 Tesurō Watsuji, “Private and Public Existence,” in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan (Albany: State University of New York, 1996), 146–153. 12 Cf. Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization (London: Sage, 1996). 13 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 107. 14 Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939 (London, Harper & Row, 1964), 157–161. 15 Donald W. Shriver Jr., An Ethics for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1998), 244. 16 Cf. Diane Enns, The Violence of Victimhood (University Park, PA: the Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). 17 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 36–42. 18 Cf. Norihiro Katō, Kanōsei toshiteno Sengoigo (Possibility of a Postwar Period) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2020). 19 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 121. 20 Cf. Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), 32–37. 21 Cf. Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt, 54–56. 22 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 122. 23 Cf. Jennifer Lind, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). 24 Jean Hampton, “Forgiveness, Resentment and Hatred,” in Forgiveness and Mercy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 56–60. 25 David A. Crocker, “Punishment, Reconciliation, and Democratic Deliberation,” in Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2006), 61–62. 26 Cf. Enns, The Violence of Victimhood, 2012. 27 Cf. Crocker, “Punishment, Reconciliation, and Democratic Deliberation,” 2006. 28 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 109. 29 Bert van Roermund, “Rubbing Off and Rubbing On: The Grammar of Reconciliation,” in Lethe’s Law: Justice, Law and Ethics in Reconciliation (Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2001), 177–178. 30 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 104. 31 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 105.

212  Naoko Kumagai 32 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 105; van Roermund, “Rubbing Off and Rubbing On: The Grammar of Reconciliation,” 179. 33 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 115. 34 Hampton, “Forgiveness, Resentment and Hatred,” 59–60. 35 van Roermund, “Rubbing Off and Rubbing On: The Grammar of Reconciliation,” 178. 36 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 109. 37 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 109. 38 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 110. 39 Peter Digeser, “Forgiveness and Politics: Dirty Hands and Imperfect Procedures,” Political Theory 26, no. 5 (1998), 716. 40 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 110. 41 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 125. 42 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 127. 43 Cf. David Bargal and Emmanuel Sivan, “Leadership and Reconciliation,” in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 44 Daniel Bar-Tal and Gemma H. Bennink, “The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and as a Process,” in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 35. 45 Marc Howard Ross, “Ritual and the Politics of Reconciliation,” in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 210. 46 Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Free Press, 1965), 153–154. 47 Bar-Tal and Bennink, “The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and as a Process,” 21. 48 For example, cf. Taijirō Tamura’s Inago (Locusts) published in 1964. 49 Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yōhei Kōno on the Result of the Study on the Issue of “Comfort Women.” August 4, 1993. [https://www.mofa. go.jp/policy/women/fund/state9308.html] 50 The atonement money was two million Japanese Yen (15,000 Euros) for each. Medical/welfare financial support of three million Japanese Yen (22,700 Euros) was funded by the Japanese government. For more details on the moral project, see the AWF website, “Atonement Project of the Asian Women’s Fund”: http://www.awf.or.jp/e3/index.html 51 For the explanations about the operation of the AWF and the responses from the recipients, see the AWF website, “Atonement Project of the Asian Women’s Fund”: https://www.awf.or.jp/e3/index.html 52 Cf. Sōji Takasaki, “Hantō Joshi Kinrō Teishin-tai nitsuite (On the Peninsular Girl Workers’ Volunteer Corps), in Ianfu Mondai Chōsa Hōkokusho (Asian Women’s Fund Committee on Historical Materials Regarding the Comfort Women Issue 1999, Report on the Investigation into the “Comfort Women,” 1999). 53 Nihon no Zento to Rekishi Kyōiku o Kangaeru Wakate Giin no Kai (Association of Junior Parliamentarians), Rekishi Kyōkasho e no Gimon (Questions to History Textbooks) (Tendensha: Tokyo, 1997), 420–447. 54 For example, the website of the movement to demand the retraction of the Kōno Statement. http://kounodanwa.net/ 55 Comment of Keiko Usuki in an interview by Shinichiro Akashi on the Korean Council. Shinichiro Akashi; “Teitaikyo: Kenkan o Tsukutta Soshiki no Sanjūnen” (The Korean Council: Thirty Years of the Organization that Produced Anti-Korean Sentiment), Bunshun Online, June 15, 2020 https:// bunshun.jp/articles/-/38366?page=3 56 Cf. Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukuru Kai (The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform), http://www.tsukurukai.com/index.html

Politics and Reconciliation  213 57 Mizuho Tsuchino, “Ianfu Mondai to Tsugunai no Politikusu (The Issue of Comfort Women and Politics of Atonement),” Ajia Taiheiyō Rebyū (Asia Pacific Review) (2012), 81. 58 Cf. Mihyang Yun, “Kankoku Teitaikyō wa Nani o Mezashi, Donoyōni Tatakatte Kitanoka, (What Has the Korean Council Aimed for and How Has It Fought?),” Impaction No. 168 (2009); About the situation, see Sarah Soh, The Comfort Women (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008), 96–97. 59 Out of 207 officially recognized former Korean comfort women, 61 accepted the AWF atonement money. 60 Chong-ok Yun, Heiwa o Kikyūshite: Ianfu Higaisha no Songen Kaifuku eno Ayumi (In Pursuit of Peace: Former Comfort Women’s Path toward Dignity) (Tokyo: Hakutakusha, 2003), 193. 61 Yun, Heiwa o Kikyūshite: Ianfu Higaisha no Songen Kaifuku eno Ayumi (In Pursuit of Peace: Former Comfort Women’s Path toward Dignity), 188. 62 Yasuaki Ōnuma, Ianfu Mondai towa Nan dattanoka? (What was the Issue of Comfort Women?) (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 2007), 180–195. 63 Nihon no Zento to Rekishi Kyoiku o Kangaeru Wakate Giin no Kai (Group of Young Diet Members for Consideration of Japan’s Future and History Education), Rekishi Kyōkasho e no gimon (Questions to History Textbooks) (Tendensha: Tokyo, 1997), 46. 64 For details of the discursive development of hardline conservatives, cf. Kumagai (2015). 65 Cf. Yu-ha Park, Teikoku no Ianfu (Comfort Women of the Empire) (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Shuppansha, 2014). 66 Testimony of Il-Chul Kang at the meeting, “Examination of the Comfort Women Issue: Public Testimony of a Former Comfort Woman,” organized by the Center for Contemporary Korean Studies at the University of Tokyo and City of Goyang, South Korea on March 30, 2015. 67 Cf. Yayo Okano, “Shūfukuteki Seigi: Kokumin Kikin ga Tozashia Mirai,” (Restorative Justice: The Future Closed by the Asian Women’s Fund) in Shinpojiumu Kiroku:“Ianfu” Mondai no Kaiketsu ni Mukete—Hirakareta Giron no Tameni (Symposium Record: Towards the Resolution of the Issue of Comfort Women-for Open Dialogue) (Tokyo: Hakutakusha, 2012). 68 Study Team on the Details Leading to the Drafting of the Kōno Statement etc. “Details of Exchanges between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) regarding the Comfort Women Issue: From the Drafting of the Kōno Statement to the Asian Women’s Fund.” (June 20, 2014). 69 Sei-Young Cho, Nikkan Gaikōshi: Tairitsu to Kyōryoku no 50 nen (JapanKorea Diplomatic History: 50 years of competition and cooperation) (Tokyo: Heibonsha Shinsho, 2015), 139. 70 Cho, Nikkan Gaikōshi: Tairitsu to Kyōryoku no 50 nen, 144. 71 Cho, Nikkan Gaikōshi: Tairitsu to Kyōryoku no 50 nen, 145. 72 For example, see the comment by Prime Minister Abe in the Budget Committee of the House of Councilors on March 5, 2007. 73 Cf. Jeff Kingston, “Requiem for Reconciliation Japan’s Comfort Women,” International Herald Tribune, March 23, 2007. 74 H. Res. 121. July 30, 2017. [https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/ house-resolution/121/text] 75 Kim, “Sōsaku to Hihyō shi niokeru Ōfuku Shokan- Wada Haruki, Takasaki Sōji, Kim Sonje” (Correspondence among Wada Haruki, Takasaki Sōji, and Kim Sonje in journal Sōsaku and Hihyō), Impaction, no. 107 (1998), 47. 76 The statue was set up in the following cities so far: Glendale (Los Angeles) in July 2013, Detroit in August 2014, Brookhaven (suburban Atlanta) in June 2017, San Francisco in September 2017, New York in October 2017, and

214  Naoko Kumagai Annandale (suburban Atlanta) in October 2019. Statues were set up also in Sydney in August 2016, in Toronto in November 2015, in Wiesent (Germany) in March 2017, and in Frankfurt in March 2020. 77 Kan Kimura, Chōsen/Kankoku Nashonarizumu to Shōkoku Ishiki (Chōson/ Korean Nationalism and the Identity of “Small State”) (Tokyo: Minerva Shobō, 2000), 163. 78 Cf. Dai 12 kai Nihongun “Ianfu” Mondai Ajia Rentai Kaigi (12th Asian Solidarity Conference on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery), “Nihongun ‘Ianfu’ Kaiketsu no tameni (For Resolution of the Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’ Issue),” June 2, 2014. 79 Cf. Naoko Kumagai, “The Background to the Japan–Republic of Korea Agreement: Compromises Concerning the Understanding of the Comfort Women Issue,” Asia-Pacific Review 23, no. 1 (2016). 80 Cf. Announcement by Foreign Ministers of Japan and the Republic of Korea at the Joint Press Occasion. December 28, 2015, https://www.mofa.go.jp/a_o/ na/kr/page4e_000364.html. 81 Cf. Announcement by Foreign Ministers of Japan and the Republic of Korea at the Joint Press Occasion. December 28, 2015, https://www.mofa.go.jp/a_o/ na/kr/page4e_000364.html. 82 Cf. BBC, “Japan and South Korea agree historic ‘comfort women’ deal.” December 28, 2015, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03d45c5. 83 Cf. Comment by former Chief Diplomatic Advisor to President Lee Myungbak, Chung Yung-woo, Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper, May 24, 2020. 84 Cf. Susan O’Dwyer, “The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance has lost its way,” Commentary, The Japan Times, June 1, 2020, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/06/01/commentary/ korean-council-justice-remembrance-lost-way/. Woo Jae-yeon, “Former ‘comfort women’ calls for justice for former civic group head, ‘accurate’ history education for students of S. Korea, Japan,” Yonhap News Agency, May 25, 2020, https://en.yna.co.kr/view/ AEN20200525006951315. 85 Cf. Kijeong Nam’s comment on the 2015 agreement, Asahi Shimbun Newspaper, December 29, 2015. 86 President Roh set up the Presidential Committee for the Inspection of Collaborations for Japanese Imperialism in 2005, which listed up any proJapanese collaborators and compiled their activities. 87 Cf. Comment by South Korea’s former foreign minister Yu Myung-hwan. Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper, September 7, 2020. 88 Cf. The Advisory Panel on the History of the 20th Century and on Japan’s Role and World Order in the 21st Century, “Report of the Advisory Panel on the History of the 20th Century and on Japan’s Role and the World Order in the 21st Century,” August 6, 2015. 89 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 147. 90 Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 147.

Bibliography The Advisory Panel on the History of the 20th Century and on Japan’s Role and World Order in the 21st Century. “Report of the Advisory Panel on the History of the 20th Century and on Japan’s Role and the World Order in the 21st Century.” August 6, 2015.

Politics and Reconciliation  215 Akashi, Shinichiro. “Teitaikyo: Kenkan o Tsukutta Soshiki no Sanjūnen” [The Korean Council: Thirty Years of the Organization that Produced AntiKorean Sentiment]. Bunshun Online. June 15, 2020. https://bunshun.jp/ articles/-/38366?page=3. Arendt, Hannah. Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition, 2nd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. The Asian Women’s Fund. “Atonement Project of the Asian Women’s Fund.” https://www.awf.or.jp/e3/index.html. Bar-Tal, Daniel and Gemma H. Bennink. “The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and as a Process.” In From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, 11–38. Edited by Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Bargal, David and Emmanuel Sivan. “Leadership and Reconciliation.” In From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, 125–148. Edited by Yaacov Bar-SimanTov. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Carr, Edward Hallett. The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939. Reissued with new Preface from Michael Cox. 1939. Reprint. London: Harper & Row, 1964. Cho, Sei-Young. Nikkan Gaikōshi: Tairitsu to Kyōryoku no 50 nen [JapanKorea Diplomatic History: 50 years of competition and cooperation]. Tokyo: Heibonsha Shinsho, 2015. Crocker, David A. “Punishment, Reconciliation, and Democratic Deliberation.” In Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation, 50–83. Edited by Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. Digeser, Peter. “Forgiveness and Politics: Dirty Hands and Imperfect Procedures.” Political Theory 26, no. 5 (1998): 700–724. Enns, Diane. The Violence of Victimhood. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012. Galtung, Johan. Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. London: Sage Publications, 1996. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. Hampton, Jean. “Forgiveness, Resentment and Hatred.” In Forgiveness and Mercy, 35–87. Edited by Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Jaspers, Karl. The Question of German Guilt. 2nd Edition. New York: Fordham University Press, 2001. Katō, Norihiro. Kanōsei toshiteno Sengoigo [Possibility of a Postwar Period]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2020. Kim, Sonje. Haruki Wada, and Sōji Takasaki. “Sōsaku to Hihyō shi ni okeru Ōfuku Shokan-Wada Haruki, Takasaki Sōji, Kim Sonje” [Correspondence among Wada Haruki, Takasaki Sōji, and Kim Soje in journal Sōsaku and Hihyō]. Impaction no. 107 (1998): 44–47. Kimura, Kan. Chōsen/Kankoku Nashonarizumu to Shōkoku Ishiki [Chōson/ Korea Nationalism and the Identity of “Small State”]. Tokyo: Minerva Shobō, 2000.

216  Naoko Kumagai Kriesberg, Louis. Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Kumagai, Naoko. “The Absence of Consensus in Japan over the Issue of Comfort Women-With the Case of the Asian Women’s Fund from the Approach of Ontological Security.” Social Science Japan Journal 18, no. 2 (2015): 145–161. Kumagai, Naoko. “The Background to the Japan-Republic of Korea Agreement: Compromises Concerning the Understanding of the Comfort Women Issue.” Asia-Pacific Review 23, no. 1 (2016): 65–99. Lind, Jennifer. Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York: Free Press, 1965. Nihon no Zento to Rekishi Kyōiku o Kangaeru Wakate Giin no Kai [Group of Young Diet Members for Consideration of Japan’s Future and History Education]. Rekishi Kyōkasho e no gimon [Questions to History Textbooks]. Tokyo: Tendensha, 1997. Okano, Yayo. “Shūfukuteki Seigi: Kokumin Kikin ga Tozashia Mirai.” [Restorative Justice: The Future Closed by the Asian Women’s Fund] In Shinpojiumu Kiroku: “Ianfu” Mondai no Kaiketsu ni mukete - Hirakareta Giron no Tameni [Symposium Record: Towards the Resolution of the Issue of Comfort Womenfor Open Dialogue]. Edited by Kiyoko Shimizu, et al. Tokyo: Hakutakusha, 2012. Ōnuma, Yasuaki. Ianfu Mondai towa Nan dattanoka? [What was the Issue of Comfort Women?]. Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 2007. Park, Yu-ha. Teikoku no Ianfu [Comfort Women of the Empire]. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Shuppansha, 2014. Ross, Marc Howard. “Ritual and the Politics of Reconciliation.” In From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, 197–223. Edited by Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Schaap, Andrew. Political Reconciliation. London: Routledge, 2005. Schmitt, Carl. Definition of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Shriver, Jr. Donald W. An Ethics for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1998. Soh, Sarah. The Comfort Women, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008. Study Team on the Details Leading to the Drafting of the Kōno Statement etc. “Details of Exchanges between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) regarding the Comfort Women Issue~ From the Drafting of the Kōno Statement to the Asian Women’s Fund~.” June 20, 2014. Takasaki, Sōji. “Hantō Joshi Kinrō Teishin-tai nitsuite.” [On the “Peninsular Girl Workers” Volunteer Corps] In Ianfu Mondai Chōsa Hōkokusho [Report on the Investigation into the “Comfort Women,” 1999]. Edited by the Asian Women’s Fund Committee on Historical Materials Regarding the Comfort Women. 1999. Tsuchino, Mizuho. “Ianfu Mondai to Tsugunai no Politikusu.” [The Issue of Comfort Women and Politics of Atonement] Ajia Taiheiyō Rebyū [Asia-Pacific Review] (2012): 73–83. https://www.keiho-u.ac.jp/research/asia-pacific/pdf/ review_2012-06.pdf Usuki, Keiko. Interview by Shinichiro Akagi. Bunshun Online. June 15, 2020. https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/38366?page=3.

Politics and Reconciliation  217 van Roermund, Bert. “Rubbing Off and Rubbing On: The Grammar of Reconciliation.” In Lethe’s Law: Justice, Law and Ethics in Reconciliation, 175–190. Edited by E. Christodoulidis and S. Veitch. Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2001. Watsuji, Tesurō. “Private and Public Existence.” In Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan. Translated by Seisaku Yamamoto and Robert E. Carter, 146– 153. Albany: State University of New York, 1996a. Watsuji, Tesurō. “The Spatiality of a Human Being.” In Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan. Translated by Yamamoto Seisaku and Robert E. Carter, 155–179. Albany: State University of New York, 1996b. Yun, Chong-ok. Heiwa o Kikyūshite: Ianfu Higaisha no Songen Kaifuku eno Ayumi [In Pursuit of Peace: Former Comfort Women’s Path toward Dignity]. Edited and translated by Suzuki Yuko. Tokyo: Hakutakusha, 2003. Yun, Mihyang. Kankoku Teitaikyō wa Nani o Mezashi, Donoyōni Tatakatte Kitanoka [What Has the Korean Council Aimed for and How Has It Fought?]. Impaction, no. 168 (2009): 134–158.

11 Political Reconciliation in Liberal States Henning Hahn

The time has come to think seriously about whether, at some safer, wiser moment in the future, the United States will need a truth and reconciliation commission. I know the idea sounds outlandish—truth and reconciliation commissions are something that happens to other people in other places, typically countries that have been truly brutalized and can find no other way past their national traumas.1 What political commentator Kevin Baker has proposed in his The New Republic article is indeed a timely insight. Divides in Western societies—I will use Germany as an example—require measures of political reconciliation. My underlying thesis is that the paradigm of reconciliation fits these phenomena of resentment and political alienation that we witness better than does the paradigm of justice. Whereas justice calls for a fair background structure or, in its retributive sense, the redress of past wrongdoings, reconciliation refers to a forward-looking healing process. I will therefore lay the conceptional ground for a normative shift from justice to reconciliation and construct principles of reconciliation designed for liberal societies. For the most part, I will develop a three-dimensional, agency-based conception of reconciliation. Political reconciliation combines structural, attitudinal, and narrative measures to restore political agency—that is, the capacity to act in a meaningful, shared endeavor. I will proceed as follows. First, I will introduce two exemplificatory cases of social divides in liberal states. Both illustrate particular relational defects—resentment and political alienation—which are not sufficiently understood in terms of an injustice (section 11.1). In the second part, I will therefore argue that political reconciliation opens a fundamental, comprehensive, and feasible perspective beyond justice. For a start, I will examine current approaches in the ethics of reconciliation, discuss its analytical and practical worth and distinguish from it my agency-based approach (section 11.2). Building on these conceptual grounds, I will examine what this practically means for liberal societies, proposing six principles of reconciliation (section 11.3). Finally, I will address some of the most serious criticisms (section 11.4).

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  219

11.1 Divides in Liberal Societies I argue that recent divides in liberal societies require an explanatory and normative shift from justice to reconciliation. Now, divides in liberal societies are obviously manifold and have multiple causes. For simplicity’s sake, I work with David Goodhart’s instructive, though at times tendentious, juxtaposition of two “tribes:” Anywheres and Somewheres.2 Both present segregated lifeforms constituted by unequal cultural capital. Anywheres have much of it, are academically educated and globally connected. They frequently move, live in urban spaces, and occupy positions that are creative, self-entrepreneurial, or related to interpretive power. Most of them are high-income earners, but some live in precarious conditions. What they have in common is a cosmopolitan habitus that allows them to adapt to network-based earning and power positions. Somewheres, on the other hand, tend to live in rural areas and are less educated and mobile. Often, they perceive globalization as a threat, wishing to conserve clear orientation frames. In short, Anywheres develop a lifeform contrary to that of Somewheres; they taste, buy, dress, reside, and inform themselves differently. Among both tribes, feelings of resentment and alienation grow. Anywheres look down on the Somewhere’s accent, look, style, and lack of education. Somewheres, on the other hand, feel degraded and increasingly react with hostility. To illustrate, I present two cases of how resentment and alienation grow in liberal settings. Needless to say, these cases may be interpreted differently and only exemplify a segment of typical divides. a) Hatman: In 2018, during a demonstration by Pegida—the rightwing, anti-Islamic movement in Germany—a memorable incident occurred. One demonstrator stood in front of a camera team, told them they were the lying press (Lügenpresse) and called for an end to reporting. Afterwards it turned out that he was in fact an employee of the regional criminal investigation department (Landeskriminalamt). This was particularly worrying, as the demonstration was clearly racially motivated and the man was openly opposing freedom of the press. Of particular interest here, however, is how many Anywheres reacted to the angry man. He was overweight, wearing a flat hat, an insipid shirt and absurd sunglasses. In short, he was dressed tastelessly—the way many people in my home village dress. Their critique of him was a mixture of political disagreement and aesthetic offense. As a “Hutbürger” (“hat man;” instead of “Wutbürger,” angry citizen), he was treated as a joke. Justified criticism of his political view was overshadowed by ridicule of his person—and his lifeform in general. b) Denglish: In German intercity trains, announcements are now made in German and English, a task that ordinary conductors repeatedly fail

220  Henning Hahn to accomplish. Announcements are read in a clumsy German accent (“Denglish” for Deutsch-English). Regular commuters can hardly resist a grin; there is eye contact between cosmopolitan Anywheres, who speak fluent English (or pretend to), while the few Somewheres in the compartment feel uneasy. Through simple gestures Anywheres mark the space as theirs. Similar things happen on scheduled flights when Somewheres applaud a successful landing, while Anywheres nonchalantly continue working. Little postures mark a fine, but distinctive line between the habitual haves and have-nots. Both cases are exemplary in that they show the rise of resentment through alienation. “Hatman” presents a clear case of political alienation; he distrusts democratic institutions and is incapable of taking a significant role in a meaningful political endeavor—or at least to conceive of himself this way. For him, parliaments are elitist, the media is conspiring, administrations are corrupt “swamps,” etc. In addition, “Denglish” illustrates how subtle experiences of alienation breed feelings of anger and resentment. What both cases suggest is the need for a conceptual shift to the normative paradigm of reconciliation. In its most general definition, reconciliation has the double meaning of healing relational wounds and of feeling at home in the world. It goes beyond justice in that it addresses resentments and political alienation not only as symptoms, but also as sources of divides in liberal societies. With regard to dividing resentments, political sentiments are strikingly undertheorized in current theories of justice. Resentment, anger, fear, but also sympathy, loyalty or friendship are usually discredited in that they lead away from strict impartiality. Behind Rawls’ “veil of ignorance,” to cite the most prominent example, no one is supposed to know “the special features of his psychology.”3 In real politics, however, emotions and psychological attitudes play a decisive role. It is fear that dictates security policies, empathy that motivates social programs, xenophobia that restricts immigration policies, hope that wins elections, etc. Today’s growing emotionalization of politics presses the question of what it takes to temper dividing emotions. This is exactly where the ethics of (political) reconciliation offers fresh answers. Theories of reconciliation address not only defects in intergroup relations, but also experiences of suppression, powerlessness, and disorientation, or, in short, alienation. By political alienation I refer to the inability of political groups to conceive of themselves as occupying a significant role in a meaningful political endeavor. Again, powerlessness and disorientation can be a direct consequence of injustice, marginalization, exclusion, or disfranchisement. But alienation is also rooted in a defective self-understanding. Politically alienated groups are oriented toward a narrative that is too simplistic or conservative to adapt to an

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  221 ever-changing world. Being politically alienated in this sense leads either to resignation, cynicism, or radicalization. This is what is going on with “Hatman.” What politically alienated groups lack is not justice alone, but also what I will call “narrative reconciliation,” an affirmative understanding of political agency through the identification with a meaningful and feasible political endeavor. Before I elaborate on the multidimensional nature of political reconciliation, let me take stock. Political reconciliation addresses wounds in political relations. Such wounds may well concern structural injustices. In contrast to justice, however, the scope of reconciliatory measures is broader, digging deeper into attitudinal and narrative divides. In addition to justice, reconciliation demands measures to overcome resentment and alienation.

11.2 The Agency-based Approach to Political Reconciliation Originally, the task of political reconciliation arose during the transition from post-colonial or post-communist regimes to democracies. Its theoretical understanding is still shaped by the paradigmatic case of ending apartheid in South Africa and, in particular, by the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the 1990s.4 For a generation now, practices and normative theories of political reconciliation have been further enriched in the aftermath of domestic and international conflicts. From today’s perspective, some of these processes are perceived rather critically. Political reconciliation, it is argued, has often contributed to the restoration of power structures. Amnesties and forgiveness excuse perpetrators, betray victims, and fail their transitional purpose: to build a nation and robust democracy.5 If we avoid these pitfalls, however, the ethics and practice of political reconciliation offer us helpful instruments. In this section, I lay the conceptual foundations for their application to liberal societies. To this end, I review the most salient positions and show where and why my agency-based approach differs from them—as well as where I borrow. I will also clarify the three dimensions in which reconciliatory measures operate. 11.2.1 Reconciliation as Peacebuilding In the aftermath of open conflicts, the first goal of reconciliation is peace and stabilization.6 Any more ambitious ideals of a reconciled society tend to ignore how persistent feelings of revenge and resentment are. Reconciliation as peacebuilding begins with disarmament; it includes reparations, war crimes trials, and other forms of punishment for past atrocities. Ultimately, these measures aim at enforcing the rule of law. Peace processes can lead to the establishment of federal or partially

222  Henning Hahn autonomous districts (Kosovo) or to the secession of ethnically or culturally divided areas (Southern Sudan). The peacebuilding approach to political reconciliation is not misguided, but it does not go far enough. In transitional scenarios, stability through law and order is surely a necessary first step. But I do agree with Lu,7 Murphy,8 Philpott,9 and Schaap10 that sustainable peace requires political reconciliation in a more substantial sense: based on the rebuilding of a shared political identity, trust, and the cultivation of solidarity or “civic friendship.”11 I therefore propose a three-dimensional conception in which, in addition to peace and stability, further transformation is indispensable to rooting out resentment and alienation. 11.2.2 Reconciliation as Forgiveness A second camp equates reconciliation with forgiveness.12 Measures of reconciliation respond to interpersonal feelings of anger and resentment. They should end bitterness or pay past debts. According to what Martha Nussbaum,13 following Charles Griswold,14 calls the “transactional model,” asking someone for forgiveness is an interpersonal exchange in which the perpetrator goes through a process of self-abasement to compensate for a previous humiliation. This involves the perpetrator acknowledging her responsibility for the wrong, distancing herself from it as a mistake, expressing remorse and regret, and offering “a narrative accounting for how she came to do wrong, how that wrongdoing does not express the totality of her person, and how she is becoming worthy of approbation.”15 The philosophical discourse on forgiveness is more detailed and nuanced than that on reconciliation.16 I will focus on three normatively relevant differences. First, when one asks for forgiveness in the described way, the onus falls onto the victim to accept the apology, to overcome long, past injuries, or even to forget them altogether. Paradoxically, one seems entitled to blame the victim for remaining unforgiving, bitter, or revengeful. Those who equate reconciliation and forgiveness meet a similar criticism. Granting amnesties for truth-telling serves perpetrators by not only ignoring the victim’s claim to justice, but also imposing an obligation to forgive on those who have reason not to forget, who are traumatized, or full of grief. Reconciliation, on the other hand, refers to a mutual transformation that requires a change of attitudes on all sides.17 It is not about X’s swallowing resentments toward Y, but about the growing of solidarity or similar pro-attitudes—often in ways that preserve the wounds from the past. Reconciliation after war, for instance, requires shared remembrance and partnership based on shared lessons from the past, separate from how the legal question of guilt may be settled.18 Second, forgiveness is primarily backward-looking. If X forgives Y, then X and Y are even, though they may never see each other again.

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  223 Reconciliation, on the other hand, treats the wounds of the past with a forward-looking intent, in order to (re-)build functioning relationships and cooperate in the future. It is driven by the will or necessity to restore joint agency. Third, political reconciliation is essentially about the transformation of political (in contrast to interpersonal) attitudes. Official apologies or public gestures of repentance are symbolic acts that strive for political renewal and are performed in a political role. As such, asking for political reconciliation differs from personal exculpation. It is possible, though difficult, to feel irreparably injured in relation to an individual person while welcoming reconciliatory policies. All of this means that political reconciliation is in line with the ethics of forgiveness, insofar as both seek to end negative reactive attitudes. But reconciliation means more—namely, a transformation from resentment to political pro-attitudes, such as solidarity. It differs from the transactional model of forgiveness in its forward-looking, mutual, and strictly political orientation. 11.2.3 Reconciliation as Political Inclusion This approach makes better sense of “the political” in political reconciliation. Reconciliatory measures are seen as a response to growing experiences of political exclusion, marginalization, or discrimination. In this regard, it is important to note that political inclusion is advocated to varying degrees. For Darrel Moellendorf,19 a political liberal, political reconciliation aims to ensure that “former strangers learn to view and treat each other as equal citizens.” The inclusive function of reconciliation here operates through the political virtue of being committed to the moral equality of the other, to include the other in political relationships that express equal respect and concern beyond equal citizenship. For Andrew Schaap, an agonistic (Arendtian) thinker, the “ideal of reconciliation is to open up a space for politics between former enemies.”20 Reconciliation as inclusion hence refers to more basic forms of politicization. Both agree, however, that a reconciled state of affairs is one in which previously hostile groups recognize each other as members of a shared political endeavor. Relevant measures include naturalization, a democratic constitution including universal suffrage and the guarantee of equal political rights, and the reform of structures that hinder the enjoyment of them. My takeaway from this account is the importance of political inclusion, involving equal rights and status, as an indispensable measure of structural reconciliation. But again, the paradigm of reconciliation reveals an even wider range of necessary measures. Political inclusion is key, but so is the transformation of attitudes and the making of a common political identity through measures of narrative reconciliation.

224  Henning Hahn 11.2.4 Narrative Reconciliation By this, I mean approaches which emphasize the reconciliatory importance of unifying political stories, meaningful self-interpretations, and identity politics. They give a direct response to the experience of political alienation. Above, I have introduced political alienation as a defective relationship to the political world, which has not only structural but partly conceptual causes. One fails to conceive of oneself as a political agent who plays a significant role in a meaningful political endeavor. Catherine Lu,21 who is mainly concerned with post-colonial injustices, develops an alienation-based conception of political reconciliation. She speaks of “existential alienation”22 to describe the cultural disconnection of first nations from their traditional social and spiritual world. For her, existential alienation points to “a form of inauthentic or alienated agency, a condition precipitated by the disruption and collapse of social and moral frames.”23 Narrative identities lose their guiding function and need to be readapted. For Lu, political reconciliation therefore requires structural as well as narrative measures. At the structural level, she calls for global historical justice; in particular, reparations for displacements. But she also makes use of the idea of narrative reconciliation, when she considers a “creative reinterpretation”24 of traditional identities. Narrative adaptation here makes a constitutive dimension of political reconciliation. Literally, the idea of a narrative reconciliation is advocated by Susan Dwyer.25 She explains that not only are human lives “led narratively”26— because they are constituted by identity-shaping personal stories—but that “nations have autobiographies, too.”27 And just as our personal selfunderstanding can be disturbed, “larger-scale narratives suffer disruptions as well.”28 This, according to Dwyer, happened in the case of South Africa. The primary concern there was to replace the narrative of apartheid with “post-apartheid stories of nonracialism and social equality.”29 Reconciliation thus means “narrative incorporation,”30 the joint endorsement of a political narrative which ascribes a meaningful and respected position to everyone. Corresponding measures include the construction of a “narrative equilibrium”31 among incompatible historiographies, the rewriting of textbooks, reinterpretation of constitutional texts, and so forth.32 According to the idea of narrative healing, the rewriting of the liberal script would provide an antidote to political alienation. Interestingly, this also concerns the role of political philosophy itself as an interpreter of its time, a Hegel-inspired idea that also found its way into John Rawls’ later writings.33 Rawls’ interest in political reconciliation goes back to unpublished lectures on Hegel from the 1960s and his Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy34 in particular.35 Later, this reconciliatory role increasingly defines Rawls’ own method. When he

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  225 explains the “four roles of political philosophy” in Justice as Fairness,36 the third role is supposed to calm our frustration and rage against our society and its history by showing us the way in which its institutions, when properly understood from a philosophical point of view, are rational, and developed over time as they did to attain their present, rational form.37 I will return to Rawls’ interesting notion of reconciliation later. At this point it should only have become clear that the narrative dimension of reconciliation is a constitutive element within a comprehensive theory of political reconciliation. In the following, “narrative reconciliation” means a reconstruction (or re-narration) of the political world through which it becomes understandable as a place of meaningful engagement— as an arena for joint political agency. 11.2.5 The Agency-Based Account of Reconciliation I take political agency to be the ultimate value of political reconciliation—and of political ethics in general. Similarly, Colleen Murphy38 has defined the normative core of political reconciliation as “reciprocal agency” insofar as Civil conflict and repressive rule systematically undermine the conditions in which political relationships can express reciprocity and respect for moral agency, or reciprocal agency. At its most general level, the goal of processes of political reconciliation is to cultivate political relationships premised on these values.39 In other words, the aim of political reconciliation is to institute conditions for exercising personal freedom of action. Respective measures entail the “rule of law, political trust, and support of individual capabilities.”40 Later, in The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice,41 Murphy still bases her theory on the value of “moral agency.”42 Transitional processes are to provide a “transformation of relationships among citizens into relationships premised on reciprocal respect for agency.”43 This again requires a robust rule of law, trust-building, and opportunities,44 all of which necessitates, for Murphy, a transition to democracy and opportunities for local participation.45 Regarding the normative foundations of political reconciliation, I have a similar take. There is a crucial difference, however, in speaking of political rather than moral agency, mainly because the envisioned reconciliation is more strictly tailored to the restoration of genuine political relations. Political agency means the capacity to shape public affairs together with others or, following Hannah Arendt, simply to initiate an act, freely and

226  Henning Hahn publicly.46 This implies the mutual recognition as fellow citizens, conationals, or likewise as members of a shared and meaningful political endeavor. I agree with Murphy that agency relies on rule of law, trust, and opportunities, all of which are measures of what I call “structural reconciliation.” But robust conditions of political agency require more: a cultivation of civil solidarity—that is the dimension of “attitudinal re­conciliation”—as well as the formation of a political identity that gives individuals good reason to understand themselves as members of a meaningful political endeavor—that is the dimension of “narrative reconciliation.” Taking all these elements together, I defend a three-dimensional, agency-based account of political reconciliation. Political reconciliation is an umbrella term for structural, attitudinal, and narrative measures that are co-constitutive for the restoration and maintenance of the conditions of political agency.

11.3 Principles of Political Reconciliation “Hatman” and “Denglish” pointed to typical relational wounds in liberal societies: resentments caused by political alienation and the erosion of solidarity due to a segregation of ways of life. The divide between Anywheres and Somewheres threatens the very conditions of political agency in liberal societies, the capacity to act as one people, nation, or other kind of political body. In this section, I spell out what this means for liberal societies. I will establish principles of structural, attitudinal, and narrative reconciliation, which, comparable with principles of justice, do not prescribe specific policies, but should guide policymaking in line with the aim of restoring conditions of political agency. To avoid misunderstandings, I add two caveats. First, reconciliation is not to be understood as perfect harmony. But even political conflict and diversity presuppose a degree of civil respect, trust in institutions, and a shared political identity. I shall deal with this particular objection in detail below. Second, conditions for political agency are a gradual matter. The point is to preserve a “good level;” yet what that means is to be specified within the respective contexts. The proposed principles for liberal societies thus remain vague—after all, they set a first step into an undertheorized field. a) Structural reconciliation: The goal of reconciliatory measures is not justice itself, but the renewal of flourishing political relationships. For this, however, justice provides an indispensable means. The dimension of structural reconciliation implies justice. In it, demands for justice are assessed according to how they serve the conditions for political agency on an institutional level (broadly understood). Following the rationale of structural reconciliation, we select from a list of established principles of justice those that qualify as correctives

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  227 to liberalism. Two of these suggest themselves to be particularly relevant, as they radically address causes of contemporary divides: the principle of participatory parity and the community principle. i. The principle of participatory parity, to take a formula from Nancy Fraser,47 demands political equality beyond equal suffrage. It calls for a deeper democratization, including the establishment of institutional arrangements necessary to ensure equal status, as well as material redistribution to guarantee the fair value of political rights.48 Democratization is “deep” when it enables profound forms of civic participation, thereby expanding the range and authority of political agency.49 If Hatman’s anger has a legitimate core at all, it lies in the experience of being politically excluded, meaning that he is not taken seriously as a peer and he is not in a social position to exercise political power himself. Somewheres lack access to interpretative power, are less visible in the media, and are under-represented in parliaments, all of which amounts to fertile ground for conspiracy theories about being controlled by a distanced elite. Commensurate measures of participatory parity would entail arrangements of civil respect and material distribution; most importantly, a deepening of political opportunities through subsidiarity, town hall formats, or direct democracy. ii. The community principle, introduced by G.A. Cohen,50 stipulates that economic and social disparities are only allowed to the extent that different groups continue to share an intersecting lifeworld. To put it bluntly, however, Somewheres and Anywheres tend to occupy different reservations. “Denglish” and “Hatman” illustrate the lack of a shared political agora in modern democracies, a place where people meet as political equals. This prevents the two tribes from developing feelings of solidarity and a shared political identity. Agora-building measures would include limiting material inequality and, centrally, reclaiming public spaces (starting with public schools, universities, and areas of urban or natural recreation) in which different groups care for commons and act together. ) Attitudinal reconciliation: The strongest case for a shift from jusb tice to reconciliation is the role it attributes to political emotions. As “Hatman” and “Denglish” demonstrate, the divide between Anywheres and Somewheres is largely based on hostile and alienated feelings. Somewheres feel ridiculed, ignored, and patronized, reacting with hate and resentment. An important dimension of political reconciliation is therefore to transform negative reactive attitudes into civil pro-attitudes.51 “Civic friendship” may sound exaggerated in this context, but political agency requires political solidarity, i.e., an attitude of basic respect and caring for members of a shared political

228  Henning Hahn

c)

endeavor. In the ethics of reconciliation, this corresponds with principles of civility and acknowledgment. i. The principle of civility calls for mindfulness in political discourse. It should neither prohibit nor deny an emotionalization of politics in general, but rather give it a civil, i.e., respectful, form. Civility means showing respect for the other as a political partner with whom we will continue to act together. “Hatman,” for one, revealed a destructive moralization in politics, leading on the one side to hate speech and on the other side to ridicule or demonization. In liberal societies, then, measures of attitudinal reconciliation aim at the moderation and de-moralization of political discourse, beginning with the prohibition of hate speech, a stricter control of social media, as well as a general civilization of the political tone, distinguished from mere political correctness. ii. The principle of acknowledgment demands that the person and cause behind a resentful reactive attitude are taken seriously. Going back to Bishop Butler,52 settled resentment is to be seen as an indicator of a moral injury. Anger is the raw material for building a sense of justice. In the face of widespread resentment, the principle of acknowledgement calls on us to presume a respectable cause even when, or precisely because, this resentment is unjustifiably articulated in a hateful, racist, or conspiratorial manner. When “Hatman” attacks democratic institutions, the media, or immigrants, acknowledgment does not require us to accept the content of these statements, but to respect the latent feelings of fear and alienation. Reconciliation here means listening, taking seriously the underlying experiences—albeit not their particular form of articulation—giving them a public forum and channeling them into modes of political confrontation, through talks, demonstrations, parties, and so forth. The most important reconciliatory measure, however, will be narrative: it consists in productively re-articulating the original anger in the form of legitimate claims for recognition, participation, or distribution. This brings us to the principles of narrative reconciliation. Narrative reconciliation aims to overcome political alienation in providing meaningful political perspectives. Defective relationships to the political world are caused by the inability to identify with, and play a significant role within, a meaningful political endeavor. For “Hatman,” the liberal script has lost its persuasive power. It does not tell a convincing story about why this freedom and demo­ cracy are valuable to him and how he can comprehend himself as a powerful member. The point is that relational defects are not only structural, but also conceptual. “Hatman” lacks a narrative that connects him with reasonable ways of political agency. Overcoming

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  229 political alienation therefore require measures of narrative reconciliation. This task falls to those who hold interpretative power—not least to political philosophy itself. As we have seen, Rawls’ political constructivism intents to reconcile a liberal people with the possibility and rationality of a realistic utopia. With distrust for the liberal project growing, however, narrative reconciliation can no longer be content with reconstructing an overlapping consensus, certainly not between liberal and illiberal positions. Rather, the role of political philosophy must be seen more creatively: in the rewriting of political identities. This process is guided by the principles of truth-telling and thick identification. i. The principle of truth-telling commits us to basing narratives on facts. On the one hand, this applies to verifiable truths, such as data about climate change. Telling the truth in these matters is simply a requirement for trustworthy political cooperation and a gesture of respect for the rational nature of the other. Things become more complicated, however, when it comes to truths that leave room for interpretation, such as truths about historical guilt or national fates. In such contexts, the notion of “restorative truth”53 has been introduced to denote the reasoned belief in a unifying narrative. Drawing on the precedent of South Africa, Leigh Johnson distinguishes different conceptions of truth used by the TRC. This includes “restorative” or “healing” truth in the “construction of an official, public and shared narrative,”54 on which South Africa’s national identity and unity rests.55 The (restorative) truth of political narratives is based not only on its coherent assemblage of facts, but also on its resonance for the personal stories of all members of the political endeavor. It resembles a pragmatist conception of truth in that its “truth” has “to be measured by what it could do, in this case, by how well it could contribute to the ethical and political work of national reconciliation.”56 For our case of re-narrating the liberal script, this means telling the truth about liberalism’s own history of exclusion, domination, and colonialization—and finding the true core of a new liberal narrative precisely here, in its ongoing history of unfreedoms. ii. The principle of thick identification requires a reinterpretation of political liberalism in ways that speaks to Anywheres and Somewheres alike. Contractualists can merely explicate the interest a rational person would take in principles of liberty or equality. Yet thick identification means that such presentations are to be imbedded within a narrative that makes liberalism (or its alternatives) comprehensible as a meaningful endeavor. Persuasive narratives usually evoke a history of emancipatory struggles, in which democracy and freedoms were won against

230  Henning Hahn shared experiences of oppression. One reconciliatory task of political philosophy would be to continuously integrate new phenomena of domination into the liberal script; that is, to speak the restorative truth about the diminishing value of once hard-won freedoms. Another way to create thick identification is to describe liberalism, in line with political republicanism or perfectionist liberalism, as the precondition of a valuable way of life. Only when they live in societies based on freedom and democracy, will people be able to realize themselves as political beings and agents. Thick identification thus requires that we not only recognize a possible political order as rational but that we value it as practically and ethically desirable.

11.4 Refuting Objections So far, I have introduced a three-dimensional, agency-based conception of political reconciliation and translated it into principles of structural, attitudinal, and narrative reconciliation. A shift from justice to reconciliation opens political philosophy to the politics of emotions and a more creative role in forming narrative identities. But this opening has met considerable criticism. In response, I will address particular doubts that reconciliation: (a) deceives justice; (b) is too harmonious; and (c) confuses the direction of fit between facts and norms. These are certainly not the only, but they are perhaps the most serious, objections. 11.4.1 Betrayal of Justice The first objection refers to the worry that reconciliation deceives justice; most notably, criminal or historical justice, for the sake of future peace and cooperation. Justice requires equal repayment, while the idea of reconciliation replaces just punishment with forgiveness, amnesties, and/or mercy. Hence, processes of reconciliation tend to suspend the question of guilt. Perpetrators are excused, thereby wronging the victims. I should therefore clarify the connection between justice and reconciliation more carefully. As I have previously indicated, these reservations apply mainly to the peacebuilding phase of reconciliation. In my three-dimensional approach, instead of treating reconciliation as an antithesis of justice, I regard justice, including just punishment, as an indispensable means of structural reconciliation. Reconciliation is the overarching normative perspective; but it implies justice by specifying which understanding of justice is appropriate under what non-ideal conditions. If this order seems unusual, it is because political philosophy has (too) long been preoccupied with fairly reconciled societies. In successful

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  231 systems of social cooperation, demands for distributive or political justice come to the fore. In transitional phases, in postwar scenarios or in the aftermath of ethnic atrocities, however, it may be warranted to set liabilities aside. But justice is not simply tantamount to punishment. Depending on the overriding rationale for reconciliation, demands for justice may focus on social equality and criminal justice in well-ordered states, whereas justice assumes the more particular meaning of restorative or transitional justice in post-conflict scenarios.57 As I see it, then, political reconciliation is the normatively prior category, whereas justice marks the prime measurement of structural reconciliation. This may not convince many justice theorists. Fortunately, in view of increasing social divides in liberal societies, I only have to defend the weaker thesis that reconciliation is more fundamental under exceptional circumstances. With regard to such contexts, a shift of the normative paradigm seems rather uncontroversial. As Susan Dwyer notes: “The rhetoric of reconciliation is particularly common in situations where traditional judicial responses to wrongdoing are unavailable.”58 Exceptional contexts change our view on and beyond justice. Analogous to Hume’s definition of circumstances of justice, circumstances of reconciliation occur when political relations become dysfunctional and conditions of political action erode.59 Hence, the rationale for reconciliation kicks in when… i) we are confronted with large-scale injustices, irresolvable con flicts, or joint threats that ultimately undermine political agency (severity-condition). ii) political relationships are destabilized by distrust, de-solidarization, or enmity (hostility-condition). iii) political narratives vary widely among relevant ethnic or national groups or have generally lost their meaning-giving and identity-shaping force (political-alienation-condition). iv) the parties are connected through a shared political endeavor which makes it practically necessary and/or ethically desirable to restore beyond a mere modus vivendi (community-of-fate-condition). In short, it is not the gravity of conflicts alone that triggers reconciliation measures, but the general state of political relationships. Circumstances of political reconciliation arise whenever large-scale distortions undermine conditions of political agency. The point is that this could apply not only to civil wars or post-colonial conflicts, but also to a broader range of cases, including divides in liberal states. For the liberal case, it is important to understand political reconciliation as an ongoing struggle to develop, defend, and improve conditions of political agency; a struggle that has, pace Fukuyama, no historical cut-off point.

232  Henning Hahn 11.4.2 False Harmonism A second worry concerns alleged illiberal consequences of my approach. At first glance, reconciliation means closing conflicts and striving for a communitarian kind of homogeneity. What any shift to reconciliation apparently ignores is that political arguments and diverse lifeforms are constitutive for pluralist societies. This charge can take three forms. It points to a general problem with my consensus-oriented understanding of politics, and especially criticizes its ignorance of reasonable and deep disagreements. This criticism, however, mainly refers to what has been called the “social-unity-conception” of reconciliation,60 while leaving my political conception of reconciliation unaffected. The difference is that political reconciliation does not presuppose ethical reconciliation, i.e., no conformity of personal feelings or individual lifeforms. That is why political reconciliation is certainly compatible with an agonistic understanding of politics, as Chantal Mouffe,61 for example, advocates. Let me explain. The agonistic view understands “the political” as an arena of radical, but productive struggles. Under this criticism, measures of reconciliation aim to silence conflicts and hence close “the political.” But even the agonistic model requires the maintenance of political spaces in which radical democracy takes place—which again requires political reconciliation. Political struggle presupposes a basic level of political solidarity, trust in institutions, and political identity, i.e., general concern for the other as an opponent within the same political project. The political conception of reconciliation therefore does not exclude political struggles or demand the uniformity of political opinions, but instead requires the recognition of common political foundations. The same argument applies to the second, more specific objection that reconciliation tends to level reasonable disagreements. Such disagreements can only grow in a pluralistic structure, compliance with which depends on political reconciliation. In addition, there must already be in place a criterion for distinguishing between reasonable and unreasonable beliefs, where common acceptance of such a criterion again presupposes a sufficient degree of narrative reconciliation. Only when, thirdly, deep disagreements are involved, is further differentiation necessary. By definition, deep disagreements are constituted by irreconcilable opinions—for example, in our case of liberal and illiberal mindsets. Of course, I am not suggesting finding a consensus between, say, racism and liberalism. Just as there are moral limits to tolerance, there are moral limits to reconciliation, too, defined by the equality and freedom of the person. This moral standpoint holds independently, but it also follows from the agency-based approach. Mutual recognition as free and equal members is a necessary condition for the maintenance of political agency. On the other hand, although reconciliation excludes

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  233 the toleration of illiberal positions, it does not treat its proponents as enemies. This is another contrast to the justice perspective. Reconciliation begins with the attempt to change irreconcilable views, i.e., to acknowledge their underlying experiences, detaching them from their resentful, structural, emotional, and narrative anchoring and transforming them into reasonable opinions. Where this transformative work fails, zero reconciliation remains the ultima ratio. 11.4.3 Perverted Direction of Fit Apparently, reconciliation requires us to adapt our understanding of the world as it should be to the world as it is. In particular, the idea of narrative reconciliation expects us to come to terms with reality. But this reverses the direction of fit between facts and norms. Theories of justice first clarify what is ideally warranted and then, in a second step, examine how we can approach this ideal under non-ideal conditions. The approach of reconciliation, in contrast, appears to be conservative and uncritical. This problem reaches back to Hegel who conceived of political philosophy as reconciliatory self-therapy, as an adaptation of our conceptional schemes to reality. It is found in Rawls when he ascribes to political philosophy the role of reconciling us with the reasonableness of our political possibilities, and it apparently persists in my proposal to reform political narratives so that they correspond to actual conditions of political agency. However, Rawls himself departs from Hegel and paves the way for a tenable answer. As he makes clear at the end of his The Law of Peoples, the reconstruction of a realistic utopia serves to overcome what can well be called political alienation—misconceptions that disturb our ability to relate to the political world in meaningful ways. To this end, a liberal people will be reconciled with its political possibilities in ways that motivate political agency: While realization is, of course, not unimportant, I believe that the very possibility of such a social order can itself reconcile us to the social world… For so long as we believe for good reasons that a self-sustaining and reasonably just political and social order both at home and abroad is possible, we can reasonably hope that we or others will someday, somewhere, achieve it; and we can then do something toward this achievement. This alone, quite apart from our success or failure, suffices to banish the dangers of resignation and cynicism.62 Rawls’ concern is to overcome experiences of alienation (resignation and cynicism) by reconciling our ideal (a reasonably just order) with our political agency (we can do something toward its achievement).

234  Henning Hahn Narrative reconciliation does just that. It tells stories of a possible world, for which it is worth making an effort. Eventually, however, my proposal goes beyond Rawls’ in that its full-fledged approach to narrative reconciliation not only demonstrates the rationality and reasonableness of a potentially just world; narrative reconciliation also means telling the story in ways that promote thick (emotional) identification, even if this departs from contractualist modes of presentation. So, my answer to the problem reads: yes, narrative reconciliation wants us to come to terms with given possibilities, but the reason for this remains normative—namely, the liberating of political agency as the basic value of political ethics; and second, this is to be seen as a progressive enterprise, since we should not reconcile with the world as it is, but with the world as it (realistically) could be.

11.5 Outlook For a conclusion, let me come back to Kevin Baker: The Trump movement… responds to an increasing sense of isolation and alienation caused by the weakening of these lower-order communities in American society… [I]ts quality as a mass political movement actually represents a further working out of this isolation and alienation in American life. In short, while the Trump movement did not cause the erosion of communities—it rather is caused by that erosion—neither is it a remedy for that erosion.63 Baker explains the rise of right-wing movements as symptoms of structural divides and political alienation in liberal countries. This double pathology requires a threefold reconciliation process: structurally, via just institutions; attitudinally, via the cultivation of civil respect and solidarity; and narratively, through the identification with a shared and meaningful political endeavor. My argument comes down to the conclusion that the task to reconcile liberal societies leads us beyond justice. However, the revival of nationalism does not offer a convincing narrative alternative, since the causes of social divides and alienation have long crossed borders. The same holds for more promising narratives such as the social imaginaries of Europe or the tale of the end of history due to a final triumph of liberalism. Perhaps we must look out for non-Western sources such as Zhao Tingyang’s64 reactualization of the Confucian idea of all-under-heaven (tian-xia). In it, he outlines the narrative of a global order in which not only persons or nations, but the world as a whole obtains political agency. In any case, a first step toward global political reconciliation would be to include marginalized voices, inside and outside of liberal societies.

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  235

Notes 1 Kevin Baker, “Nothing in all creation is hidden: Why America needs truth and reconciliation commission after Trump,” The New Republic, May 17, 2018. 2 Cf. David Goodhart, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (London: C. Hurst & Co, 2017). 3 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 118. 4 For a philosophical analysis of the work of the TRC, cf. David Dyzenhaus, “Survey Article: The South African TRC,” Journal of Political Philosophy 8, No. 4 (2000); Leigh M. Johnson, “Transitional Truth and Historical Justice: Philosophical Foundations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” International Studies in Philosophy 38, No. 2; Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, “The Moral Foundations of Truth Commissions,” in Truth vs. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) and others in Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 5 An overview of the most important objections can be found in Catherine Lu, “The Case against Reconciliation,” in Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 185–188; Colleen Murphy, A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, 8–25 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Colleen Murphy and Linda Radzik, “Reconciliation,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, 2015). Mostly, however, criticisms are directed against either an interpersonal forgiveness-conception of reconciliation (instead of a political one) or some overdemanding social-unity-conception, cf. Catherine Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 186. 6 Cf. Paul M. Hughes, “Moral Atrocity and Political Reconciliation: A Preliminary Analysis,” International Journal of Applied Philosophy, No. 15 (2001) and Rajeev Bhargava, “The Difficulty of Reconciliation,” Philosophy and Social Criticism, No. 38 (2012). 7 Cf. Catherine Lu, “Reconciliation and Reparations,” in The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, online 2015). 8 Cf. Murphy, A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, 2010. 9 Cf. David Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 10 Cf. Andrew Schaap, Political Reconciliation (New York: Routledge, 2005). 11 Cf. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 69; cf. From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, ed. Yaacov Bar-Simon-Tov (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 12 Rajeev Bhargava et al., Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis F. Thompson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) and Murphy, A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, 9–13. 13 Cf. Martha Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness. Resentment, Generosity, Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 14 Cf. Charles Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 15 Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness. Resentment, Generosity, Justice, 57. 16 Cf. Christel Fricke 8ed.), The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays (New York: Routledge, 2011); Paul M. Hughes, “What Is Involved in

236  Henning Hahn Forgiving?” Philosophia, No. 25 (1997) and Norman Richards, “Forgiveness,” Ethics, No. 99/1 (1988). 17 Accordingly, Barrett Emerick, “Forgiveness and Reconciliation,” in The Moral Psychology of Forgiveness (London, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 117, states that “reconciliation is fundamentally bilateral (whereas forgiveness is fundamentally unilateral),” cf. also Jeremy Watkins, “Unilateral Forgiveness and the Task of Reconciliation,” in Res Publica 21/1 (2015). 18 In his defense of necessary trade-offs, Desmond Tutu (1999) seems to suggest that reconciliation requires an understanding of structural tragedy. From this perspective, even the torturers of the secret police were ultimately victims of a dehumanizing apartheid system. 19 Darrel Moellendorf, “Reconciliation as a Political Value,” Journal of Social Philosophy 38, No. 2 (2007), 206. 20 Andrew Schaap, Political Reconciliation (New York: Routledge, 2005), 20. 21 Cf. Catherine Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 22 Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics, 183–184. 23 Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics, 184. 24 Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics, 209. 25 Susan Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” Ethics and International Affairs 13 (1999). 26 Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” 86. 27 Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” 87. 28 Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” 88. 29 Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” 88. 30 Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” 89. 31 Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” 89. 32 In a similar vein, Andrew Schaap, Political Reconciliation, stresses “the redemptive power of narrative.” For him, “story-telling reconciles us to the irrevocable consequences of action by revealing our isolated doings and sufferings as part of a coherent whole” (Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 124). 33 The best interpretation of Rawls’ Hegelian turn to the philosophy of reconciliation comes from Jörg Schaub, an English translation of this is long due. See Jörg Schaub, Gerechtigkeit als Versöhnung. John Rawls’ politischer Liberalismus (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2009). 34 Cf. John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge, US: Harvard University Press, 2000). 35 Here, he reads Hegel’s ethics as a program to reconcile freedom with reality: “Hegel thinks that the most appropriate scheme of institutions for the expression of freedom already exists. It stands before our eyes. The task of philosophy, especially political philosophy, is to comprehend this scheme in thought. And once we do this, Hegel thinks, we will become reconciled to our social world” (Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, 331). 36 John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), § 1. 37 Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, 3. 38 Murphy, A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, 2010. 39 Murphy, A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, 28. 40 Murphy, A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, 28. 41 Cf. Colleen Murphy, The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 42 Murphy, The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice, 35. 43 Murphy, The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice, 34.

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  237 4 Murphy, The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice, 34. 4 45 Murphy, The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice, 35. 46 Political agency, thus understood, resembles Axel Honneth’s notion of social freedom (2015), the freedom of democratic minds that have learnt to form mutually reinforcing intentions. cf. Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015). 47 Cf. Nancy Fraser, “Recognition without ethics,” Theory, Culture, Society 18 (2001). 48 “According to this norm, justice requires social arrangements that permit all (adult) members of society to interact with one another as peers. For participatory parity to be possible, I claim, at least two conditions must be satisfied. First, the distribution of material resources […] Precluded, therefore, are social arrangements that institutionalize deprivation, exploitation, and gross disparities in wealth, income, and leisure time, thereby denying some people the means and opportunities to interact with others as peers. In contrast, the second condition requires that institutionalized patterns of cultural value express equal respect for all participants and ensure equal opportunity for achieving social esteem.” Fraser, “Recognition without ethics,” 93–94. 49 The formula of “deep democratization” has also been introduced elsewhere (Johnston, 2014), though I do not follow Johnston’s definition. 50 Gerald A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 51 Cf. Daniel Bar-Tal and Gemma H Bennink, “The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and a Process,” in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 52 Cf. Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel… To which are added Six Sermons, Preached on Publick Occasions, London: J. and P. Knapton, 4th edition, in The Works of Bishop Butler (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006). 53 Cf. Leigh M. Johnson, “Transitional Truth and Historical Justice: Philosophical Foundations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” International Studies in Philosophy 38, No. 2 (2006). 54 Johnson, “Transitional Truth and Historical Justice: Philosophical Foundations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” 86. 55 From this, Johnson himself distinguishes what he calls narrative truth: the authentic experiences of the victims, which, when recorded by the Commission, become official truths (Johnson, “Transitional Truth and Historical Justice: Philosophical Foundations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” 86). 56 Johnson, “Transitional Truth and Historical Justice: Philosophical Foundations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” 87. 57 As Desmond Tutu has put it: “I contend that there is another kind of justice—restorative justice which was characteristic of traditional African jurisprudence. Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment, but - in the spirit of Ubuntu—the healing of breaches.” Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 51. 58 Dwyer, “Reconciliation for Realists,” 82. 59 In a similar vein, Colleen Murphy distinguishes “four circumstances of transitional justice. These are widely recognized as characteristic of paradigm transitional societies: pervasive structural inequality, normalized collective and political wrongdoing, serious existential uncertainty, and fundamental

238  Henning Hahn uncertainty about authority.” Murphy, The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice, 41. 60 Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics, 186. 61 Cf. Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso, 2013). 62 John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 128. 63 Kevin Baker, “Nothing in all creation is hidden. Why America needs truth and reconciliation commission after Trump,” in The New Republic (New York: Kerrie Gillis, 2018). 64 Cf. Tingyang Zhao, “A political world philosophy in terms of All-underHeaven (tian-xia),” Diogenes 56 (2009).

Bibliography Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Baker, Kevin. “Nothing in all creation is hidden. Why America needs truth and reconciliation commission after Trump.” The New Republic, May 2018. New York: Kerrie Gillis, 2018. [https://newrepublic.com/article/148270/ nothing-creation-hidden.] Cosmopolitan Democracy. An Agenda for a New World Order. Edited by Daniele Archibugi and David Held. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation. Edited by Yaacov Bar-Simon-Tov. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Bar-Tal, Daniel, and Gemma H. Bennink. “The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and a Process.” In From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, 11–38. Edited by Yaacov Bar Siman-Tov. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Bhargava, Rajeev. “The Difficulty of Reconciliation.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 38 (2012): 369–377. Bhargava, Rajeev. “Restoring Decency to Barbaric Societies.” In Truth v. Justice, 45–68. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Braithwaite, John. “Repentance Rituals and Restorative Justice.” Journal of Political Philosophy 8, 115–131. 2000. Butler, Joseph. Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel…To which are added Six Sermons, Preached on Publick Occasions, London: J. and P. Knapton, 4th. In The Works of Bishop Butler. Edited by D. White. 1749. Reprint. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006. Cohen, Gerald A. Why Not Socialism? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Crocker, David. “Truth Commissions, Transitional Justice, and Civil Society,” In Truth vs. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions, 99–121. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Dwyer, Susan. “Reconciliation for Realists.” Ethics and International Affairs 13 (1999): 81–98. Dyzenhaus, David. “Survey Article: The South African TRC.” Journal of Political Philosophy 8, no. 4 (2000): 470–496.

Political Reconciliation in Liberal States  239 Emerick, Barrett. “Forgiveness and Reconciliation.” In The Moral Psychology of Forgiveness, 117–134. Edited by Kathryn J. Norlock. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Fraser, Nancy. “Recognition Without Ethics.” Theory, Culture, Society 18 (2001): 21–42. Fricke, Christel (Ed). The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays. New York: Routledge, 2011. Griswold, Charles. Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Goodhart, David. The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. London: C. Husrt & Co, 2017. Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson. “The Moral Foundations of Truth Commissions.” In Truth vs. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions, 22– 44. Edited by Robert Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Hampton, Jean, and Jeffrie G. Murphy Forgiveness and Mercy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Honneth, Axel. Freedom’s Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Hughes, Paul M. “Moral Atrocity and Political Reconciliation: A Preliminary Analysis.” International Journal of Applied Philosophy 15 (2001): 123–133. Hughes, Paul M. “What Is Involved in Forgiving?” Philosophia 25 (1997): 33–49. James, Aaron. Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Johnson, Leigh M. “Transitional Truth and Historical Justice: Philosophical Foundations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” International Studies in Philosophy 38, no. 2 (2006): 69–105. Kiss, Elizabeth. “Moral Ambition Within and Beyond Political Constraints: Reflections on Restorative Justice.” In Truth vs. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions, 68–98. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Lu, Catherine. Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Lu, Catherine. “Reconciliation and Reparations.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War. Edited by Seth Lazar and Helen Frowe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Lu, Catherine. “Shame, Guilt and Reconciliation After War.” European Journal of Social Theory 11, no. 3 (2008): 367–383. Maier, Charles S. “Doing History, Doing Justice: The Narrative of the Historian and of the Truth Commission.” In Truth vs. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions, 261–278. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Moellendorf, Darrel. “Reconciliation as a Political Value.” Journal of Social Philosophy 38, no. 2 (2007): 205–221. Mouffe, Chantal. Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically, London: Verso, 2013. Murphy, Colleen. The Conceptional Foundations of Transitional Justice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Murphy, Colleen. A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

240  Henning Hahn Murphy, Colleen, and Linda Radzik. “Reconciliation.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2015. [https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo. cgi?entry=reconciliation.] [Accessed October 19, 2020]. Nussbaum, Martha. Anger and Forgiveness. Resentment, Generosity, Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pettit, Philip. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Philpott, David. Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice, revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Rawls, John. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Rawls, John. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Richards, Norman. “Forgiveness.” Ethics, 99, no. 1 (1998): 77–97. Schaap, Andrew. Political Reconciliation. New York: Routledge, 2005. Schaub, Jörg. Gerechtigkeit als Versöhnung: John Rawls’ politischer Liberalismus. Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2009. Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation. Edited by Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Tutu, Desmond. No Future without Forgiveness. New York: Doubleday, 1999. Watkins, Jeremy. “Unilateral Forgiveness and the Task of Reconciliation.” Res Publica 21, no. 1 (2015): 19–42. Young, Iris M. Responsibility for Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Zhao, Tingyang. “A political world philosophy in terms of All-under-Heaven (tian-xia).” Diogenes 56, no. 1 (2009): 5–18.

Afterword* James Garrison

When this project was first conceptualized, no thought was given to anything other than shedding light on the political world from the perspective of intercultural philosophy. Why should political philosophers think of things other than political philosophy? (That is a pretty big topic after all.) Like so many others, we erred. Our error was incredibly human and indeed underscores the sad irony of how people read Aristotle’s dictum that humans are the “political animal.”1 We humans emphasize the first term, but not the second. We editors (again, like so many others) overlooked the animal, which is to say the biological. And, 2020 has, if nothing else, shown the depth of the error. 2020… what is one to say in reaction to this? Well, this project was conceived of well before this year that will live in infamy, and the content was largely finished when lockdowns, hand sanitizer, masks, isolation protocols, death rates, and the daily loss of many valuable dollars and of many much, much more valuable persons all became part of our collective everyday reality. And so, this project bears naturally marks of the “before time.” Despite this, the volume’s contribution still speak to the new, post-pandemic reality by using an intercultural perspective on political philosophy to anticipate the contours and fissures of globalization as a process, as the unfolding of “being with.” The circumstances of how we exist with each other may have radically changed, but this rupture has brought new-found attention to what it means to be with others, and in this regard, the ground is well prepared, at quite some price, for precisely this kind of intercultural philosophy. However, prior to our current moment, a great deal of the plural histories of philosophy has conceived of politics within limited horizons where * James Garrison, writing on behalf of the editorial team of himself, Bianca BotevaRichter and Sarhan Dhouib ORCiDs—Garrison: 0000-0002-9173-9075, BotevaRichter: 0000-0001-9674-9910, Dhouib: 0000-0003-2553-1150.

242  James Garrison the physical planet that humans (and not just humans) inhabit, i.e., the globe, far outstrips the world of people’s immediate concern (i.e., “the known world”). As we examine the “global world” mentioned in our subtitle, what we are truly dealing with is this new-found circumstance where the human world, i.e., the world of the typical person, stretches across the globe. Just as Foucault observed that the industrial age has expanded individuals temporally and given large numbers of people the power to commemorate their existence that used to be reserved to royals,2 so too has the physical domain of the individual human expanded such that it is no longer just Habsburg emperors on whose territory the sun never sets. A typical person nowadays may not rule the world like an emperor, but they nonetheless have a world spans the globe, with trade, environment, data, security, and public health being just five of the most prominent vectors connecting this now-global world. As such, it is no longer acceptable to think of political philosophy in terms of violent encounter, in terms of incommensurability between oneself and some cultural “Other.” This kind of talk might have made sense when it was only a few royal, if not entirely regal, individuals exercising sovereign power over largely isolated citizenries for whom the world seldom extended past the home village. In the here and now, political philosophy must be rethought as an enterprise and where the world is concerned it simply is untenable with citizens whose worldly interest increasingly spans the globe even from the physical comfort of their homes. The COVID pandemic might mean that people are increasingly isolated in those homes and away from the streets and public forums wherein we typically think that our being with others transpires, but if anything, the way in which we each individually conceive of our existence involves other people ever more intimately than before, as the great majority of people are aware that their own survival now depends on how other people, even halfway around the globe, inhabit physical space. With this in mind, even though it was conceived of in the before times, Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective offers real insight into the challenges that emerge in the hereafter. And with this background, Raúl Fornet-Betancourt summarizes the point of view that underlies our intentions as editors in bringing this volume together and highlights the merits of shifting perspectives on the world, an issue made all the more urgent recently, where he writes: All of this means precisely reversing the question or transitioning from the model of conflict with demands recognition to a model of grateful acceptance of the other. Because with this changed logic one regains the “naturalness” of the feeling that the first thing that one owes to “the Other” is gratitude, because “the Other” enables human life with their participation.3

Afterword  243 It may not be a comprehensive solution, but a shift in perceiving the task of political philosophy such that the enterprise becomes intercultural because of its affirmation of “the Other” stands a good chance of addressing long-standing problems from around the world. Now it must be recognized that the pandemic has not just shed new light on the political dimensions of the philosophical issue of being with others, it has perhaps shocked and overwhelmed our collective vision, if at least temporarily. Reading this volume in light of these events, these pieces together now cannot help but present the idea that the world, for all of its power and frailty, never was a thing, even less a thing that might have ever been ready at hand. Instead, process characterizes the world as such. The globe may be a given (though, as we have found recently, the globe vis-à-vis nature perhaps should not be thought of as given to us without a big, wild panoply of other factors being at play). The globe may be, but the world is always in the making. Insofar as we might (errantly) think of the world as a thing: Yes, the world stopped. Yes, it is true that there was an ontological shift between old world and new world (this is why talk of “the beforetime” requires little explanation). Yes, to a certain extent the political world that we address does not exist anymore. However, did it every really exist in the first place? The answer is “no,” the world did not and has not existed. Why? Simply put, the world is not a being; it is a becoming. The world has been and continues to be always in the making, unfolding through existence together with others. This was so in the before times and our efforts here, in their various ways, draw attention to the way in which the world not only is or has been constructed (which might imply that this construction occurred in the past), but the way in which the world is and forever will be under construction. How will this proceed? Building the always new world, with its never final order, and doing this with others and affirming being with others is not easy. The existential and the psychological are in conflict. Being with others may be unavoidable, but eons of sedimented psychology that narrow the individual world down to one’s self, one’s family, one’s clan, one’s tribe, one’s group, one’s nation, one’s culture likewise cannot be set aside. The existential and the psychological are each natural, resulting in the classic conflict between unstoppable force and immovable object (or in Chinese a “zi xiang maodun 自相矛盾,” a conflict between the world’s strongest spear and the world’s strongest shield). As the editorial team commits changes to manuscripts and reflects on this volume, we do so in the shadow of deadly terror attacks in Vienna that occurred immediately before the imposition of another phase of pandemic-related lockdown. The majority of the editorial team have spent significant parts of their respective lives in the city and are acutely

244  James Garrison aware that the world, for bad and for good, is inevitably being made and remade in each and every moment that we exist with each other. How this is to unfold amidst humanity’s existential and psychological contradictions is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the psychology that metastasizes in terror as well as in more commonplace expressions of narrow self-interest will win out. However, it will run into the existential truth that being with others is unavoidable and thus into a contradiction. Now, elementary logic holds that anything follows from a contradiction, which is to say that anything is possible for us as ridiculously contradictory humans. So, since “anything is possible,” then let us affirm what it means to be with others. Let us see then how good of a world we can establish upon the boundless and truly awesome field of human potential.

Notes 1 Aristotle, Politics, trans. Ernest Barker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 1253a. 2 Michel Foucault, Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), 194–195. 3 Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, “Intercultural Philosophy as Philosophy for Better Human Conviviality,” in Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective: Power Relations in a Global World, eds. Bianca Boteva-Richter, Sarhan Dhouib and James Garrison (New York: Routledge, 2021).

Bibliography Aristotle, Politics. Translated by Ernest Barker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Foucault, Michel. Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.

Index

Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes numbers Abe, Shinzō 205, 207, 209 Achebe, Chinua 35 active democracy, and dignity 23–24 Adachi, Nobuko 70 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi 38 Adorno, Theodor W. 76n33, 80, 84–85 Adotevi, Stanislas Spero 44–45 affective change, challenge of 9–10 affiliation 63, 67; emotional 73; multiple 33, 34, 36, 39, 51; political 150 Africa: definition 47; see also idea of Africa African identity: and Afropolitanism 51–52; and globalization 33–57; and negritude 51–52 African National Congress Freedom Charter 93 Afropolitanism 33; and African identity 51–52; and dignity 33–34; as expression of African modernity 41–43; framing concept of 35–43; and idea of Africa 47–48; theoretical background 34–35 Agamben, Giorgio 151 alienation 79, 219–220; epistemic 135; existential 224; political 218, 220–221, 224, 226, 228–229, 231, 233–234 Allsobrook, Christopher 79–101 Althusser, Louis 80 Améry, Jean 62–64, 71, 74n9 Ames, Roger T. 182 Amselle, Jean-­Lou 34 Anderson, Benedict 36

Antelme, Robert 151 apartheid 81, 89, 93, 221; governmentality of 81; and narrative reconciliation 224 Arab Charter on Human Rights (1994) 19 Arendt, Hannah 63, 151, 153, 197, 201, 225 Aristotle 241 Authoritarianism: and Confucianism 182–185; in Hong Kong 185–188 Avila, Mariela 150, 151 Awondo, Patrick 34–35 Badiou, Alain 25 Baker, Kevin 218, 234 Baumeister, Andrea 115 Bell Pottinger 84 Benhabib, Seyla 25, 114 Benjamin, Walter 151 Bennett, Thomas William 93 Bhabha, Homi K. 34 Bielefeldt, Heiner 14–15, 18, 19, 21 Biko, Steven Bantu 96 black diaspora studies, epistemological shift in 33, 34 Boele van Hensbroek, Pieter 47 Bohman, James 115–116 Boteva-­Richter, Bianca 61–78 Bourdieu, Pierre 133 Bourguiba, Habib 17 Breese, Elizabeth Butler 112–113 Briceño, Lesley 153–154 Bulo, Valentina 154 Butler, Joseph 228 Butler, Judith 80

246 Index Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990) 19 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, “great world theatre” 5, 11n6 Calveiro, Pilar 157, 160n31 capabilities, concept of 128 capital: cultural 219; symbolic 130, 133, 134 Cavarero, Adriana 155 change: affective see affective change Charfi, Mohamed 17 China and Hong Kong 177–180; historical overview 170–173 Chomsky, Noam 25 coexistence 3–4; bad 5, 8; improving 6–7 cohabitation, human 3–9 Cohen, Gerald A. 227 Cohen, Joshua 110 colonialism, and ideological displacement 93–94 colonization 137; cultural context of 90 comfort women 197; beginning of issue of 202; South Korea and Japan 202–209 communication 8; argumentative 112–116; manipulative 109, 117, 118; public 106–110, 120; rational 107; theory of 125 concentration camps 150–152 Confucianism 170; and authoritarianism 182–185; and political unrest 180–182; and remonstrance 182–185 Confucius 180, 181, 183 conviviality 3–4, 24; as participative reciprocity 9 Cooper, Anna Julia 52 Corbi, Josep E. 156 COVID-­19, 173, 185–186, 242–243 criticism: double see double criticism Crocker, David A. 200 cultural differences, and minority claims 112–118 cultural impoverishment 125–148; definition 126–129; and democratic transition 137–142; and education 138–139; and injustice 129–136; and process of modernization 139–141 cultural pluralism: and Afropolitan creative writers 35; and universality of human rights 19

cultural poverty 125, 128 cultural studies, epistemological turn in 34 cultures: dialogue between 21; expert 125; homogenization of 33, 48; hybrid 34–35; interaction between 7, 51; local 133, 142; pluralism of 19; protest 180 decolonial approach, and dignity 25–26 decolonization 27, 90, 93, 97; aftermath in Africa 82; governmentality of 88 Deleuze, Gilles 34 deliberation: public see public deliberation democracy: see also active democracy; nominal 24; procedural 24 democratization 23–24; deep 227; process in Tunisia 15, 140; rise in South Korea 202 Deng Xiaoping 171, 181 Derrida, Jacques 34 Deveaux, Monique 117 Dhouib, Sarhan 13–32 Diagne, Souleymane Bachir 48, 50 Dictatorships: and imprisonment 151; and political philosophy 149; Southern Cone 149–165 differences: cultural see cultural differences diglossia 137 dignity 52; and active democracy 23–24; and Afropolitanism 33–34; concept of 22–26; and decolonial approach 25–26; and human rights 22–23; and negritude 33–34 displacement 79–101; ideological see ideological displacement; of indigenous knowledge systems 86 diversity 37, 134, 141, 226; cultural 21, 24, 35, 36, 38, 41, 50, 105; of opinion 183; racial 45; religious 20; unity in 9 domination 97; cultural 47, 135, 141; imperial 48, 88, 90; irrational 80–82; and liberalism 229–230; linguistic 137; social 133–134; socio-­economic 129; total 153; Western extraterritorial 172 double criticism, methodology of 22, 26–27 Dwyer, Susan 224, 231

Index  247 education: colonial 85, 96; and cultural impoverishment 127, 133, 138–140; and minority groups 105, 111; performance gaps 132; quality of 130–131 Ellacuria, Ignacio 4 Elster, Jon 118 Empowerment: communicative 105, 107, 108, 120; minority 105 epistemicide 86–88, 135 Eurocentrism 25 Europe, provincialization of 34 exclusion: cultural 133–134, 137; social 133 experience of injustice, paradigmatic role of 13–32 extraversion 142; cultural 136; epistemic 136

Gadamer, Hans-­Georg 61 Garrison, James 169–195, 241–244 Geuss, Raymond 80 Gilroy, Paul 35 globalization 23, 35, 48, 241–242; and African identity 33–57; perceived as threat 219; Western 128, 142 Goodhart, David 219 governmentality 96; of apartheid 81; of decolonization 88; neo-­colonial 86 Griswold, Charles 222 guilt: collective 199; historical 229; legal question of 222, 230; perpetrator’s acknowledgement of 198; and responsibility 199, 201

Hahn, Henning 188, 218–240 Hall, Ruth 95–96 Hall, Stuart 35 Hamidou Kane, Cheik 35 harmony: social see social harmony Hashimoto, Ryutaro 206 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 5–6, 11n14, 42, 169, 174–179, 224, 233, 236n35 Hegemony: cultural 79, 128, 129, 134, 135; epistemic 128, 135 Heidegger, Martin 34, 61, 76n42 Heimat 61–73 Herr, Ranjoo Seodu 114–115 Hershock, Peter D. 182 Höffe, Otfried 20–21 Hölderlin, Friedrich 5 Home: in exile and return 67–69; intersubjective 73; and language 64–66, 73; meaning of 61–73; and migration 62–64, 74n5; as new place 72–73; as place 69–71; and spirituality 66–67; as un-­place 71–72; value in global world 61–78 Hong Kong and China 177–180; historical overview 170–173 Honneth, Axel 11n11, 11n14, 133 Hook, Derek 92 Hornby, Donna 96 Hountondji, Paulin 136 Hu Jintao 181 human rights: declarations of 15–16, 19; definition 13, 14; and dignity 22–23; global institutionalization of 18–19; intercultural justification of 21; neutral justification of 20–21; normative power of 17; ratification of 19; regional 18–19; transculturality of 14; transcultural justification of 21–22; transcultural universality of 19–22, 26–27; universality of 13–14, 18–22; universalization of 13–32 Hume, David 231 hybridity 48, 50; and Afropolitan creative writers 35; cultural 33, 36, 40 hybridization 49

Habermas, Jürgen 11n11, 25, 105, 108, 110, 111, 118–119, 125–126, 134 Haddad, Tahar 139, 145n60 Hadj Salem, Mohammed 141

idea of Africa: and Afropolitanism 47–48; and negritude 47–48 identity: African see African identity; African literature on 35; self-­ conscious see self-­conscious identity

Figueroa Ibarra, Carlos 160n31 Fishkin, James S. 109 forgiveness 92, 196, 198–201, 207, 221; and reconciliation 222–223, 230 Fornet-­Betancourt, Raúl 3–12, 242 Foucault, Michel 34, 80, 87, 96, 151, 180, 242 Frankl, Viktor 151 Fraser, Nancy 113, 227 Freud, Sigmund 42, 85–87, 89–90 Fricker, Miranda 125–126

248 Index ideological displacement, and colonialism 93–94 ideology: critique of 83–85; definition 80; displacement mechanism of 80–88; late capitalist 80–81 impoverishment: cultural see cultural impoverishment; hermeneutical 125–126 imprisonment: political see political imprisonment indignation 25 injustice: cognitive 134; and cultural impoverishment 129–136; experience of see experience of injustice; global 125–148; past see past injustice interculturality 6 intercultural philosophy, for better human conviviality 3–12 intersubjectivity 63–64, 69 James, Michael Rabinder 116–117 Jara, José 149 Joas, Hans 15 Johnson, Boris 173 Johnson, Leigh M. 229 justice 129; as equity and equilibrium 94; paradigm of 218; and reconciliation 221, 224, 226–231, 234; restorative 237n57; theories of 126, 220, 233; transitional 237n59; universal 90–91 Kant, Immanuel 21 Kasanda, Albert 33–57 Katō, Norihiro 199 Kepe, Thembeka 95–96 Khatibi, Abdelkebir 22 Kim Young-­sam 205 Kong Zi see Confucius König, René 68, 76n33 Kumagai, Naoko 196–217 Küng, Hans 20 Kuschel, Karl Josef 20 Lai, Jimmy 185 Lam Cheng Yuet-­ngor, Carrie 186 Lam Wing-­kee 172 land, question of 79–101 land discourse, as ideology 79–80, 82, 85, 96–97 language, as home 64–66 leadership, political 201 Lebenswelt 7

Le Breton, David 154, 156 Lee Bo 172 liberalism 234; and thick identification 229–230 liberal societies, divides in 219–221 liberal states, and political reconciliation 218–240 life experience 7 Lohmann, Georg 19, 21, 22 López, Loreto 151 López, Maria José 152 López Perez, Ricardo 157 Lu, Catherine 222, 224 Mabana, Kahiudi Claver 47–48 Magashule, Ace 84 Makariev, Plamen 105–124 Mallol Comandari, Cristián 157 Malpas, Jeff 87 Mao Zedong 181, 186 marginalization 126, 135, 136, 142, 220, 223; identity 127 Marrades, Julina 154, 157 Martí, José 11n9 Marx, Karl 42, 80 Master-­Slave Dialectic, Hegelian 169–170, 175, 177 Mayer, Hans see Améry, Jean Mbembe, Achille 33–36, 38–43, 47–49, 51, 88 meaning, ontological 7–8 Memmi, Albert 137 mestizo, the 49 Meyer-­Bisch, Patrice 125–126 migration, and home 62–64, 74n5 minority claims, and cultural differences 112–118 minority groups, as publics 118–120 modernity 25; Afropolitanism as expression of 41–43 modernization, process of, and cultural impoverishment 139–141 Moellendorf, Darrel 223 Montealegre, Jorge 152 Morsink, Johannes 15, 27n7 Mosbah, Salah 25–26 Moseley-­Braun, Carol 114 Mouffe, Chantal 232 Moulián, Tomás 156 Moya, Laura C.V. 157 Mudimbe, Valentin-­Yves 34 Mugabe, Robert 83 Murphy, Colleen 222, 225–226, 237n59

Index  249 nationalism 35, 105, 197, 234 Negri, Antonio 25 negritude 33; and African identity 51–52; and dignity 33–34; as discourse of African identity 43–47; and idea of Africa 47–48 Nkrumah, Kwame 82 Nouss, Alexis 49 Nozick, Robert 91 Nussbaum, Martha 222 Nyerere, Julius 82 Oliveira, Luciano 160n31 Olivier, Abraham 87–88 Ortega y Gasset, José 7 Otero, Edison 157 “Other, the” 170, 242; accommodating acceptance of 9–10; gratitude towards 9, 242–243; and self-­conscious identity 174–180 Ouattara, Bourahima 46 Park Geun-­hye 207 Pasha, Kheireddin 139, 145n59 Passeron, Jean-­Claude 133 past injustice, responses to 13–32 Paz, Octavio 5 Paz, Olga Alicia 160n31 Pérez Vilar, Natalia 158 philosophers, obligation of 5 philosophy: definition 4–5; intercultural see intercultural philosophy; need for 6; sensibility for 5 Philpott, David 222 Picasso, Pablo 42 pluralism: cultural see cultural pluralism political imprisonment, Latin American 149–165 political unrest, and Confucianism 180–182 poverty: cultural see cultural poverty; definition 127–128 powerlessness 43, 220; experience of 15 PRC see China public deliberation, theory and practice of 106–107, 109–112, 115–118 public sphere model 118–120 Pucherová, Dobrota 35

race 37, 42, 44–46, 52, 80 racism 44–46, 79, 232 Raffin, Marcelo 151 Ramaphosa, Cyril 84 Ramose, Mogobe 87, 90–95 Rawls, John 112, 113, 220, 224–225, 229, 233–234 Reconciliation: agency-­based account of 225–226; attitudinal 227–228; as forgiveness 222–223; in international politics 196; narrative 224–225, 228–230; objections to 230–234; as peacebuilding 221– 222; political 197–201, 218–240; as political inclusion 223; political, principles of 226–230; and politics 196–217; and postwar individual compensation 196–197; structural 226–227; theories of 220–221 religiosity 141 remonstrance: and Confucianism 182–185, 188; in Hong Kong 185–188 responsibility: acknowledgement by perpetrator 222; ethic of 198; and guilt 199, 201; legal 197, 204–205, 207–208; moral and criminal 157; personal 24; political 200 Ricœur, Paul 11n11 rights: human see human rights Rojas, Baeza Paz 156 Said, Edward 34 Santana, Stephanie Bosch 38 Santos, Boaventura de Sousa 134–135 Santos Herceg, José 149–165 Sartre, Jean-­Paul 43–45, 87 Schaap, Andrew 197, 200–201, 222, 223 Schaub, Jörg 236n33 Schelsky, Helmut 76n33 Scherz, Luis 149 Schmidt, Carl 197 secularism 140 Selasi, Taiye 33, 35–38, 48, 49, 51 self-­conscious identity, and “the Other” 174–180 Sen, Amartya 128 Senghor, Léopold Sédar 33, 43–52 Serbaji, Mongi 125–148 slavery 16, 23, 44, 114; abolition of 39; compensation 90; sexual 203; see also Master-­Slave Dialectic Sloterdijk, Peter 85–87, 94

250 Index Sobukwe, Robert 93 social harmony, Confucian notion of 181–186 societies: liberal see liberal societies spirituality, as home in motion 66–67 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 25 states: liberal see liberal states Suddath, Virginia 180 Taylor, Charles 11n11 theories of recognition, inadequacies of 8–9 Thomas, Lynn 42 torture 162n74, 162n75, 163n76, 163n77; experience of victims of 155–157; during Southern Cone dictatorships 153–158 Touraine, Alain 3 transculturality, of human rights 14, 18–22 Triki, Fathi 23–24 Tunisian Pact on Rights and Liberties (2012) 14–17, 22–23 Tutu, Desmond 85, 236n18, 237n57 Tu Wei-­Ming 187 ubuntu 87, 92–95 UNESCO 129, 130 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 14, 15, 27n7 Universalism: Western see Western universalism

universality of human rights: and cultural pluralism 19; see also human rights: universality of universality, transcultural 14 unworthiness, feeling of 25 Uribe Botero, Ángela 156 Valadez, Jorge 116 Valech Report 149–150 Victimhood: excessive 200; Japan’s sense of 199; radicalized 201; use by Korean activists 209–210 Vidal, Hernán 154 Vorster, John 88 Watsuji, Tetsurō 63, 74n10, 198 Weber, Max 198 Western universalism, critiques of 34 Williams, Melissa S. 113–114 Wimmer, Franz Martin 188 wisdom, love of 4–5 World Bank 127, 131 Xi Jinping 172, 181 Yeats, William Butler 181 Zhao, Tingyang 234 Zheng Yanxiong 185 Žižek, Slavoj 25 Zuma, Jacob 84, 96