Description
This collection examines what happens when one country’s experience of dealing with its traumatic past is held up as a model for others to follow. In regional and country studies covering Argentina, Canada, Japan, Lebanon, Rwanda, Russia, Turkey, the United States and former Yugoslavia, the authors look at the pitfalls, misunderstandings and perverse effects–but also the promise–of trying to replicate atonement. Going beyond the idea of a global or transnational memory, this book examines the significance of foreign models in atonement practices, and analyses the role of national governments, international organisations, museums, foundations, NGOs and public intellectuals in shaping the idea that good practices of atonement can be learned. The volume also demonstrates how one can productively learn from others by appreciating the complex and contested nature of atonement practices such as Germany’s, and also by finding the necessary resources in the history of one’s own country.
Table of Contents
1. Replicating Atonement: The German Model and Beyond; Mischa Gabowitsch.- Part I Norms and Yardsticks.- 2. A Japan that Cannot Say Sorry?; Franziska Seraphim.- 3. “Best Practices” of Global Memory and the Politics of Atonement in Lebanon; Sune Haugbølle.- Part II The European Union and the Politics of Atonement.- 4. Lost in Transaction in Serbia and Croatia: Memory as Trade Currency; Lea David.- 5. Turkish Vergangenheitsbewältigung: The Unbearable Burden of the Past; Ayhan Kaya.- Part III Atonement Models as Springboards.- 6. Which commemorative models help? A case study from post-Yugoslavia; Jacqueline Nießer.- 7. Coming to terms with the Canadian past: Truth and reconciliation, Indigenous genocide, and the post-war German model; David B. MacDonald.- Part IV Distorted Representations.- 8. Murambi is not Auschwitz: The Holocaust in representations of the Rwandan genocide; Małgorzata Wosińska.- 9.“Meanwhile in Argentina”: Cross-References and Distortions in Latin American Memory Discourses; Ralph Buchenhorst.- Part V Occidentalist Atonement.- 10. Memorial miracle: Inspiring Vergangenheitsbewältigung between Berlin and Istanbul; Alice von Bieberstein.- 11. Mourning and Warning: Soviet Intellectuals and German Atonement; Mischa Gabowitsch.- Part VI Personal Experiences.- 12. From guilty generation to expert generation? Personal reflections on second post-war generation West German atonement; Anja Mihr.- 13. Notes After Mississippi; Susan Neiman.
