More on Group Forgiveness

During World War II, the National Socialists of Germany perpetrated a systematic extermination attempt against the Jewish people of Europe. Throughout much of the twentieth century, South African citizens of European ancestry oppressed, with the writ of law, the black members of their country through the structure of apartheid. When both of these travesties thankfully ended, each left a group of victims and a group of aggressors, whose relationships were understandably unpleasant and complex. Simon Wiesenthal and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, bring unique perspectives to these relationships, and offer their readers important questions about the nature of evil, justice, and forgiveness. One of the issues raised is the idea of group forgiveness, commonly understood to be the phenomenon of a victimized group, in some sort of consensus, forgiving their perpetrators. It is this paper’s argument that this understanding of group forgiveness is flawed, illogical, and impractical; a far better understanding recognizes the forgiveness of a group as a series of individual decisions to forgive rather than an abstract general sense of forgiveness among a group’s members.
In The Sunflower, Wiesenthal describes an incredibly difficult moral dilemma into which he was pushed. As a Jewish prisoner of a concentration camp, Wiesenthal had no choice but to agree to come to a makeshift hospital at the behest of the Nazis. There, he found a mortally wounded German soldier, a member of the Schutzstaffel, who told Wiesenthal the lurid story of a massacre of Jews in which he had taken part. The dying soldier wanted to confess his crimes to a member of the Jewish community, and also to be forgiven. Wiesenthal, confused, angered, and distraught leaves the man in silence, and returns to the camp. The incident haunted him for the rest of his life, and the writing of The Sunflower was his presentation of his dilemma to the world. Other cultural luminaries were asked to respond, and their responses are varied. Like many of Wiesenthal’s Christian responders, I would have told the soldier “I forgive you,” but not without a number of qualifications. Wiesenthal’s hesitation is perfectly legitimate, because what the SS man was asking him to do raised the frustratingly complex specter of “group forgiveness.”
When Wiesenthal returned to the concentration camp, he relayed the story of the SS man to his fellow prisoners. His friend Josek responded to the story by claiming that Wiesenthal was right to be silent: “You would have had no right to [forgive him] in the name of people who had not authorized you to do so. What people have done to you yourself, you can, if you like, forgive and forget.” Wiesenthal responds by asking “But aren’t we a single community with the same destiny, and one must answer for the other,” (Wiesenthal, 65). This may make a nice sentiment, but it is not true. The fact that Wiesenthal survived the Holocaust while other Jews did not suggests that members of the Jewish community did not share the same destiny. Josek is technically correct; in no way can Wiesenthal claim to forgive the man in the name of those who had died.
Even so, Wiesenthal ought to have forgiven the man because the soldier had, indeed harmed him. The Nazi had not personally committed a harmful action against Wiesenthal. However, the nature of his agency, as a Nazi and a member of the SS, indirectly victimizes all members of the Jewish community. By perpetrating a crime against victims because they belonged to a certain group, the SS man was denying the dignity of that group, and therefore violating the humanity of Wiesenthal himself. While the man was asking for forgiveness for the specific crime, the fact that he asked another Jew for forgiveness is significant. By asking a Jew for this forgiveness, the Nazi showed that he understood that his crime had, in a way, been against the entire Jewish people. It is in this regard that Wiesenthal could have legitimately forgiven the SS man, both for his implicit denial of Wiesenthal’s dignity in the specific act of the massacre and for his long-term violation of Wiesenthal’s rights when he acted in the capacity of a loyal Nazi soldier.
Had Wiesenthal, as a Jew, forgiven the Nazi, this would not be an occurrence of “group forgiveness” for several reasons. First, group forgiveness implies that the entire victimized group (or at least a representative portion, though I contend this later) must forgive their oppressors. Wiesenthal’s telling the man “I forgive you” would not affect the other millions of Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis. Secondly, group forgiveness can also mean the forgiveness of an entire oppressing group. The fact that Wiesenthal was even considering forgiving the man, and not completely ignoring him, was because the Nazi had expressed sincere remorse and repentance. Wiesenthal forgiving that one man would not by any means suggest that he had forgiven all of the members of the schutzstaffel or all Nazis or Germans. It means that a single Jew would have forgiven a single Nazi, in the natural personal and individual nature of the act of forgiveness.
Imagine, for a moment, that Wiesenthal (or any other Holocaust survivor) decided to forgive all the Nazis; no longer would this person harbor negative emotions toward any Nazi in his heart, and he may even make motions toward reconciliation. This is, I believe, as close to “group forgiveness” as is possible in the world, that is, a forgiveness of a guilty group as a whole, by an individual. However, just as Wiesenthal could not forgive the dying soldier on the behalf of those he had murdered, a single Holocaust victim could not forgive all the Nazis for each crime they had committed. He can only justly forgive all the Nazis because the Nazis, by virtue of their decision to be a loyal member of this party, had implicitly denied his human worth and dignity. Besides those crimes committed by specific Germans which had directly harmed him, these are the only offenses that the victim can forgive. To claim otherwise is to ignore the rights of the other victims, and their claims to justice.
Groups like European Jews, “Aryan” Germans and black South Africans are by nature, large and incredibly complex. Each of these groups consists of millions of individual people, each who hold their own beliefs, values, and priorities. In an event such as the Holocaust or apartheid, each member of these groups is involved, whether victimized or oppressing, and whether by direct behavior or guilty passivity, all individuals have a stake in the matter. So in the aftermath of one of these travesties, when is it accurate to say that the victimized group has forgiven their offenders? What does it mean to say this? When one encourages a group to forgive, it is unreasonable to expect that all will do so; considering that many victims of the group may be dead, it may be impossible to do so. All one can do is encourage all members of a group to engage in individual, personal forgiveness of their aggressors. Talk of a group forgiving another has the potential to alienate those victims who do not feel sufficiently satisfied to begin the process of forgiveness, and to pressure individuals into flawed and even dangerous forms of “forgiveness.” For large groups of “aggressor” status, it can be unjust to characterize them as “forgiven,” when not all group members were guilty in the first place. This situation occurs when membership of an aggressor group is one of birth, and not of choice, such as race or ethnicity. Not all “Aryan” Germans actively participated in the Holocaust, and many even worked actively against it. By stating that the German people have been forgiven, without qualification, implies that the German people are all guilty and to blame for the travesties. This is injustice. It ignores those who strove against the injustices, but also abrogates the justice of the truly guilty by grouping them with other less culpable individuals.
There may be rare exceptions to my case, wherein one person can recognize the guilt of a group and ask for forgiveness on the part of the group. This is especially the case when membership in a group is a conscious choice or decision. Membership in a political party and to a faith may fall into this category. For example, throughout its history the Roman Catholic Church, in its institutional leadership and lay members, has fostered anti-Semitic sentiments that in turn allowed such atrocities as the slaughtering of Jews during the Crusades. However, the modern era has greatly freed the Church from such backwards and wrong beliefs, but the leader of the modern Church still felt compelled to apologize for them. Pope John Paul II, though he held none of these poisonous opinions, publicly apologized for them on the behalf of the Church and all of its members. “As bishop of Rome and successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love, and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place,” (John Paul II, 1).
Does this action support belief in the existence of historical group guilt? Only because of Catholic belief in the communion of saints, the unity between the Church Militant and Triumphant, on earth and in heaven, is John Paul justified in his apologizing for beliefs neither he, nor any sizable proportion of his flock hold. Just as it is wrong to expect all whites to feel guilt and require forgiveness when a Klansman assaults a minority, it is dangerous to toss around phrases like “group guilt” and “forgiveness” without recognizing, appropriately, true guilt and responsibility. An entire group ought only to be considered guilty, and therefore requiring forgiveness, if a wrong was committed on its behalf and according to its beliefs, with the acceptance, at least through the knowledgeable passivity, of all its members. Likewise, when a wrong is perpetrated against one person because of their membership in a certain group, all members of that group have been wronged, and its individual members have the ability (and responsibility) to forgive. “Group forgiveness,” as it is commonly understood (an understanding inaccurate to this author) is really only total and complete when every member of the victimized group offers accepted forgiveness to every perpetrator; sheer size of groups renders this nearly impossible, while the fact that many victims are dead makes it completely impossible.
I wish here to extend my criticism of the ideal of group forgiveness by exploring its praxis in one of its most visible practical applications: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was the chairperson of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, defends forgiveness, and specifically political “group” forgiveness, as influenced by his overt Christian religion in his book No Future Without Forgiveness. The Commission, under the direction of Tutu, heard the public confessions of those individuals who had committed politically motivated crimes under the structure of the racist apartheid system. Those who confessed, and proved the political motivations of their crimes, were given legal amnesty. Repentance was not a necessary aspect of this process, which should alert one to the fact that forgiveness may not really be found widely in this system: “For if the applicant was effusive in his protestations in being sorry… he would have been condemned for being totally insincere… If, on the other hand, he was somewhat abrupt and merely formal, he would have been accused of being… not really repentant,” (Tutu, 50). Where political “forgiveness” is concerned, Tutu states rightly that it is impossible to expect logistically all perpetrators to be repentant. When an applicant actually receives amnesty, it has absolutely no bearing on whether or not his individual victims forgive him. To say that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fostered widespread forgiveness on the part of the South African community is simply inaccurate, and without basis in the facts (See Chapman’s statistics below).
A more general idea of truth commissions may be helpful in understanding this topic. Audrey Chapman describes truth commissions as “temporary bodies mandated by governments or international agencies to investigate and make findings about acts and patterns of violence and gross human rights violations that took place during a specified period of time,” (Chapman, 257). Truth commissions are, for areas and nations that have been torn by oppression, actually useful and productive, if simply for logistical reasons. Tutu describes them as a “third way” between Nuremburg trials and blanket amnesty. To be sure, when an event with the scope and scale as large as apartheid takes place, to criminally prosecute each offender is unreasonable and counterproductive. Chapman cites the figure that fewer than 6,500 of 90,000 cases brought to trial against Nazis resulted in an actual conviction, (Chapman, 258). At the same time, it is a great injustice to simply grant total amnesty to offenders. For that reason, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission worked on a certain level: it provided enough amnesty to allow for society to continue to function with its members, but did not repress or ignore the events of the past. The truth aspect of its mission was carried out well; reconciliation proves to be a more elusive target.
Tutu views the Commission as a great step in forgiveness politics, recounting emotional stories of victims forgiving their perpetrators who confessed in the Commission. While this may very well be true, and may have led to further reconciliation among the parties, it by no means proves the validity of the “group forgiveness” argument. Each of these examples is an individual account of forgiveness; this is of course natural, as forgiveness is a personal phenomenon. Even if one were to accept some sort of proportional figure as representative of a proportion of a population engaging in group forgiveness, South Africa may not at all be a good example. Considering that 38 percent of the victims supported criminal prosecutions over the commission’s amnesty, it is difficult to paint a picture of a group that has completely forgiven their aggressors.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty and relative lack of support for victims left a sour taste in the mouths of many South Africans (Chapman, 269). Tutu’s overwhelming religious sentiments may have pressured victims into feeling the need to forgive instead of voicing legitimate anger or rage at the outrages of the apartheid system. Neither of these factors helps to promote real forgiveness among the individual victims and their offenders. The forum itself, while useful for bringing truth to light and at least shaming offenders, fails when it attempts to foster group forgiveness as group forgiveness is not an actual phenomenon; it is an oversimplification of a series of complex individual decisions, among a group’s members, to forgive those who have personally victimized them. “Public hearings of the type the TRC organized do not offer an appropriate setting for effecting deep and genuine forgiveness between victims and perpetrators,” (Chapman 270).
Theologian Miroslav Volf suggests that forgiveness is not complete unless entered into by both victim and perpetrator. A victim can offer forgiveness, as God does to each sinner, but the forgiveness only becomes complete when the offender accepts the forgiveness through some form of repentance. Likewise, simply because some victimized South Africans chose to forgive their offenders does not necessarily mean that group forgiveness took place. One of the greatest disappointments out of the many that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fostered was the fact that white South Africans were largely unresponsive toward its goals. Even after the work of the commission was presented to the country, only 18.9 percent of white South Africans acknowledged themselves as “beneficiaries of the apartheid order,” (Chapman, 274). The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as far as forgiveness is concerned, is found wanting.
Ervin Staub and Laurie Ann Pearlman, in a discussion of the Rwandan genocide, ask important questions about the nature of group forgiveness. “We have to ask, forgive whom? What of different kinds of perpetrators: the planners, those who killed, others who in some way assisted in or benefited from the killings? What of members of the perpetrator group who have not perpetrated violence but are implicated by membership… and many of them by their passivity?” (Staub and Pearlman, 213). My answer is that all of these should be forgiven by victims, each in reference of their personal guilt to the individual victim. The forgiveness that may occur in such a situation is an amalgamation of individual decisions and actions, in reference to other individual perpetrators, even if they remain faceless, nameless, and anonymous.
Volf finds exploration of the end times to be pertinent to discussions of how humans live now, including how we forgive. “If the world to come is to be a world of love then the eschatological transition from the present world… includes… the final social reconciliation,” (Volf, 94). For Volf, perpetrators’ salvations are found in their victims’ mercy, and these acts of forgiveness, rather than being general or abstract, are intensely personal. However, these personal acts of forgiveness result in what “group forgiveness” portends to create: a “final social reconciliation,” the total and complete restoration of justice and mercy that will occur, by Christ, at the end of the world, the eschaton.
As these examples and explorations show, it is wrong to reduce the complex and sophisticated individual decisions to forgive in a group to some sort of general forgiveness zeitgeist. A victim of group oppression can forgive those who personally harmed him, as well as their remote superiors, and those people who were complicit by passivity. Each of these harmed him personally, whether by an actual harmful action or their lack of respect for the victim’s dignity, and ought to repent and be forgiven. But lumping them together into a group of perpetrators, and putting all of the members of an oppressed group into one general victim does injustice to the truth: while an overarching system of oppression may have existed that fostered these actions, the actual harm of oppression takes place in the brutal and intensely personal violations of human dignity that occur and require forgiveness. To pretend otherwise is almost unforgivable.


Bibliography
1. Wiesthenal, Simon. The Sunflower. 1997, 1998. Shocken Books: New York.
2. Tutu, Desmond. No Future Without Forgiveness. 1999. Image Doubleday: New York.
3. Pope John Paul II. “Speech at Yad Vashem.” 3/23/2000, accessed 3/13/2007. < http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/what_new/data_pope/speech.html”
4. Chapman, Audrey. “Truth Commissions as Instruments of Forgiveness and Reconciliation.” Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 2001. Templeton Foundation Press: Philadelphia.
5. Staub, Ervin, and Pearlman, Laurie Anne. “Healing, Reconciliation, and Forgiving after Genocide and Other Collective Violence.” Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 2001. Templeton Foundation Press: Philadelphia.
6. Volf, Miroslav. “The Final Reconciliation: Reflections on a Social Dimension of the Eschatological,” Modern Theology 16 (2000).