November 9, Germany's Friday the 13th

Ultimately, if there is a single day in modern German history—and perhaps even in world history—that warrants reflection, it is November 9. This upcoming November 9 marks the twentieth anniversary of an event that numerous scholars consider the most significant occurrence in modern world history: the fall of the Berlin Wall. But there are other November 9ths too—for example, 1938, when Kristallnacht, "The Night of the Broken Glass," occurred—and for millions of people these other anniversaries form an umbra that envelopes the later date. For East Germans, November 9 means reunification with their families in West Germany; indeed it symbolizes new freedoms to speak out, to travel to places beyond the Wall. For German Jews—and also Jews around the globe—November 9 still means terror in the streets, shattered synagogue windows, and broken storefront glass. So what ought Germans—and all of us—remember? How can we celebrate the anniversaries cherished by one group—and not deepen or reopen wounds suffered by another group whose memories are somehow connected with the anniversary? John Rodden is the author of The Walls that Remain: Eastern and Western Germans Since Reunification (2008), Textbook Reds: Ideology, Schoolbooks, and Eastern German Identity (2006), and Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse: A History of Eastern German Education, 1945–95 (2002), among other books. His newest work is Dialectics, Dogmas, and Dissent: Stories of East German Victims of Human Rights Abuse (forthcoming). Notes 1. Yes, this is "realism," and it does involve power, but it is not Realpolitik as we normally understand the word in international relations. It is a "realism" that remains connected to the heart. What makes apologies realistic and effective in promoting reconciliation is a rebalancing of power between the offender and the offended. The offenders are diminished when they apologize; they give the offended the power to forgive. An apology acknowledges that a moral norm was violated and it reestablishes the common moral ground between offender and offended. We often want our adversaries, our "victimizers," to grovel and to make public restitution. This is understandable. But our insistence on that, in the face of their refusal to do so, enchains us, renders us victims stuck in the past. We may decide to cut our losses—but so long as we do not forgive and reconcile, we have reached only a point of accommodation with our past, not a real letting go. We have not yet moved on, we have simply adopted a detour, a modus vivendi. To be released to a new future from the burden of the past, and to experience transformation, we must forgive—but forgive and remember selectively: seeing all, looking at all, but also consciously over looking that which would continue to imprison us. The steps of this arduous, uphill path are lined with alleys of anger and roadblocks of rage. For most of us, "the path of heart" will be in need of repeated retracing. On these and other challenges on "the path with heart," see my "The Road Not Yet Taken: Forgiveness, Education, and Public Policy," Modern Age 46 (4) (Fall 2004). 2. In the course of time, I hope that a formal program of "education toward forgiveness" becomes a central part of a social studies curriculum. It has already entered the schools under the rubric of "diversity," but too often this notion has inculcated attitudes of victims versus victimizers, of moral superiority, and of indignant rejection of others' claims to past hurts. We must reject the idea of privileged victims. Instead we should promote diversity as a way of understanding the Other, especially the language and culture and history of the Other, which can only be achieved by empathy and compassion. And so education towards forgiveness and tolerance will not simply mean a begrudging tolerance, but rather the full acceptance of Otherness. The burdens of forgiveness and reconciliation on the injurer and the injured are by no means always equal or symmetrical. Indeed the burden of forgiving placed on injured parties—in fact the double burden on the injured, who have had to shoulder the greatest wounds and now are called also to participate in forgiveness—cannot be overestimated. This is a special historical challenge for Jews, for blacks, and for many other races and peoples. I believe that educators can introduce a pedagogy of forgiveness into the curriculum as a way of promoting healing and reconciliation within families and the family of nations. Yes, let us educators write such a revolutionary sequel to Dostoevsky's novel. And let us title it: Forgiveness and Reconciliation. We need to take seriously the possibility in our public affairs and in our lives—as we so often admire in great art—that forgiveness does indeed yield results: it reconciles people. Forgiveness is not just for religious people, let alone merely for Sunday School sermons, because it can and does work—as psychologists and social workers have attested. Because it heals, forgiveness has a practical place in the conduct of secular and international affairs. Ultimately, a pedagogy of forgiveness moves beyond theology and private affairs to inform a political ethics, indeed a social psychology, in which healing and reconciliation are central. This does not entail that statesmen become therapists, but rather that they understand that the psychology of group identity bears a close, if complex, relationship to that of personal identity. To promote a forgiveness process beyond the realm of religion to diplomacy, and beyond ethics to geopolitics, means ultimately that policy makers must become peacemakers. See, for instance, Donald W. Shriver, An Ethics for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)

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