The Stanford Daily - April 23, 2010

By Caity Monroe

“The important thing is not to let your heart grow cold while keeping your head cool.”

It was with this assertion that Helen Stacy, a senior lecturer in law, introduced José Zalaquett, Chilean lawyer, legal scholar and human rights defender, at his lecture on Thursday evening.

The quote, spoken by Zalaquett in a previous interview, was an apt way to acquaint the audience with a man who, despite being exiled for 10 years and having encountered thousands of stories of oppression and mass atrocity, demonstrated a mastery of balancing idealism and realism — all while maintaining an evident sense of morality and empathy.
“I do believe that law and ethics correlate a lot,” he said. “They are in my view like overlapping circles…and that area of overlap may be more or less considerable.”
Most of Zalaquett’s lecture focused on transitional justice and the various options for repairing and reconstructing a nation in the aftermath of mass atrocity. Zalaquett is renowned for his work defending human rights in his home country during General Augusto Pinochet’s oppressive regime. Having served on Chile’s National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Zalaquett has first-hand experience with the importance of acknowledging atrocities and revealing the truth — however grim it may be.

“The idea that these atrocities may be left in the dark is repugnant to basic moral principles,” he said.

Stanford history Prof. James Campbell and political science Prof. Terry Karl provided commentary on Zalaquett’s lecture. Both sided with him on the importance of truth and recognition post-atrocity. However, all three also agreed that there are certain restrictions on truth’s ability to prevail and on the capacity of post-conflict societies to both uncover and subsequently handle such knowledge.

“One of the things that alarms me is that the more normal truth commissions become and the more normal some qualified amnesty provisions become…the more difficult it becomes to bring persecution to perpetrators of mass atrocity,” Campbell said, highlighting, as all three speakers did at some point during the event, one of the commonly-cited problems of such situations.

Dealing with complex issues of ethnic cleansing, mass atrocity and genocide is difficult and it appears that the general consensus on the matter is that there is no ideal solution.
Zalaquett depicted the transitional justice dilemma as necessary and promising, yet did so in a realistic framework.

“It’s a human endeavor, and human endeavors fail more than they succeed. Which is all the more reason to try over and over again,” he said.

This acknowledgment of some of the political and logistical restrictions that limit post-atrocity negotiations was one thing that students most appreciated about the lecture.
“This guy is amazing…He is one of the first people who acknowledged the idea that you have political constraints in post-conflict scenarios, and you have to deal with it,” said Cristina Brandao, a student SPILS fellow in the law school’s masters program. “This is, in my opinion, what makes him so important… somebody has to say this.”

Another part of the talk that appealed to many in attendance was the way in which Zalaquett spoke of acknowledgement. He emphasized that there is knowledge, and there is acknowledgement. In her comments after Zalaquett’s presentation, Karl added that such acknowledgement is particularly difficult for big powers like the United States that have been complicit in many different human rights violations.

“I really liked his distinction between acknowledgment and knowledge,” said Lila Kalaf ‘10. “We know that our government does some pretty messed up things all the time, but we don’t acknowledge it. And the step between knowledge and acknowledgment is so huge for Americans…it probably causes a lot of upheaval because once you acknowledge something, it usually starts to require action.”

In spring 2009, the Forum on Contemporary Europe (FCE) and the Division on Languages, Civilizations and Literatures (DLCL) delivered the first part of its multi-year research and public policy program on Contemporary History and the Future of Memory.  The program explored how communities that have undergone deep and violent political transformations try to confront their past.

Despite vast geographical, cultural and situational differences, the search for post-conflict justice and reconciliation has become a global phenomenon, resulting in many institutional and expressive responses. Some of these are literary and aesthetic explorations about guilt, commemoration and memorialization deployed for reconciliation and reinvention.  Others, especially in communities where victims and perpetrators live in close proximity, have led to trials, truth commissions, lustration, and institutional reform. This series illuminates these various approaches, seeking to foster new thinking and new strategies for communities seeking to move beyond atrocity.

Part 1: Contemporary History and the Future of Memory

In 2008-2009, this multi-year project on “History and Memory” at FCE and DLCL was launched with two high profile conference and speaker series: “Contemporary History and the Future of Memory” and “Austria and Central Europe Since 1989.”  For the first series on Contemporary History, the Forum, along with four co-sponsors (the Division of Literatures, Civilizations, and Languages, principal co-sponsor; the department of English; The Center for African Studies; Modern Thought and Literature; the Stanford Humanities Center), hosted internationally distinguished senior scholars to deliver lectures, student workshops, and the final symposium with Stanford faculty respondents.

Part 2: History, Memory and Reconciliation

In 2009-2010, we launch part 2 of this project by adding “Reconciliation” to our mission.  We are pleased to welcome the Human Rights Program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law as co-sponsor of this series.  This series will examine scholarly and institutional efforts to create new national narratives that walk the fine line between before and after, memory and truth, compensation and reconciliation, justice and peace. Some work examines communities ravaged by colonialism and the great harm that colonial and post-colonial economic and social disparities cause.   The extent of external intervention creates discontinuities and dislocation, making it harder for people to claim an historical narrative that feels fully authentic.  Another response is to set up truth-seeking institutions such as truth commissions. Historical examples of truth commissions in South Africa, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Morocco inform more current initiatives in Canada, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, and the United States.  While this range of economic, social, political and legal modalities all seek to explain difficult pasts to present communities, it is not yet clear which approach yields greater truth, friendship, reconciliation and community healing.  The FCE series “History, Memory, and Reconciliation” will explore these issues.

The series will have its first event in February 2010. Multiple international scholars are invited.  Publications, speaker details, and pod and video casts will be accessible via the new FSI/FCE, DLCL, and Human Rights Program websites.

Series coordinators:

• Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi
• Helen Stacy
• Saikat Majumdar
• Roland Hsu

Twenty years have passed since the Berlin Wall fell and Angela Merkel – then a budding politician who grew up in communist East Germany – first saw the potential and promise of a free world.

Now the chancellor of Germany, Merkel says freedom can only flourish with international cooperation aimed at making the world safer, cleaner and more economically stable.

"Freedom and solidarity and partnership belong together," Merkel told a capacity crowd at Stanford's Dinkelspiel Auditorium on Thursday after being introduced by President Emeritus Gerhard Casper. "They must be indivisible for us to be able to master the challenges ahead."

But Merkel's speech – the only one she delivered during a four-day trip to the United States – showed that those alliances often come at a cost. Speaking hours after four German troops were killed in fighting in Afghanistan, Merkel expressed her condolences while calling the war a "mission that guarantees our freedom and security."

"It is a sad experience for us in Germany," she said. "It is an experience we share with you in the United States."

With polls showing the war becoming increasingly unpopular in Germany, Merkel said she accepts and respects "doubts" about whether the conflict is necessary or right. But her commitment to fighting the war is unwavering.

She told the audience at Dinkelspiel that the fallout of the international financial crisis "will be with us for a long time to come." But strengthening global trade agreements, steering away from protectionism and bolstering innovation will put financial markets back on the right course, she said.

European financial woes are a volatile topic in Germany right now. The country has offered to pitch in about $11 billion for a Greek economic rescue package, a move that has sparked criticism of Merkel's government.
The bailout poses a serious political risk, as Merkel’s political party faces regional elections in Germany's biggest state on May 9. The party of Christian Democrats must win in order to maintain its majority in the Bundesrat, parliament's upper house.

Merkel did not directly address the Greek economic situation during her speech, but she did stress the need for countries to work together and share responsibility for strengthening the world's financial future.
"We need a new global financial architecture," she said. "We need rules that prevent a whole community of nations from being damaged because individuals have made mistakes."

She said the players behind the world's largest markets have to take an interest in emerging economies and "sit down and reflect together with them" how to establish a strong and prosperous global economy.

A scientist by training, Merkel earned a doctorate in physics and worked as a chemist at a scientific academy in East Berlin. While she was a student, Stanford "was just a far, far-away scientific paradise unreachable from behind the Iron Curtain." And when the Berlin Wall came down, she found herself pulled to a life of politics.

But first, she and her husband celebrated their newfound freedom by doing what they had long dreamed of. They visited California. The chancellor reminisced about the trip as she concluded her speech at Dinkelspiel, standing in front of a backdrop displaying Stanford's German motto: Die Luft der Freiheit weht.

The wind of freedom blows.

Jonathan Rabinovitz contributed to this report.