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The sorrow of empire: Rituals of legitimation and the performative contradictions of liberalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2014

TOM BENTLEY
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Abstract

Unexpectedly, several prominent European countries have begun to issue official state apologies to their former colonies. What does this proliferation of official colonial sorrow from such countries as Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Britain reveal about the normative tenets of the contemporary international order? This article analyses colonial apologies as crucial symbolic and ritualistic sites where state elites project liberal credentials and affirm liberal normative tenets in the international system. Specifically, the article demonstrates how these apologies for colonial atrocity appear to reinforce liberal conceptions of human rights, the renunciation of violence, cordial relations with formerly colonised states, and commitments to state accountability and transparency. Yet, textual analysis of several state apologies reveals that these performatives simultaneously contradict each of these liberal tenets. It finds that – even in apology – political elites reflect ambivalence about certain human rights violations; persist in glorifying or sanitising the violent colonial past; recycle paternalistic and hierarchical discourses and policies towards the apology's recipients; and offer contradictory notions of the state's historical responsibility. In exposing these performative contradictions of empirical sorrow, the article seeks to expand the discipline's understandings of, and dilemmas within, a key performative and ritualistic legitimation strategy whereby liberalism reproduces itself in the international system.

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Review of International Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 623 - 645
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Copyright © British International Studies Association 2014 

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References

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49 I am thankful to an anonymous reviewer for this point for my forthcoming book, Empires of Remorse, to be published with Routledge.

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74 Ibid., Preamble.

75 Varvelli, ‘Italy and Libya’, p. 126. There have been political efforts to revive the Treaty of Friendship in the post-Gaddafi era after it was suspended before the 2011 military intervention in Libya, of which Italy collaborated. See ‘Libya and Italy revive “friendship deal”’, BBC News (15 December 2011), available at: {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16205827} accessed 20 January 2014.

76 Camera del Deputati, ‘Trattato di amicizia’.

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80 Wieczorek-Zeul, ‘Speech’.

81 Ibid.

82 Leonard Jamfa, ‘Germany faces colonial history in Namibia: A very ambiguous “I am sorry”’, in Gibney et al. (eds) Age of Apology, pp. 202–15, esp. pp. 208–9.

83 Such legally savvy grammar and caveats are analysed in detail in the following section of the article.

84 See Bentley, ‘Empire retracts’, pp. 84–93; Jamfa, ‘Germany faces colonial history’, pp. 206–7. Indicating Germany's interest in the settlers, Chancellor Kohl commenced a speech on a visit to Namibia in 1995 by exclaiming ‘my dear fellow countrymen’. Quoted in Henning Melber, ‘In the shadow of genocide: German-Namibian reconciliation a century later’ (2006), available at: {http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/melber-reconciliation2006.htm} accessed 3 March 2010. Melber further shows the government's concern for the ‘German’ community in Namibia by referring to President Herzog's criticism in 1998 of Namibian policies that had a perceived negative impact on the status of the German language in the country.

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87 Quoted in Sarkin, Jeremy, Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904–1908 (London: Praeger Security International, 2009), pp. 136–7Google Scholar.

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99 Thompson, ‘Apology, historical obligations’, p. 196.

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102 Ibid., p. 142

103 Cameron, ‘Bloody Sunday’.

104 ‘Standing’ refers to having the appropriate legal or moral authority to be the person to apologise. For a discussion, see Smith, Nick, ‘The categorical apology’, Journal of Social Philosophy, 36:4 (2005), pp. 489–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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109 Thompson, Taking Responsibility for the Past; Thompson, ‘Apology, justice and respect’; Thompson, ‘Apology, historical obligations’.

110 Thompson, ‘Apology, justice and respect’, p. 38.

111 Ibid., p. 39.

112 Chambre des Représentants, ‘Compte’, pp. 50–1.

113 Wieczorek-Zeul, ‘Speech’.

114 Berlusconi, ‘Sintesi dell'intervento’.

115 Cameron, ‘Bloody Sunday’.

116 Ibid.

117 Chambre des Représentants, ‘Compte’, p. 50.

118 Ibid.

119 See De Witte, Ludo, The assassination of Lumumba (London: Verso, 2001)Google Scholar. De Witte writes that ‘it was Belgian advice, Belgian orders and finally Belgian hands that killed Lumumba’ (p. xxii).

120 Berlusconi, ‘Sintesi dell'intervento’.

121 Wieczorek-Zeul, ‘Speech’.

122 Sasha Romanowsky, ‘Analysis of an apology: A critical look at genocide in Southwest Africa and its effects on the Herero/Nama People’ (2009), available at: {http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133p/papers/096RomanowskyHereroGenocide.htm} accessed 9 December 2013.

123 Ibid.

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125 Wieczorek-Zeul, ‘Speech’.

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128 Jamfa, ‘Germany faces colonial history’, p. 203.

129 Wieczorek-Zeul, ‘Speech’.

130 Romanowsky, ‘Analysis of an apology’.

131 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point.

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134 Goffman, Relations in Public, p. 113.

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137 Ibid., p. 214.

138 Jahn, ‘Illiberal legacies’.