CAS Inquire Panel

CAS MarComm Author

03/27/2025 Added

10 Plays

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Panel discussion for CAS Inquire "War, Peace, and Reconciliation" theme.

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[00:00:00.000]- Hi, I'm June Griffin of College of Arts and Sciences,
[00:00:05.000]and I'm pleased to welcome you to tonight's panel discussion,
[00:00:08.880]the culminating event of this year's
[00:00:10.720]CAS Inquire lecture series.
[00:00:13.000]Over the course of this series,
[00:00:14.880]we've explored the theme of war, peace, and reconciliation,
[00:00:18.040]with a wide range of lessons,
[00:00:20.320]from political science and evolutionary biology
[00:00:22.720]to classical literature, genocide studies,
[00:00:25.320]and modern European history.
[00:00:26.880]In keeping with the culture and identity
[00:00:29.520]of the College of Arts and Sciences,
[00:00:31.160]this series embodies the commitment of our faculty,
[00:00:33.920]students, and staff,
[00:00:35.160]opening important questions to critical examination
[00:00:38.360]and open public exchange.
[00:00:40.720]The CAS Inquire students delve even deeper
[00:00:42.880]into this engaged engagement,
[00:00:46.120]and I'm grateful for their commitment to inquiry,
[00:00:48.680]and the CAS Inquire scholars do so.
[00:00:53.680]- We bring our distinguished speakers together
[00:00:56.680]to reflect across these diverse perspectives
[00:00:59.480]and engage in shared conversation
[00:01:01.280]about the nature and causes of conflict,
[00:01:03.920]the possibilities of cooperation,
[00:01:06.040]and the difficult but necessary work of reconciliation.
[00:01:09.520]Our panelists have offered us insights
[00:01:11.720]into why wars begin,
[00:01:13.440]and how individuals, societies,
[00:01:15.320]and even nations from all over the world
[00:01:17.440]can work together to resolve these conflicts.
[00:01:20.920]- Our panelists have offered us insights
[00:01:22.680]into why wars begin,
[00:01:23.640]resolute memory, trauma, and responsibility.
[00:01:27.800]This evening is an opportunity,
[00:01:29.360]not only to ask questions,
[00:01:31.200]but to draw connections, challenge assumptions,
[00:01:34.200]and engage in a larger conversation.
[00:01:36.280]Thank you for being a part, for being here,
[00:01:39.920]and please join me in welcoming our panelists.
[00:01:42.640]We have Ross Miller, from Political Science.
[00:01:53.600]Gerald Steinacher, from History.
[00:01:56.160]Bedross Der Matossian, also from History.
[00:02:01.720]Clay Cressler, from Biological Sciences.
[00:02:06.480]And Anne Duncan, from Classics and Religious Studies.
[00:02:11.800]So I will pick things off,
[00:02:16.680]but I hope that everyone will feel free to ask questions.
[00:02:20.240]And when you do, please come to the microphone
[00:02:22.480]and speak into the microphone.
[00:02:23.560]This is being recorded and maybe being watched
[00:02:26.120]by others on Zoom right now, local consumers.
[00:02:30.320]Okay, so all of our panelists had things to say about war.
[00:02:35.320]We had helpful definitions from Dr. Miller,
[00:02:38.640]vivid accounts of it from Dr. Duncan,
[00:02:41.360]moments of spite and hostility
[00:02:43.120]in all kinds of organisms from Dr. Cressler.
[00:02:46.200]And of course, the haunting weight of not just war,
[00:02:48.520]but genocide from Dr. Der Matossian and Dr. Simon.
[00:02:53.520]For what, Amherst, can you tell us about peace?
[00:02:57.400]- Oscar, in international relations,
[00:03:09.800]probably the coolest empirical finding we have
[00:03:13.320]is that democratic states rarely ever fight each other.
[00:03:16.880]And that holds up to controls for alliance and wealth
[00:03:21.120]and a host of other factors.
[00:03:23.480]And that, I think, is the most powerful predictor of peace
[00:03:27.360]that I know of during democracy.
[00:03:30.240]- Do we need to use the microphone?
[00:03:33.800]- Please do try to use the microphone, yeah.
[00:03:35.480]- All right.
[00:03:36.640]I mean, the basic definition of peace is lack of order.
[00:03:39.840]That's very important.
[00:03:41.080]Peace is lack of order.
[00:03:42.080]Think about that from our perspective.
[00:03:44.080]And I think democratic regimes are also prone to violence.
[00:03:50.560]It can happen.
[00:03:53.440]In democratic regimes, genocides can happen also in democratic regimes.
[00:03:59.080]Pursue discredited policies and go down to the spiral of intimidation, of persecution
[00:04:10.480]through different means and different legal means and different means.
[00:04:15.040]So democratic theory of, you know, democratic countries is not war against each other.
[00:04:21.480]It's important.
[00:04:23.400]I agree with it, but also there's something that genocide is only taking place in, you
[00:04:31.280]know, in authoritarian regimes.
[00:04:33.560]So peace is back and forth.
[00:04:36.460]It's very important to think that in human history, war is an integral part of human
[00:04:46.460]history, sorry, war is an integral part of human history and human societies in the course
[00:04:52.720]of history.
[00:04:53.360]I have always achieved the utmost out of force, and peace is an extremely difficult thing
[00:05:02.260]to achieve.
[00:05:03.040]Think about the different conflicts around the globe, and the best case scenario today
[00:05:08.220]of no term peace has been the case of Europe.
[00:05:12.080]So thank you.
[00:05:12.860]I don't know if I should say anything.
[00:05:23.320]As a biologist, because, but to Dr. Dermatosian's point, we know from anthropological studies
[00:05:36.880]that the likelihood of dying by violence throughout human history is, I don't want to say it's
[00:05:46.720]the lowest it's ever been globally, but certainly, you know, anthropological estimates suggest
[00:05:53.280]like between 10 to 20% of all people died by violence in the earliest days of human
[00:06:00.880]history.
[00:06:01.300]Adults, people who didn't die, very, very young, which was the most, most people died.
[00:06:07.880]That was the most common way to die.
[00:06:10.240]It was just like something terrible happening to you when you were very, very little.
[00:06:13.520]But of people who reached adult age, the most likely cause of death for men, anyway,
[00:06:19.120]for women, it's childbirth, but for men, it's violence.
[00:06:23.240]So, you know, history to a historian and history to, we're both historical disciplines,
[00:06:31.220]evolutionary biology and history, but the history of humans over millions of years is,
[00:06:40.500]and this isn't to downplay the significance of war and violence and genocide in current
[00:06:50.000]human history, but we are less violent.
[00:06:53.200]Now, then we used to be, and compared to non-human mammals, we are less violent than
[00:07:07.700]non-human mammals.
[00:07:08.980]Anybody who has studied chimpanzees, for example, tell you about, can tell you they
[00:07:16.820]don't have war.
[00:07:18.140]They're not capable of war at that scale, but violence.
[00:07:23.160]That is far more common in non-human mammals than it is in humans, which I think is, again,
[00:07:36.820]not to under downplay anything, but just a different perspective, maybe.
[00:07:53.120]I think sort of to echo what other people have said, peace is fragile.
[00:07:57.560]It's difficult to achieve and it's difficult to maintain.
[00:08:01.520]In the literature I study and the histories of the Greek and the people that I know, peace
[00:08:17.500]happens when it costs more to keep fighting than it does to make some sort of peace.
[00:08:23.080]And one of the things that makes that possible, here I'm speaking as a humanist, but it's
[00:08:34.000]art.
[00:08:34.320]It's story time.
[00:08:38.380]It's literature.
[00:08:40.120]It's visual arts.
[00:08:42.380]It's music.
[00:08:43.460]It's things that, like to go to what Dr. Shannon was saying about the exhibit of photographs,
[00:08:53.040]that sparked so much of a change in Germany.
[00:08:57.000]Art can bring us more keenly to a sense of the value of peace and to a desire for peace
[00:09:12.540]in a way that is very powerful.
[00:09:17.340]I just want to add to what Carl has already said.
[00:09:23.000]That is, peace is something that we have to actively work for.
[00:09:32.160]This is not something that falls from the heavens,
[00:09:34.960]but that's something that you have to actively work for and want.
[00:09:40.000]And in my field, in our field, history,
[00:09:45.460]history is also there to draw lessons from history.
[00:09:49.660]So in the case of Europe,
[00:09:52.960]and I'm a European historian,
[00:09:55.620]after the Second World War, the destruction of the Second World War,
[00:10:00.120]which was the worst war in human history,
[00:10:02.840]with 60 million people dead, with genocide, with dictatorship,
[00:10:07.800]much of Europe destroyed in ruins,
[00:10:11.120]the leaders of Europe at the time, in these post-war years,
[00:10:15.260]they made the decision, or the intent,
[00:10:18.160]to have never a war in Europe again, to never start a war in Europe again.
[00:10:22.920]And born out of that desire, one of the results of that will or attempt
[00:10:29.880]to avoid future wars starting or provoked by European powers
[00:10:35.880]was eventually the foundation of the European Union.
[00:10:41.880]So the European Union was, among other things,
[00:10:45.880]first and foremost, also a peace project in order to avoid
[00:10:52.880]future wars, to combine the industries, the business,
[00:10:56.880]the economy of the major European nations, the Germans and the French,
[00:11:01.880]so closely they would not start another war against each other.
[00:11:06.880]And so studying history, studying what I study and my colleague here,
[00:11:13.880]especially Holocaust genocide studies and wars, is also a lesson in learning
[00:11:22.840]in trying to understand how to create peace and to avoid future wars.
[00:11:30.800]So Europe, the lesson of Germany especially, that was my talk about Germany after 1945,
[00:11:39.800]not just the European Union, but Germany as a whole, was a peace project, very intentionally.
[00:11:46.800]And they invested a lot of time and energy and resources and creativity
[00:11:52.800]in order to make this happen and to deeply root this idea of never again,
[00:11:59.800]and no more wars, and no wars being started by Germany.
[00:12:05.800]So that's maybe something to keep in mind in the context of contemporary European history,
[00:12:12.800]which has a huge relevance to what's going on today, of course, in the whole world.
[00:12:20.800]So I greatly appreciate the...
[00:12:22.760]the attempted definition, and I heard in all of your answers something a little bit different.
[00:12:27.760]Dr. Miller, I feel like you had sort of a dissonant voice in that, in terms of what you saw in war.
[00:12:33.760]At least one of the things I clung to in your original talk was the idea that war is fragile,
[00:12:42.760]that art can help us move away from it, that peace is fragile,
[00:12:52.720]that art can help us get there, that we are less warlike than our mammalian relations.
[00:13:05.720]In international relations, we will distinguish
[00:13:22.680]between international and civil wars, and both are relatively rare.
[00:13:28.640]International wars, like we see with Russia and Ukraine,
[00:13:31.640]and depending upon how you define states between Gaza and Israel,
[00:13:35.640]that's really quite rare.
[00:13:38.640]Civil wars are much more common in Syria.
[00:13:43.640]But even those, considering we have roughly 200 states in the international system,
[00:13:50.640]they're relatively rare.
[00:13:52.640]But obviously, wars, and deservedly so, occupy a lot of media attention.
[00:13:58.600]But the boring stuff, like the mail went through in Europe today,
[00:14:03.600]which is a great example of cooperation, that's not newsworthy.
[00:14:09.600]And yet, most of international relations is, let's replace research,
[00:14:16.600]most of international relations is cooperative between states.
[00:14:22.600]And I know, Clay, you explicitly put in bold,
[00:14:26.600]be cautious about applying this to humans, so I'm going off on a limb.
[00:14:33.600]But yeah, and especially since the 2000s, international wars are really quite infrequent.
[00:14:42.600]And I think, as Gerald said, the occurrence of the Russian-Ukraine war
[00:14:48.600]shattered a lot of assumptions that we were,
[00:14:52.560]operating under, that you're not going to get this major conflict in Europe again,
[00:14:59.560]that we wouldn't see it.
[00:15:01.560]And I think that's what makes the current situation so surprising and unsettling.
[00:15:10.560]Of course, the next question is, what does reconciliation entail?
[00:15:17.560]Can combatants reconcile or must reconciliation wait
[00:15:22.520]for the conditions to be accomplished?
[00:15:25.480]Or is it too late when the actual combatants and citizens have passed away?
[00:15:31.480]I mean, I can go first with an example.
[00:15:35.480]So what I learned, you know, from studying the German example
[00:15:39.480]after the Second World War and the Holocaust,
[00:15:43.480]reconciliation cannot happen really, in earnest, without the victims.
[00:15:52.480]Of injustice or crimes.
[00:15:55.480]And that, of course, was a failed attempt in a way,
[00:15:58.480]or not even an attempted attempt in the case of Germany
[00:16:03.480]in the immediate postwar years, so to speak.
[00:16:08.480]Because Germans had this dialogue about how to deal with the past,
[00:16:16.480]eventually, then in the 60s, 70s, slowly, mostly with themselves,
[00:16:22.440]not with the victims, not with the Jewish community.
[00:16:25.440]And the Jewish community in Germany and internationally
[00:16:28.440]only was involved in these discussions about reconciliations,
[00:16:32.440]really, in earnest, late in 1980, 1990.
[00:16:38.440]So that's a very recent phenomenon.
[00:16:41.440]And when studying it, I realized this is, of course, not working.
[00:16:47.440]How can you have reconciliation or even talk about that?
[00:16:52.400]Or come in the past without having real engagement and discussion
[00:16:57.400]with the victims of your crimes?
[00:17:00.400]Reconciliation also depends on the culture, on the region around the world
[00:17:13.400]where, supposedly, reconciliation is going to take place.
[00:17:17.400]Reconciliation cannot take place if the perpetrator does not acknowledge the amount
[00:17:22.360]of justice that it had perpetrated in the course of history
[00:17:26.360]against the vulnerable minority group.
[00:17:29.360]There is no reconciliation without accepting the injustices of the past
[00:17:33.360]and providing also remedies to the victims, whether it is compensation,
[00:17:40.360]whether it is other types of culture, let's say, compensation by erecting churches
[00:17:47.360]or mosques that have been destroyed in the course of history or other aspects
[00:17:52.320]So there is also, you know, just connecting to the peace, there is forced reconciliation,
[00:18:00.320]there is forced peace, there is forced by higher power, let's say, by super power
[00:18:10.320]around the world, which is not necessarily peace or reconciliation
[00:18:15.320]It's a band-aid that put on a scar or on a...
[00:18:22.280]on a wound, temporary.
[00:18:25.280]Re-reconciliation happens when both parties come together
[00:18:29.280]and the perpetrator accepts the fact that these injustices happened.
[00:18:35.280]And there are different types of reconciliation.
[00:18:38.280]Most societies try to replicate what happened in South Africa.
[00:18:44.280]Professor Don Curry, two weeks ago, gave an excellent lecture about the South African
[00:18:52.240]Reconciliation Commission, a powerful lecture, I should say.
[00:18:57.240]And it's one of the best examples and people try to replicate that.
[00:19:03.240]However, it does not work in other societies because reconciliation is not
[00:19:09.240]kind of a template that you can just take and invite different societies.
[00:19:14.240]All depends on the culture, the society, the dynamics, the people involved.
[00:19:18.240]But as a perpetrator state, let's say Turkey.
[00:19:22.200]It still continues denying our religion, it still continues blocking everything.
[00:19:27.160]What type of reconciliation are we even doing?
[00:19:31.160]We are far away from the idea of reconciliation.
[00:19:36.160]And the way towards reconciliation is to transform the society.
[00:19:42.160]And the main tool, I think, is education.
[00:19:45.160]Who wants to start providing good education, some history about your past, about the injustices
[00:19:51.160]that happened in the past.
[00:19:52.160]In your history, you prepared a whole generation for reconciliation.
[00:19:56.160]But that's not taking place as far as I'm interested in.
[00:20:01.160]If I can ask a question, because I don't know anything about reconciliation.
[00:20:06.160]But I have heard and remember truth and reconciliation.
[00:20:12.160]And a distinction that might be interesting to hear from other people about, including Dr. Curry, would be--
[00:20:22.120]You know, the German reconciliation project was initiated by the German people.
[00:20:30.120]Somewhat. Okay, maybe not.
[00:20:34.120]But it wasn't-- I mean, my understanding, limited understanding, of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was that
[00:20:41.120]that was really Black South Africans who initiated that process.
[00:20:46.120]No? I see you looking skeptical. I thought-- Okay.
[00:20:52.080]Yeah, please, no? Are you trying to get me wrong?
[00:20:57.040]No, I was perhaps misinformed. I thought--
[00:21:02.040]No, no. Yeah, please. I think it's--
[00:21:22.040]I can understand. I've heard it. It's all based on a single interview with Desmond Tutu. So--
[00:21:29.000]Oh.
[00:21:30.000]So, correct to any--
[00:21:33.000]I just want to know what you mean by when you say Black South Africans started it.
[00:21:39.000]My understanding-- and again, this is--
[00:21:45.000]So the interview that I heard with Desmond Tutu was that, you know, he was--
[00:21:52.000]he was intimately involved in creating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
[00:21:58.000]And so there was a voice in the reconciliation process and the initiation of the process of the victims.
[00:22:07.000]It wasn't where the victims had the opportunity to call the perpetrators to account in a way--
[00:22:16.000]rather than waiting for the perpetrators to acknowledge that injustices were coming.
[00:22:21.960]They had to be admitted and take responsibility for that.
[00:22:25.920]And so I was thinking that sounded different than the process that played out in Germany.
[00:22:31.920]And I was wondering if perhaps there was something to glean from that to the original question
[00:22:36.920]about how long does it take for reconciliation to happen?
[00:22:41.920]Maybe it depends on whether you have to wait for the perpetrators to hold themselves to account
[00:22:48.920]or whether the victims can hold the perpetrators to account.
[00:22:51.920]Okay.
[00:22:56.920]So, personally, I'm not going to argue with Desmond.
[00:23:04.880]Nelson Mandela is the one who created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995
[00:23:11.880]as a way to reconcile all of the agreed parties during the era of apartheid, you know, those 46 years from 1948.
[00:23:21.880]to 1994. And so you're right. It did give victims the opportunity to hear from perpetrators.
[00:23:29.880]However, not all perpetrators came forward and therefore there wasn't always reconciliation.
[00:23:36.880]And reconciliation wasn't always defined or achieved politically or spiritually.
[00:23:43.880]Right. Because you don't know what happened to your loved ones.
[00:23:47.880]You don't know if they're in a mass grave. They were dismembered.
[00:23:51.840]How they were killed or nothing like that.
[00:23:54.840]So I would say the reconciliation process in some ways for some people has not been achieved.
[00:24:02.840]So to me, and also you could say economic, political and social.
[00:24:08.800]But I think if we deal with African cosmology, then the importance is that connection with the spirit and having the deceased and the living.
[00:24:21.800]Unite and become one and reconcile.
[00:24:26.800]So that's my two cents. Am I good?
[00:24:36.800]I'd like to invite the audience. Oh, I'm sorry.
[00:24:38.800]No, just move you back, just move you back.
[00:24:42.800]Just briefly add to Charmaine, very briefly.
[00:24:45.800]First of all, the first moment that came from the outside, from the allies,
[00:24:51.760]Germany was basically forced to face its past and also the crimes,
[00:24:56.760]especially through criminal justice and retributive justice.
[00:25:00.760]So punishing the perpetrator was the focus.
[00:25:03.760]Germany then, later in the 1950s, paid some reparations.
[00:25:07.760]But really, the German society as a whole, engaging, confronting,
[00:25:12.760]dealing, admitting the role of perpetrator, embracing the role,
[00:25:17.760]while at the same time honoring the victims of criminal crime.
[00:25:21.720]That came a little bit later and was a slow process over the decades.
[00:25:25.720]But one element that I see, but this is just my take on it,
[00:25:30.720]when I look at transitional justice like the modern version,
[00:25:34.720]recent decades, the term is relatively new.
[00:25:37.720]In South Africa, there was also this religious element.
[00:25:42.720]I think a very strong Christian idea of forgiveness.
[00:25:45.720]And that was in Germany too, because this is a mostly Catholic
[00:25:49.720]and Protestant society.
[00:25:51.680]And as Frances pointed out, there was a problem with that
[00:25:56.680]when it comes to different cultures.
[00:25:58.680]Because the Jewish community had a different tradition,
[00:26:01.680]has a different tradition, Jewish religious teachings
[00:26:04.680]have a different tradition when it comes to forgiveness.
[00:26:07.680]In the Jewish tradition, only the victim can forgive the perpetrator.
[00:26:11.680]And in the Catholic, in the Protestant tradition,
[00:26:14.680]forgiveness is different.
[00:26:16.680]And so there was a misunderstanding.
[00:26:18.680]There was a conflict there from the get-go.
[00:26:20.680]And that's something that was not overcome
[00:26:25.680]until really in recent decades.
[00:26:28.680]And then I think the process of reconciliation
[00:26:31.680]really kicked in, in earnest.
[00:26:37.680]Our audience, do you have a question?
[00:26:42.680]Could you go to the breakout class?
[00:26:49.680]I can't help but notice, I guess the two examples being
[00:26:53.680]like Germany reconciling with its Jewish victims
[00:26:58.680]and South Africa, I'm assuming,
[00:27:01.680]associated with apartheid, that's what we're talking about right now.
[00:27:04.680]How does a country or state reconcile with,
[00:27:09.680]say, not like a racial or religious group,
[00:27:16.680]but like another minority,
[00:27:18.680]like I'm thinking about the persecution of communists
[00:27:21.680]or how we treat poor people or homeless people,
[00:27:26.680]and there's no way to identify them outside of
[00:27:30.680]what's in their brain, I guess.
[00:27:35.680]That's an important question,
[00:27:37.680]because it goes back to the UN definition of genocide,
[00:27:42.680]where political groups are not part of that definition,
[00:27:45.680]due to different compromises by the major powers,
[00:27:47.680]so to what extent, for example,
[00:27:51.680]the Great Purges, Stalin's terror,
[00:27:56.680]who apologized for those, is still unclear.
[00:28:00.680]I mean, until today, for example,
[00:28:02.680]Russia does not accept that there was an intent
[00:28:08.680]in killing hundreds of thousands of people
[00:28:11.680]during the Holodomor, which is the Ukrainian genocide.
[00:28:14.680]It happened, they say, as a result of
[00:28:16.680]different circumstances that have to do with famine, etc.
[00:28:20.680]But it was part of a larger five-year plan.
[00:28:24.680]So that's an important point.
[00:28:27.680]I mean, our country here, we have indigenous populations,
[00:28:31.680]and to what extent there has been an official apology.
[00:28:35.680]Biden last year apologized for the holding schools, etc.
[00:28:42.680]But I think the United States is lagging behind
[00:28:45.680]that of Canada, for example.
[00:28:48.680]Australia is also problematic, and New Zealand.
[00:28:51.680]So the United States is in the fourth place
[00:28:54.680]when it comes to indigenous people.
[00:28:58.680]I think when we talk about transitional justice,
[00:29:01.680]we have to keep in mind that every justice
[00:29:06.680]is in the context of human society,
[00:29:09.680]and therefore always imperfect.
[00:29:13.680]That's a book title by Stuart Eisenstadt who wrote a book about his work or dealings with Switzerland, the Second World War, and Switzerland profiteering from Nazi gold, Nazi assets, or also the assets of human rights Jews in Swiss bank accounts.
[00:29:32.020]So it's a long process, and the results of this process and this negotiation, he wrote up in a book and he titled this with imperfect justice.
[00:29:41.900]So it's never perfect, and it's also often political.
[00:29:46.900]When you think about Germany, for example, the fate of persecution, murder of German gays, which the gay community locked up in concentration camps.
[00:29:56.900]That was not a topic after 1945, because being gay was still a crime in Germany after 1945.
[00:30:04.900]And that only changed rather recently.
[00:30:08.900]And that also with other communities.
[00:30:10.780]And during the Cold War, you mentioned communists, and I stick with the German example because it's one of the best.
[00:30:19.780]In West Germany, which was pro-Western, was part of the NATO.
[00:30:25.780]And during the Cold War years, everything communist in West Germany was suspicious, was on the wrong side of history.
[00:30:34.780]So there was not much commemorating of the victims.
[00:30:39.660]The victims of Nazi persecution, if they were communists, they were locked up in concentration camps in Europe.
[00:30:46.660]Of course, in East Germany, which was a communist state, the situation was completely different.
[00:30:52.660]They would talk a lot about communist victims and being the communists as resistance fighters against fascism and so on.
[00:30:59.660]But in East Germany, they wouldn't talk about the Catholics and the Protestants, the priests who were locked up by the Nazis.
[00:31:07.660]So, as of justice,
[00:31:09.660]transitional justice, too, is always imperfect.
[00:31:14.660]And there is always a very critical dimension there and the zeitgeist dimension there.
[00:31:21.660]That's sadly the case.
[00:31:24.660]My students are often surprised when they hear about how many Nazi perpetrators never were held responsible,
[00:31:31.660]got away, they were never put to trial, they continued their life study in Europe or somewhere else, most of them.
[00:31:37.660]And the reason is,
[00:31:39.660]because there are realities.
[00:31:43.660]You cannot put everyone who was responsible in some form, in a mass crime, committed,
[00:31:48.660]you know, and punish this person.
[00:31:51.660]It's not realistic, it's not possible in human society.
[00:31:56.660]So we have to come to the terms that with all the best intentions,
[00:32:01.660]justice and the pandemic will always be imperfect.
[00:32:05.660]Sorry, just one thing.
[00:32:09.660]It's that it's very difficult to obtain justice.
[00:32:15.660]It's unattainable justice.
[00:32:17.660]What I call, what I use the word is nominal justice, nominal justice.
[00:32:22.660]There's a good book by Gary Bass called Hands-on Justice or something,
[00:32:26.660]in which he analyzes the different military tribunals that happen post-general secretary.
[00:32:31.660]And as my colleague Charles said here, you know, it's that you cannot attain pure justice
[00:32:37.660]because every time most of the perpetrator will escape justice.
[00:32:41.660]But you need to have that institution, today's ICC or other institutions,
[00:32:47.660]in order to show that society or even human beings are committed to justice,
[00:32:54.660]despite the fact that that justice is not pure justice, right?
[00:32:59.660]It's no justice.
[00:33:01.660]Others, please.
[00:33:03.660]I think we'll take another question.
[00:33:06.660]Anyone?
[00:33:08.660]Throughout the last semester and this semester,
[00:33:22.660]we talked about the importance of education,
[00:33:25.660]about not only our country's history, but other countries' history as well.
[00:33:29.660]So my question is, how should educational institutions like our university
[00:33:33.660]and others engage students in different conversations
[00:33:35.660]about war, peace, and historical accountability
[00:33:38.660]without falling into polarization?
[00:33:41.660]I think we have
[00:34:04.660]an obligation to teach history.
[00:34:08.660]I mean, supposedly,
[00:34:11.660]Hegel says something to the effect
[00:34:13.660]that men learn nothing from history,
[00:34:15.660]except that men learn nothing from history.
[00:34:18.660]Which I think would be terrific,
[00:34:20.660]and I'm afraid very accurate.
[00:34:22.660]But, like, we still have this duty to try, right?
[00:34:25.660]Because it's...
[00:34:29.660]Because without it, it's just...
[00:34:32.660]It's the only science we can do.
[00:34:33.660]So, how do we do it in this particular moment?
[00:34:37.660]And how do we do it in a way that
[00:34:39.660]doesn't sort of devolve into ideological balance?
[00:34:43.660]This is like the moment where I'm actually really glad I'm a classicist,
[00:34:49.660]because no one has a stake in, like, the Peloponnesian War.
[00:34:53.660]You know?
[00:34:54.660]No one's like,
[00:34:55.660]"Well, my grandfather grew up on the Spartan side,
[00:34:58.660]and he had a book called 'The Athenian Guardian,'
[00:35:01.660]and he was spewing in this nice book,
[00:35:02.660]and he was spewing in this nice book."
[00:35:03.660]And I was just like,
[00:35:04.660]"Okay, yay, I'm so, so glad.
[00:35:07.660]It's all well, well over."
[00:35:10.660]You know, I do think that the stuff that I teach
[00:35:14.660]is indirectly applicable to many modern situations,
[00:35:17.660]and that's one way to go at it, right, is indirectly.
[00:35:22.660]But I think that's not the only thing we should do.
[00:35:25.660]I think there are also far braver colleagues than I
[00:35:28.660]who teach really controversial stuff
[00:35:30.660]that is within living memory.
[00:35:31.660]Right?
[00:35:32.660]And I think that's what academic freedom is all about, right?
[00:35:36.660]Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole idea of academic freedom
[00:35:40.660]for professors came about after World War II?
[00:35:46.660]One?
[00:35:47.660]One of one?
[00:35:48.660]Yeah.
[00:35:49.660]Yeah.
[00:35:50.660]Precisely for this reason, that professors should--
[00:35:54.660]that teachers should be able to teach the facts of history
[00:35:59.660]regardless of whether it made--
[00:36:01.660]Yeah.
[00:36:02.660]--people upset because they felt somehow offended or implicated
[00:36:06.660]or whatever.
[00:36:08.660]And that is under a solitary jam.
[00:36:10.660]It's-- I think everyone has to agree that it's a value
[00:36:15.660]in university students and be willing to stand up and say,
[00:36:19.660]this is important.
[00:36:21.660]And even if it makes, you know, me or anyone else uncomfortable,
[00:36:26.660]it's important.
[00:36:27.660]Oh, OK.
[00:36:28.660]I'm going to hand it over to someone else.
[00:36:31.660]Not you.
[00:36:32.660]I'm just kidding.
[00:36:33.660]I don't want you all the time.
[00:36:35.660]Yeah.
[00:36:36.660]Not to put anyone on the spot, but I'm thinking of Dr. Miller.
[00:36:40.660]Thanks.
[00:36:41.660]Yes.
[00:36:42.660]As someone in one of those challenging fields,
[00:36:45.660]I found at UNL in my classes that students are great and engaging
[00:36:51.660]and they're respectful.
[00:36:53.660]But I do, I find myself worried that I'm not going to be able
[00:36:59.660]to do what I want to do.
[00:37:00.660]Right.
[00:37:01.660]About going into areas that will get me in trouble.
[00:37:05.660]So I'm kind of careful on the topics and how I'm approaching them.
[00:37:10.660]I found a little bit more success in generating simulations
[00:37:14.660]that let students deal with those issues with each other.
[00:37:20.660]And I found that initiating debates on some topics, for example,
[00:37:24.660]Israel and Gaza was very challenging in the past year to bring up in class
[00:37:30.660]because I was there.
[00:37:31.660]I was too worried about blowback.
[00:37:34.660]And now, to Anne's point, the case against the Columbia student
[00:37:40.660]and the actions, I think, just terrifies people, you know,
[00:37:46.660]of what the consequences will be.
[00:37:49.660]And I'm sure that will be reflected in the way I run my classes as well,
[00:37:55.660]unfortunately.
[00:37:58.660]Well, so as a historian, I'm not going to change my belief
[00:38:10.660]that we can learn from history.
[00:38:13.660]That's the basis.
[00:38:16.660]I mean, I can choke on a little bit here and say, well,
[00:38:19.660]historians actually predict the future, but not a necessary future.
[00:38:28.660]But a potential, possible future.
[00:38:31.660]And what I mean is, like, if you study the past,
[00:38:35.660]you study human nature, human behavior in certain circumstances,
[00:38:42.660]and human behavior has not changed very much.
[00:38:46.660]Not that I'm aware of, sadly.
[00:38:49.660]So the people in the 1930s or the 1830s are not very different from us today.
[00:38:55.660]Of course, technology has changed.
[00:38:57.660]Right?
[00:38:58.660]The smartphones and the computers and all those things.
[00:39:01.660]But human nature has not really changed in any significant way.
[00:39:08.660]So if you study the past, like myself as a scholar of fascism, of the Holocaust,
[00:39:14.660]study the 1930s, the 1940s, those ideologies of anti-Semitism,
[00:39:22.660]with racism, with nationalism, with scapegoating, with dehumanizing,
[00:39:28.660]with the disrespect for the rule of law, aggressive foreign policy, and so on.
[00:39:36.660]And if you look at that, how people reacted under these circumstances,
[00:39:43.660]and you have similar circumstances, again, there is potential similar outcomes,
[00:39:52.660]not the same outcomes because there's the famous saying, you know, history doesn't repeat itself,
[00:39:58.660]but it rhymes. History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
[00:40:02.660]I know you like that. There's some truth there.
[00:40:06.660]So there's something to learn here. And these are very important lessons.
[00:40:12.660]It's similar when we think about our own personal lives, you know, as our childhood,
[00:40:18.660]when we touched the hot oven, the hot stove, and we burn our fingers.
[00:40:24.660]And then the expectation is also from our parents.
[00:40:28.660]I hope that we are not going to do it again.
[00:40:30.660]You know, we learned when we do these actions, it's going to happen.
[00:40:33.660]We can burn our fingers.
[00:40:35.660]And so I see this also for the society.
[00:40:37.660]We've been through these things, similar things, not the same, never the same, but similar things before.
[00:40:44.660]And why don't we, why shouldn't we learn from the past?
[00:40:47.660]And I think that's a very important message for historians.
[00:40:52.660]And again, a potential future, not necessarily the outcome.
[00:40:58.660]Not the past.
[00:40:59.660]But that's, that's how I see it.
[00:41:01.660]That's how I approach it.
[00:41:03.660]With all, you know, caution to say, okay.
[00:41:06.660]And when people say, yeah, of course, the time is very different.
[00:41:10.660]The world is very different.
[00:41:11.660]That's all very true.
[00:41:13.660]But human nature is not that different.
[00:41:16.660]And similar situations might, not necessarily, but might have similar outcomes.
[00:41:25.660]Okay, so that'd be Rian.
[00:41:28.660]Yeah, I mean, so sorry about the obvious follow on then.
[00:41:33.660]We appear to be living in some very dangerous times if you want to.
[00:41:38.660]You know, the ultimate atomic scientists have set the clock as close to midnight as it's ever been.
[00:41:43.660]They're like running out of subdivisions of time to use.
[00:41:47.660]So what can we learn then from your respective areas to avert war and maintain peace?
[00:41:54.660]What can we do as a nation and what can we do as individual citizens?
[00:41:57.660]Yeah.
[00:41:58.660]I think self-education is important.
[00:42:10.660]Looking at alternative media, not following the mainstream media because mainstream media is sensationalist.
[00:42:17.660]Alternate media, as Adam Jones, for example, who wrote a book on genocide studies, says travel.
[00:42:27.660]We know about different cultures, understand different cultures, but usually I think students come to universities with preconceived notions about certain things, about religions, about cultures.
[00:42:41.660]And my take is that if you haven't changed by graduation, you haven't achieved anything.
[00:42:49.660]That's the idea of universities, to challenge you, to challenge preconceived notions and talk about sensitive issues.
[00:42:56.660]Whether these are genocide, whether it's anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, whether it's racism or different things.
[00:43:06.660]But as Ken said, we are living in very difficult times, where now even reading card holders might not have much protection, I should say.
[00:43:19.660]And I don't want to pontificate what's going to happen, but the...
[00:43:25.660]targeting students for free speech within US universities is taking us back to McCarthyism.
[00:43:36.660]So I am worried, but I think students should have a unified voice in expressing their point of view.
[00:43:48.660]And in different countries, actually, in Europe or in Turkey, for example, and other countries,
[00:43:54.660]students play a dominant role in the political student demonstrations, Europe, Germany, etc.
[00:44:00.660]But within this country, we don't have very, we as students don't have a large voice within the political system,
[00:44:08.660]studying and then graduating, really. But other countries have this tradition.
[00:44:13.660]I mean, here might be the civil rights movement, or Vietnam would have been the last kind of student movement.
[00:44:23.660]I want to recommend a book that I really enjoyed. It's really short.
[00:44:28.660]Like the pictures?
[00:44:30.660]It's by a historian Eyal named Timothy Snyder.
[00:44:37.660]Oh, yes.
[00:44:38.660]And it's called On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century.
[00:44:42.660]And he looks at a bunch of different instances of fascist risings and distills takeaways.
[00:44:52.660]I mean, it's like you can fit it in your back pocket.
[00:44:56.660]It's like the size of a smartphone.
[00:44:59.660]And it's very clearly written, and it's very compelling.
[00:45:04.660]And it includes some things that we can all do.
[00:45:09.660]Some of the suggestions are things like consuming this from multiple sources.
[00:45:15.660]And if you find a source that you think is really quality, support it.
[00:45:19.660]You know, subscribe.
[00:45:21.660]It even says the sixth book of Harry Potter is actually all about the rise of tyranny.
[00:45:32.660]And if you've never read it that way, it might be a good time to go back and reread it.
[00:45:36.660]Isn't that right? It's crazy.
[00:45:40.660]He said things like don't comply with illegal orders in advance, hoping that you'll be spared worse down the line.
[00:45:48.660]We've seen that. It doesn't work.
[00:45:50.660]So that's, you know, read stuff.
[00:45:55.660]Read this book. For professors, right? So I'll always suggest education. Read it. This particular book.
[00:46:01.660]But it is true that if you value college education, if we value it, we should all stand up for it.
[00:46:13.660]And join common cause with other people.
[00:46:19.660]I totally agree with everyone that just spoke.
[00:46:23.660]Tim Snyder's book absolutely. It's a very practical guide to navigate challenges, certain challenges that we face.
[00:46:33.660]And I think he also speaks like, if you don't want to read it, but I hope you will.
[00:46:41.660]He basically summarizes his books on YouTube and gives talks and so on and so on. So it's very accessible.
[00:46:48.660]I think in this way, and I mean, to answer your question, I say the same thing that I said at the end of my talk when I got a question.
[00:46:56.660]That is education, you have to educate, you have to study what happened.
[00:47:02.660]Because if you don't know what happened, if you don't know the history, the whole call for never again is pointless, meaningless.
[00:47:12.660]If you say never again, you don't know what happened, you have no basic knowledge, no idea.
[00:47:17.660]You wouldn't even recognize it if it looks you in the face.
[00:47:23.660]Because you don't have the education or knowledge to be able to recognize the challenge or the past in some form or another.
[00:47:33.660]And it also makes practical advice, like you said.
[00:47:40.660]And I think one of my takeaways was how important friendships are, how important circles are.
[00:47:46.660]Then you have the support network, then you have people you can hang out with.
[00:47:51.660]They do not sit alone in your room or in your apartment and just, you know, fall into depression or something or be alone with your thoughts and go into a negative spiral.
[00:48:03.660]But have people, have friends reach out to them.
[00:48:07.660]This is very, very important.
[00:48:09.660]And that's a very, really useful advice for everyone.
[00:48:13.660]Because this is something one can do.
[00:48:15.660]You know, to be proactive, to reach out to the support network, to the friends, to the colleagues.
[00:48:25.660]And that was one of the many, many good advice takeaways from this book.
[00:48:33.660]Speaking of friends, at the international level, one of the concerns I think that a lot of people have is the decline in NATO.
[00:48:44.660]And the alliance structure that has helped to maintain peace in Europe is something I think that is valuable.
[00:48:53.660]And I think one of the surprising developments that we've seen in the last year and a half is, I think,
[00:49:02.660]the assumption that alliances are automatically bound together.
[00:49:09.660]But in fact, there is such a commitment problem.
[00:49:13.660]It's so difficult to be sure that others will live up to the responsibilities that it takes a committed effort,
[00:49:22.660]both verbally and in terms of behavior, to reassure allies that you'll be there.
[00:49:29.660]And undercutting that, the statements, is, I think, dangerous.
[00:49:34.660]A second point, and I agree with Pedro, is that democracies aren't saints.
[00:49:41.660]But civil wars are much,
[00:49:42.660]much less likely to occur in democratic political systems because folks have
[00:49:48.660]alternative avenues for expressing grievances.
[00:49:51.660]And as we clamp down on democracy and free speech,
[00:49:56.660]then it increases the likelihood that you get these really bad developments.
[00:50:02.660]And although I think it's unlikely in the United States,
[00:50:08.660]one of my colleagues from University of California,
[00:50:11.660]University of Southern California, Barbara Walter,
[00:50:14.660]wrote a very provocative piece in 2022,
[00:50:18.660]which was predicting a civil war in the United States.
[00:50:21.660]And it didn't come to fruition,
[00:50:24.660]but what she was focusing on were these structural elements,
[00:50:29.660]and one of them was the erosion of democracy in the United States.
[00:50:34.660]And that if you don't trust that others will play by the rules, then why should you?
[00:50:40.660]And the more pervasive that belief becomes,
[00:50:46.660]then the easier it is to justify violence against others
[00:50:50.660]if we don't believe that they're going to play by the same rules.
[00:50:54.660]So as college students, we're given the opportunity to educate ourselves about certain scary topics.
[00:51:09.660]What would you recommend us as college students do to set the example that education is power
[00:51:14.660]to those that aren't given the same accessibility to our resources?
[00:51:18.660]I'll try.
[00:51:32.660]I'm not sure.
[00:51:33.660]I like the comment about friendships, right?
[00:51:38.660]You are here.
[00:51:39.660]You have friends who are here.
[00:51:40.660]You probably have friends who are not here, right?
[00:51:43.660]Friends from home, friends from other social circles that aren't university circles, and
[00:51:50.660]you have the privilege of sharing with them, too, what you learn here in the classroom,
[00:51:57.660]and learning from them, too, what they know.
[00:52:02.660]Speaking sort of personally, my daughter is now a university student, but she was a well-educated
[00:52:07.660]student, but she was a welder. And so that's a really different
[00:52:12.660]social circle in terms of what she learned from
[00:52:17.660]those folks. And it helps her. She's a political science major, actually,
[00:52:23.660]now. And the way she approaches political questions
[00:52:28.660]is quite different because she had those conversations and
[00:52:33.660]she's excited about the possibility of taking what she's learned
[00:52:36.660]now in school back to those folks that she was friends with
[00:52:41.660]there as well and bringing what she heard from them into her classes.
[00:52:45.660]So I think that is a privilege that knowing people
[00:52:51.660]and intentionally knowing them is really, really powerful.
[00:52:56.660]It's very easy to sink into a community and never kind of reach out.
[00:53:02.660]But I bet you have lots of friends who didn't come to college.
[00:53:05.660]Who you could still talk to about these things.
[00:53:12.660]Yes, I'd like to echo that.
[00:53:14.660]I'm not sure if your experience is similar to mine,
[00:53:16.660]but as a political science, or your daughter's,
[00:53:18.660]but as a political science major when I was an undergraduate,
[00:53:21.660]whenever I would travel back to my small town in Minnesota,
[00:53:25.660]my friends would purposefully date me.
[00:53:27.660]Oh no.
[00:53:29.660]Dropping comments about wars or something like that.
[00:53:32.660]Just to bring me out.
[00:53:34.660]And what I realized was that that was a lot of fun for me.
[00:53:38.660]Not as fun as I used to be, but it was also good for them.
[00:53:42.660]And I think they benefited from it, if anything else, making fun of how mad I got.
[00:53:48.660]But I think these comments about those interactions with others make a big difference.
[00:53:56.660]And I think on Facebook, for example, I have a wide variety of friends,
[00:54:03.660]and I tend not to engage them in debates on Facebook because it goes into disaster.
[00:54:09.660]But on an interpersonal level, yeah, it goes really well.
[00:54:14.660]We're on the phone occasionally.
[00:54:17.660]It's kind of sad that I think your point about polarization
[00:54:22.660]sometimes makes me a bit apprehensive about engaging people.
[00:54:28.660]But bars are still very nice because they tend to relax people a little bit more.
[00:54:32.660]They get easier to do.
[00:54:35.660]I think, yeah, engaging with people is a wonderful way to spread that
[00:54:40.660]and to gain knowledge from others, to gain perspectives.
[00:54:45.660]Okay, my question is about oppression and why certain,
[00:54:51.660]I guess this is an oversimplification, but certain groups of people
[00:54:54.660]who are oppressed tend to turn that oppression onto others,
[00:54:58.660]whether if it's, I guess, the Russians' revolution,
[00:55:01.660]then they end up being an authoritarian regime.
[00:55:06.660]I guess with the Holocaust and Israel turning to Gaza
[00:55:11.660]and oppressing other people, just different situations.
[00:55:16.660]And not every group who has been oppressed has oppressed others.
[00:55:19.660]I was wondering the difference between those and why that occurs.
[00:55:28.660]There are cases in history where the victims
[00:55:30.660]become victimizers.
[00:55:32.660]There's a good book about that, about an agent that suffered
[00:55:39.660]under the British colonial system, British oppression,
[00:55:44.660]and the Egyptians themselves did the same against the Sudanese.
[00:55:49.660]So that's the equation.
[00:55:54.660]And, of course, in the case of Israel, the Jewish colonialists
[00:55:59.660]and the Jewish community or Jews, the Jewry of Europe suffered
[00:56:04.660]almost one of the major events of the 20th century.
[00:56:09.660]And I would always say, you know, with the creation of the State of Israel,
[00:56:13.660]there was a problem that needed to be solved.
[00:56:16.660]What do you do with the Palestinians?
[00:56:18.660]It's their land, they're there, and they were there from the beginning.
[00:56:21.660]They were Jewish communities, they were there from the beginning.
[00:56:24.660]So the inability to create -- this is the British mistake, actually --
[00:56:28.660]the inability to create a solution that satisfies both sides created the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
[00:56:38.660]There's a power disparity in this conflict, and there's a lot of human rights violations.
[00:56:45.660]And also, I attribute all of this to the rise of right-wing governments,
[00:56:51.660]not only within Israel, not only within the Palestinian factions,
[00:56:57.660]right-wing in that case would be Hamas, for example,
[00:57:00.660]but also in different parts of the globe.
[00:57:03.660]Right-wing governments tend to be more oppressive and more authoritarian.
[00:57:07.660]Think about, for example, today, Turkey.
[00:57:11.660]And a couple of days ago, the Erdogan government arrested the mayor of Istanbul,
[00:57:19.660]who was going to become an opponent,
[00:57:22.660]who had a lot of chance to win the elections in 2028.
[00:57:26.660]So what type of parliamentary democracy is that,
[00:57:30.660]that suddenly you can arrest anyone
[00:57:34.660]and use specific clauses of anti-terrorist movement, etc.
[00:57:39.660]Even what we're seeing here in this country,
[00:57:42.660]using clauses from the McCarthyist period, etc.
[00:57:49.660]So I think your point is right.
[00:57:55.660]There are certain cases in which the operas become oppressive too.
[00:58:00.660]Any final thoughts, panelists?
[00:58:07.660]Well, I would like to thank everyone for joining us this evening.
[00:58:15.660]And we'll see you next year when we talk about uncertainty.
[00:58:20.660]But many thanks to our panelists for their good leadership tonight.
[00:58:24.660]Thank you.

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