A friend on Facebook asked an intriguing question: “Namit, can you forgive the U.S.?” My response follows (edited/expanded a bit).
I think your question is best directed at those who have suffered the most in the post-9/11 decade. The rest of the world has forgiven the U.S. far more often than the reverse. I don’t see Iraqis hatching plans for any revenge attacks for an estimated 100x lives they lost and for the wrongs done to their socioeconomic fabric by the American invasion, nor did so many others who were brutalized during the Cold War by the U.S. (Guatemalans, Chileans, Angolans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Nicaraguans, etc.). This one time the chickens actually came home to roost was when Americans seemed genuinely puzzled, “why do they hate us?” I mean how obtuse is that question?
Of course, Americans too have suffered from America’s actions in the post-9/11 decade, including thousands dead and tens of thousands maimed. I live here too but my own suffering has been slight compared to others, who face a much bleaker future in a country drowning in debt, the prospect of long-term chronic unemployment, no social security after a few years, inability to fund basic social programs, including public education and healthcare—essentially an unraveling of the welfare state with no end in sight. Who can we forgive for the harm we have inflicted on us? I think a change in our way of being in the world is far more crucial than the question of forgiving ourselves.
For instance, why 9/11 wasn’t seen as an international crime rather than an act of war requiring a full-scale military response has always bothered me. Nor do we like to entertain the idea that the pursuit of justice has a cost—which is often worth paying—but sometimes not, at least not through certain means of pursuing justice that inevitably cause far greater injustice. Nor do we realize that an obsessive pursuit of justice often comes at the expense of other goods in society, and that this has to be baked into the course of action we choose. In personal life we tend to realize this, but not for our nation. Here is a video on the real cost of the post-9/11 decade, and some visuals depicting it.
I won’t even advocate forgiveness as Critchley does, more the non-violent pursuit of justice in every case—breaking the cycle of violence, that is—and keeping violence, and especially war, as tactics of the very last resort (perhaps this is what Critchley meant by “politics of peace”; I wish he had developed it further). It is also the role of a responsible media and of engaged citizens to encourage a fuller awareness of the social cost of pursuing justice via different means, especially war. I think such a shift is possible in the U.S.—just as it is possible for Americans to realize that raising taxes on the rich is not necessarily bad. Oh wait, maybe the shift is not possible after all. 🙂