France is at the moment in the middle of a big scandal. An old and virtually unknown retired general, Gen. Aussaresses, has published a book in which he has admitted (one might almost say boasted of) the fact that, during the war in Algeria, he personally was in charge of extensive torture and murder on behalf of the French army. In any case, he says he has no regrets. For those who are old enough to have been politically active 40-45 years ago and who followed the events in Algeria, this admission comes as no surprise. It was widely alleged at the time by those who were tortured, by those who protested against these tortures, and by those (relatively few persons) who resigned from positions of authority in the French government, and indeed in the French army, in protest against these practices.

But of course at the time the French authorities vigorously denied the charge, and prosecuted persons who made such charges. They banned books that alleged such practices. In short, they lied through their teeth in the face of massive evidence. But now the torturer-in-chief himself says it was true. And he says that his superiors in the army and the government knew what he was doing, indeed ordered him to do it. The current president of France, Jacques Chirac, says he is horrified and has asked the army to look into the possibility of charging the general with crimes. He also wants the general to be revoked from membership in the Légion d'Honneur. The current prime minister, Lionel Jospin, suggests that the issue be left to historians. Everyone else is debating what to do.

How are we to think about crimes against humanity? And how are we to think about reopening the issue of such crimes many years later? For France is not alone in the face of this problem. Even if we restrict ourselves to the twentieth century, there were the crimes of the Nazis. There were the crimes of the Japanese in the second World War. There was the genocide of the Armenians. There was the Gulag in the Soviet Union. There was Pinochet in Chile. There was Ariel Sharon in Lebanon. There were the crimes of the United States in Korea and Vietnam. There are, more recently, all the many crimes in the Balkans and in Africa. Indeed, the list is very, very long.

And always the story is the same. Those who commit the crimes deny them when they are doing them. Those who denounce the crimes are denounced in turn. And later, much later, it is revealed that those in power lied through their teeth. Shall we just throw up our arms in despair? Shall we create "Truth and Reconciliation Commissions" everywhere, following the recent example of South Africa - an example that has itself been denounced for being strong on reconciliation and short on justice?

And above all, whom shall we blame? It is always easy to blame the other guy. We are rarely ready to admit our own guilt - our active guilt as torturers, our collateral guilt as those who knew but said nothing or not very much, our passive guilt as those who facilitated the crimes by joining in the passions that were their context. In the specific case of French torture during the Algerian war of independence, shall we blame Gen. Aussaresses? or also his superiors in the army? or also the members of the cabinet who authorized the special powers under which the army carried out the torture? How much did very famous French leaders know? Gen. de Gaulle who forbade the torture but then did nothing to implement his views? Or earlier François Mitterand, who as Minister of the Interior when the torture began, seems to have warned the Prime Minister against the practice, but then did not resign when it continued?

And above all, what should we do about it now? Put on trial an aging general, who obeyed orders (but so did the defendants at Nuremberg)? Or issue a report, in which the government admits all (or almost all)? Or simply write about it realistically in the textbooks? The scandal has brought to light what French textbooks are teaching young people today about the events then. Some don't mention them at all. Others mention them rapidly. The Ministry of Education says that teachers are free to supplement the textbooks. But the teachers say they have no time, given the material the students need to pass the exams. In Japan, there is resistance to including even the passing mention which one finds in the French textbooks. Do any U.S. textbooks talk of the slaughters of civilians in Vietnam, as exposed in the famous Calley affair or more recently as exposed by former Senator Kerrey (and Medal of Honor winner) who told of his own guilt in one such slaughter? Do any U.S. textbooks tell of the report of the Church Committee (of the U.S. Senate) spelling out the misdeeds of the CIA, for example, the attempted assassinations of Fidel Castro (which only last year a high ex-CIA official said was directly suggested in veiled language by President Kennedy himself)? Do we read of the Stalin era in Russian textbooks?

What lessons can we learn from these scandals? First of all, and I think this is first of all, that governments lie all the time, and especially about their crimes. Those who expose the lies of their own governments are not traitors; they are the honor of the country when their leaders have betrayed that honor. Secondly, we learn that it is important for school textbooks to spell out in some detail the misdeeds of their own countries. To be sure, it is reasonable to balance this by telling of the misdeeds of the others as well, but only if one emphasizes one's own guilt. No healthy social order can be built on the sand of self-deception.

Will such open discussion and awareness prevent the horrors from continuing? Possibly not, but it certainly won't hurt. The origins of the crimes are deep within the basic structures of the world-system within which we are living. The causers are structural. France tortured in Algeria in order to maintain a colonial system that was exploitative and indecent. Those in power could appeal both to the noble sentiments of their own citizens (love of country) and to the ignoble sentiments of their own citizens (love of power, love of privilege). It turns out it isn't very hard to get persons, in a situation of acute conflict, to do horrible things. What is difficult is to get people to stop doing horrible things.

The first appeal must always be to those who are more powerful, who are for the moment winning the battle. If one protests their misdeeds, they will tell you they are fighting terrorism or something else that is execrable. And no doubt they are. The question is how one can bring these mutual slaughters to an end. The solutions are always political. But political solutions last only as long as they reflect some modicum of justice.

So, yes, let's discuss the tortures of France in Algeria, and those everywhere else. Let us condemn those individuals who were weak enough to engage in the tortures or tolerate them (which is the vast majority of mankind). And yes, let us try to transform the structures of the world so that fewer persons, fewer governments are pushed by the logic of preserving their existing privileges to engage in these practices. The fact that this is not easy only means we need to work at it unceasingly. And it means we continually need to expose the past rather than to glorify it.

Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

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