In January 1077, Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, went to Canossa, a castle in Italy where Pope Gregory VII was staying. He went to plead that his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church be rescinded. The Pope had him wait barefoot in the snow outside his castle for three days, and then admitted him and absolved him. Going to Canossa has become an expression to indicate that, after a political defeat, or in order to avoid a still worse defeat, one party to the conflict humiliates himself publicly and apologizes for his misdeeds.

A millennium later, there seems to be a great number of persons/countries going to Canossa, or being asked to go to Canossa. Why has this suddenly become fashionable, or necessary? The victors in the Second World War tried the leaders of defeated Germany and Japan as war criminals, setting a new precedent in international law. But many persons felt that this was insufficient, and that the successor regimes should assume moral responsibility for what the leaders of their country had previously done.

It took a while, but eventually the leaders of Germany issued public apologies for the genocide of the Nazi regime, and made some reparations to the State of Israel. More recently, they came under great pressure to extend the concept of reparations to all those who had been conscripted as slave labor during the war. And this very year, they have adopted such legislation, providing that the German state, jointly with some large German corporations, pay reparations to individuals still living who had been used as slave labor. Similar pressures have been put on the Swiss and Austrian governments, banks, and corporations, with comparable results.

The situation in Japan is quite different. The Japanese government has declined to emulate the German government. While they have issued some excuses, the language has been guarded. It certainly has not satisfied the two countries who feel most aggrieved by Japanese actions in the period 1931-1945: China and Korea. Indeed, the Japanese have been very reluctant even to rewrite the school textbooks to take account of their war crimes.

The idea of "truth commissions" has been spreading in many parts of the world that have known long and murderous civil wars. The most noted is the so-called Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. The South Africans came up with the idea that they would trade "truth" for "amnesty." If persons involved in the apartheid regime who had committed moral crimes would now confess them, in great detail, the Commission would grant them amnesty from prosecution. This has been a controversial mode of handling historic wrongs. Some critics have argued that this has enabled criminals to avoid "justice," and thereby "get away with their crimes." The Commission, and its supporters, argued that this was the road, the only road, to national "reconciliation." There are a number of Latin American countries which have created variants of the South African commission, with varying degrees of public acceptance. Some persons are now advocating similar commissions in the Balkans, and in other parts of Africa.

How recent do such crimes have to be? This is no minor question. As we well know, the creation of the modern world-system involved an enormous conquest and colonization of large parts of the world by European powers. They slaughtered "native" populations, enslaved them (or put them into conditions of forced labor), and appropriated their land. Today, both "indigenous peoples" and descendants of slave populations have started campaigns for "apologies" and "reparations" in many parts of the world, but notably the United States and Canada. Of course, land appropriation is still a current issue (as opposed to an historic issue) in still other parts of the world, for example, in Israel/Palestine.

Apologies are relatively cheap, and some have been made. Reparations cost money. And if they are to be serious, they cost a lot of money. Who should pay this? The obvious answer is the descendants of those who committed the crimes. But these persons often argue that they cannot be expected to accept the burden of what ancestors, a dozen or two dozen generations back, did. And what kind of reparations - money (in one form or another) or land? Land restitution would of course transform the distribution of wealth in the existing world-system. And to whom would this land be redistributed? These are of course difficult questions - difficult legally, and difficult morally. Still, there are beginnings of such reparations, even in land - more in Canada than in the United States.

There are crimes that are even older than the European colonization of the non-European world. There are the crimes committed in the name of religious faith. The Roman Catholic Church has taken the lead in recognizing this issue. Pope John Paul II launched a process of public apology and requests for forgiveness. Of whom? Of the Jewish people, of the intellectuals of the world for the persecution of Galileo and others, and most recently of Orthodox Christians. His words in regard to Moslems were less forthright, but he recognized the mutual pain the two religions had imposed on each other. The recipients of the apologies have tended to be thankful, but often asked for still more. Some Roman Catholics have been appalled by what they see as a belittling of the true faith.

Why, however, has all this become an issue now, indeed an issue of growing importance politically? The answer seems obvious. It is a reflection of a changed rapport de forces in the modern world-system, one sign of the increased political strength of the non-White populations of the world, and more generally, of all those who have been persecuted, oppressed, and kept down in the world's hierarchies.

This is no doubt a good thing. And the confession of sins, past sins, however far past, is both cleansing and can be historically instructive. Do reparations make sense? For still living survivors of misdeeds (workers in Nazi slave camps, Korean comfort women, etc.), it may ease the pain of their last days. But how about for descendants of the persons who were maltreated? One can look at such reparations as a symbol, as economic redistribution, as political transformation.

As a symbol, reparations have much value. They are a moral acknowledgment, with significant political consequences. They also have a cost, since they lead probably to a sense of aggrievement on those taxed for this purpose (especially those persons who are themselves not too well-off). This reverse aggrievement may not be justified but it will be a reality.

As economic redistribution, reparations are probably an extremely inefficacious mode of achieving this, since it will come in the form of bonanzas for a part, but only a part, of those to whom it should go, and probably leave relatively unscathed the persons who morally should pay the highest price. Economic redistribution, if that is the goal, is better achieved by direct political action.

This brings us to the last consideration - the long-run political consequence. The whole issue arises only because of the basic inequalities and crimes of construction of the capitalist world-economy. The solution is not going to come from tinkering with the system, apologizing, redistributing, and speaking the language of virtuous harmony. It requires far more than that.

So, truth yes. And apologies, yes. And reparations, maybe. But all of this must be placed in the larger context of transforming our existing world-system.

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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