Rorotoko

How can countries reconcile after terrible wars? Sorry States examines the role of memory and atonement in international reconciliation. Although many analysts argue that reconciliation requires countries to apologize for past violence, I argue that national apologies and other gestures are more likely to aggravate, rather than soothe, relations between former adversaries. Such gestures trigger divisive domestic backlash that angers and alarms overseas victims. A better approach for countries wishing to reconcile is to construct a shared and non-accusatory narrative about the past. This approach has serious drawbacks: for example, if justice is the policy goal, it is the wrong strategy. But, as John Kenneth Galbraith famously commented, “Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

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