Interpreting rights and duties after mass violence

Interpreting rights and duties after mass violence

The emphasis on human rights has become so influential in the global political sphere over the past decades that political scientists have come to refer to “human rights regimes” (e.g., Moravscik, 2000). Scholars have pointed to the genocides of the 20th century, the upsurge of ethnic conflicts emerging and rekindling after the end of the Cold War, as well as to decolonization as important influences leading to this development. However, what is new is not the enormity of atrocities, but indeed the increasing expectation of a moral response to human rights violations (Barkan, 2000). This trend is apparent in the growing number of trials, truth and reconciliation commissions, apologies, and various attempts at restitution and reparations over the last years (Minow, 1998). This illustrates not one, but two novel phenomena that go hand in hand: on the one hand the increasing emphasis on rights discussed by Passini (2011; see also Moghaddam, 2008), but on the other hand also an increased emphasis on duties and “moral responsibility” (Barkan, 2000, p. xi) to redress violations of these rights and to prevent future violence.

This movement seems to imply a clear distribution between duties and rights, according to the social roles in mass violence: while duties to redress and prevent mass violence seem to apply to “the guilt of nations” and individual perpetrators (Barkan, 2000), the enhanced focus on rights is now associated with victims (Moscovici & Perez, 2007; Passini, 2011). However, this bifurcation is not necessarily always present. A very important contemporary movement is also that of interethnic solidarity between victim groups (Brysk & Wehrenfennig, 2010; Vollhardt, 2009a, 2009b). This alternative response among victim groups focuses not only on individual or ingroup rights and entitlement, but instead expands these moral considerations to outgroups, portraying protection of others from victimization as a duty. This response, which is often linked to a sense of “inclusive victim consciousness” (Vollhardt, 2009a, in press), fulfills Passini’s (2011) call to link rights and duties more strongly in our age of human rights, as well as his call for their moral inclusiveness (Passini, 2011; see also Opotow, 1990, 2008).

Victim entitlement in an age of human rights

The increased focus on human rights (and—conversely—their abuses) as well as redress after mass violence has gone hand in hand with increased societal discourse addressing victimization. This includes not only victims of human rights abuses and mass violence, but also victims of oppression and structural violence, and minority groups in general (Moscovici & Perez, 2007). While this discourse is generally geared toward the protection of minority rights, there has also been backlash against the so-called “society of victims” and the resulting “rights revolution” (Sykes, 1992; see Cole, 2007, for a critical discussion of this controversial view). In part, this may be due to the somewhat narrow focus on entitlement and rights to compensation or other forms of redress that is now associated with the victim status (Barkan, 2000; Moscovici & Perez, 2007).

Indeed, experimental studies in the US show that feeling wronged interpersonally, on a smaller scale, leads to perceived entitlement among the victims (Zitek, Jordan, Monin, & Leach, 2010); and several quantitative studies among Israeli and North American Jews show that remembering the ingroup’s historical victimization (in the Holocaust) or vulnerability in general justifies harmdoing in present-day conflicts, which is perceived as legitimate self-defense (Klar, Eyal-Schori, & Klar, 2011; Wohl & Branscombe, 2008; see also Bar-Tal & Antebi, 1992; Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori, & Gundar, 2009; Maoz & Eidelson, 2007). Similar narratives of victimhood have served to legitimize violence and deflect responsibility for harmdoing in other contexts as well, such as Burundi, Rwanda, and the Congo (Lemarchand, 2009; Mamdani, 2001) or Ex-Yugoslavia (MacDonald, 2002). In other words, the focus on rights resulting from the experience of injustice and victimization appears to be widespread (Passini, 2011; see also Moscovici & Perez, 2007)—even expanding to the perceived right to commit injustice oneself (Bar-Tal et al., 2009).

In contrast, in recent decades there has been a historical shift from the perceived moral right of perpetrators and winners in conflicts to exploit the defeated victims by imposing payments to the duty to redress injustices by providing payments or other forms of redress to the victims (Barkan, 2000). Along with this “new global trend of restitution for historical injustices” (Barkan, 2000, p. x), the emergence of the perpetrator identity has been shaped by the novel phenomenon of collective guilt (Barkan, 2000; Branscombe & Doosje, 2004). Not surprisingly, collective guilt is often not accepted, and participants in studies examining collective guilt generally tend to give low rates of agreement to such items (Leach, Bou Zeineddine, & Čehajić-Clancy, 2011). In addition, denial and backlash is still widespread in many instances (Bilali, 2011; Imhoff & Banse, 2009). Nevertheless, in the global political arena there is more and more pressure to officially acknowledge responsibility for harmdoing, for example through apologies, truth and reconciliation commissions, or in trials; and to follow up on these acknowledgments with restitution or reparations (Barkan, 2000; Minow, 1998). Following this trend, more and more social psychological research focuses on the processes and conditions that increase individuals’ (reluctant) willingness to endorse the duty of providing reparations to those who were harmed (e.g., Brown, González, Zagefka, Manzi, & Čehajić, 2008; Čehajić-Clancy, Effron, Halperin, Liberman, & Ross, 2011; Iyer, Leach, & Crosby, 2003; Starzyk & Ross, 2008).

In sum, victimhood tends to be linked in current popular discourse with entitlement and rights, whereas membership in a previous perpetrator group (of direct as well as of structural violence) tends to be associated with guilt and the duty to redress the harm (Barkan, 2000; Branscombe & Doosje, 2004; Moscovici & Perez, 2007). However, as Passini (2011) points out, rights and duties are not mutually exclusive (see also Moghaddam, 2008), even in the aftermath of mass violence with the seemingly clear distinction between perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. In order to overcome a narrow and one-dimensional view of the legacy of mass violence, it is necessary to examine the complexities and the interconnection of rights and duties (Passini, 2011) following human rights violations and other forms of victimization.

The complexity of perpetrator–bystander–victim distinctions and its implication for rights and duties after mass violence

One way in which rights and duties after mass violence can be linked is by acknowledging the complexities in victim, bystander, and perpetrator roles. Although social representations of these roles tend to portray them as distinct, there is variation within each group and sometimes even overlap of roles within individuals (Bilewicz & Vollhardt, in press; Gross, 2001; Minow, 1998; Vollhardt & Bilewicz, 2011). For example, within each perpetrator and bystander group in all documented genocides there have been rescuers and heroic helpers (e.g., Oliner & Oliner, 1988; see also Bilewicz & Jaworska, 2011), and there were even (rare) incidences of Nazi perpetrators saving individual Jewish victims while being involved in the killing of others (Moore, 2010). Likewise, some members of victim groups were complicit in killings in order to ensure their survival or for other reasons, thereby becoming simultaneously perpetrators (e.g., Gross, 2001; Moore, 2010). Furthermore, many incidences of mass violence and human rights abuses involve cycles of violence, where previous victim groups become perpetrators. A relatively recent and powerful example is the Great Lakes Region of East Africa, where mass killings of Hutus by Tutsis and of Tutsis by Hutus have been taking place in turn for the last decades in Burundi and in Rwanda; and where narratives of violence and injustice against the ingroup in the past have fueled violence against the other group—often ignoring or silencing the ingroup’s previous acts of perpetration while highlighting the experience of victimization (Doná, 2010; Lemarchand, 2009; Mamdani, 2001; see also Robins & Jones, 2009).

This complexity in relations between perpetrators, victims, and bystanders as well as the resulting rights and duties for members of involved groups often remain unacknowledged; in fact these challenging historical facts are often a taboo (Gross, 2001). When brought to light, the complexity and overlap of social roles in mass atrocities gives rise to large controversy (e.g., Polonsky & Michlic, 2004) or is even silenced in societal and political discourse (Doná, 2010; Lemarchand, 2009). However, in order to achieve an integration of rights and duties in our age of human rights after mass atrocities (Passini, 2011), acts of violence among victim groups and prosocial acts among bystander and perpetrator groups cannot remain a taboo. It is necessary to acknowledge the complexity of these roles and each group involved. As Passini (2011, p. x) points out, “rights can be effective only in relation to corresponding duties.” Accordingly, and in light of the complexity of social roles during genocide and mass violence, so-called perpetrator groups do not only have the responsibility to redress past harmdoing. In addition, they also have the right to experience acknowledgment of any suffering and victimization their group may have experienced (in the same or in related conflicts), as well as acknowledgment of the variation of individual motives and actions within this group—including prosocial behavior such as rescue and resistance. Likewise, the victim group has not only the right for acknowledgment of their suffering as well as redress of past harmdoing and injustices, but also the duty to acknowledge the above-mentioned experiences and variation within the perpetrator group where this acknowledgment is due.

Of course, this is extremely challenging, especially for groups that have a collective self-concept as historical victims (Bar-Tal et al., 2009; Polonsky & Michlic, 2004). In addition, caution is warranted—mutual acknowledgment should not result in postmodern arbitrariness, and should not serve to exonerate harmdoing or blame or derogate the victim. Acts of different scope, intensity, and intentionality should not be treated as morally equivalent. This being said, adequate mutual acknowledgment of rights and duties among both “victim groups” and “perpetrator groups” bridges rights and duties while also providing the moral inclusion that Passini (2011) suggests is necessary in order to achieve this integration. In addition, experiencing acknowledgment of the complexities and variations within the history of each group involved might reduce negative reactions to notions of collective responsibility for harmdoing, and facilitate acknowledgment of other groups’ experiences while also improving relations between these groups (Bilewicz & Jaworska, 2011; Maoz & Bar-On, 2002; Shnabel, Nadler, Ullrich, Dovidio, & Carmi, 2009).

Drawing morally inclusive lessons after mass violence

The different lessons that can be drawn from the experience of mass violence also reveal a consideration of duties in our age of human rights. Some of these interpretations focus not only on rights and entitlement, but also on perceived duties and responsibilities resulting from victimization. For example, Klar et al. (2011) have distinguished four lessons drawn by Israeli (and other) Jews that focus on duties and responsibilities arising from the experience of the Holocaust. Two of these lessons include duties toward the self and the ingroup: “Never be a passive victim” and “never forsake your brothers.” Two other lessons, perhaps less widespread, are “never be a passive bystander” and “never be a perpetrator” (Klar et al., 2011). Drawing on archival evidence from newspaper articles, policies, and political speeches as well as social movements, Klar et al. (2011) show how all of these voices have been present in Israel, to varying degrees. These examples demonstrate that victimization does not only lead to a focus on rights, but can also result in perceived duties; and importantly that the perceived responsibility to fulfill these duties can be morally inclusive and expand to a sense of duty toward other victim groups (Passini, 2011; see also Opotow, 1990, 2008), based on a sense of inclusive victim consciousness (Vollhardt, 2009a, in press; see also Vollhardt, 2009b; Vollhardt & Staub, 2011).

Inclusive victim consciousness and perceived duties to protect other victim groups: Examples from across the world

Inclusive victim consciousness is a sense of perceived similarity and shared fate with members of other victim groups—groups that would otherwise be perceived as outgroups because they belong to a different ethnic, religious, national, or other socially construed category (Vollhardt, 2009a, in press). Inclusive victim consciousness and resulting perceptions of duties to prevent other groups’ suffering are perhaps less common than lessons that focus on individual and ingroup rights and entitlement. However, inclusive responses can be found among many groups and social movements of groups that experienced human rights abuses and mass atrocities, and therefore may be more common than one might expect.

One example is Jewish human rights activism (Galchinsky, 2008). Often explicitly associated with the collective experience of Jewish suffering over centuries, there has been a strong tendency among Jewish communities and individuals to support human rights activism and even lead human rights organizations. This has included actions against genocides—starting with Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who coined the term “genocide” and drafted what is now known as the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Notably, his work was first motivated by deep concern about the Armenian Genocide and not exclusively or primarily Jewish victimization (Power, 2002). In recent years, the movement to stop the genocide in Darfur has been spearheaded by Jewish communities and organizations such as Jewish World Watch or the American Jewish World Service (Galchinsky, 2008). Jews have also been overproportionally represented among White supporters of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa (Brysk, 2008) as well as in the Civil Rights movement in the United States (Finkelstein, 1997). As Schultz notes, “knowledge of the Holocaust fueled and legitimated their desire to fight against racism” (2001, p. 182). It is important to restate that this is just one possible response. Others have drawn different lessons from the experience of mass violence that, for example, have fed into the legitimization of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Bar-Tal & Antebi, 1992; Klar et al., 2011; Wohl & Branscombe, 2008), or led to blockages of campaigns to acknowledge the Armenian genocide for strategic political reasons (Brysk, 2008).

Another example of perceived and morally inclusive duties arising from experiences of victimization are Japanese Americans, who, in the decades after their internment in the United States, have extended their activism and felt responsibility to protect their own community from future injustices to other groups as well. Most prominently, Japanese American organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League have spoken out and taken action against discrimination and persecution facing Muslim Americans in the United States after 09/11 (e.g., JACL, 2011; Kong, 2001; Murray, 2007). In these statements, parallels between the Japanese internment during World War II and the situation of Muslim Americans today are drawn, and implicitly or explicitly the actors convey their sense of duty to prevent a similar situation from occurring again.

A third example is that of Northern Irish people and organizations, who for many decades have declared solidarity and acted on behalf of other groups that were oppressed, colonized, and struggling for national self-determination. As early as in the first decades of the 20th century, Annie Besant, a social activist of Irish origin, started the Indian Home Rule movement and was even elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1917 (Mortimer, 1983). As scholars analyzing her motivation to become active on behalf of a completely foreign people note, Besant “saw Indian issues through Irish eyes” (Bayly, 2000, p. 393). Similarly, in later decades Northern Irish activists and politicians have expressed solidarity with and supported other movements of colonized and oppressed groups, including the Basques, Kurds, and Palestinians (Brysk & Wehrenfennig, 2010). Expressions of solidarity range from symbolic expressions on murals in Belfast and Derry, depicting a PLO and IRA activist together, or the slogan “Our day will come” in both Arabic and in Gaelic (Murals of Northern Ireland, n.d.), to more tangible political support such as Northern Irish trade unions lobbying on behalf of Palestinians (Brysk & Wehrenfennig, 2010).

These three cases are no exception—similar parallels are drawn in many social movements of ethnic, racial, religious, or other minority groups, even those established explicitly to fight for the rights of a particular minority group. For example, similar expressions of solidarity and calls for support of colonized nations as well as all “oppressed people of color” have been articulated by leaders of the Black Power movement (Woodard, 1999, p. 8; see also Blauner, 1972). Likewise, many feminist activists also support rights of other disadvantaged groups, such as gay rights, civil rights, and affirmative action (Cole, 2007; Duncan & Stewart, 2007). This position of morally inclusive victim consciousness often emphasizes duties and responsibilities. The explicit notion of obligation—as a consequence of the own group’s experience of victimization—to prevent other groups from suffering include statements by Armenian American leaders in the context of the genocide in Darfur and South Kordofan stressing that “Armenian Americans, as citizens with a direct connection to the Armenian genocide (. . .), bear a special responsibility to prevent atrocities all over the world” (The Armenian Weekly, 2011). Similarly, referring to the situation of Muslim Americans, Japanese Americans have stated that “Japanese Americans who experienced that hatred and incarceration have a responsibility to speak out at every opportunity” (Murray, 2007, p. 449; see also Kong, 2001). Using almost the same language as the previous examples, the American Jewish World Service declares “As Jews, we have a particular moral responsibility to speak out and take action against genocide” (cited in Galchinsky, 2008, p. 83). In sum, morally inclusive “duty talk” is evident among these groups, and not just the ingroup-focused “rights talk” that the social science literature has associated with the experience of victimization (Cole, 2007; Moscovici & Perez, 2007; Passini, 2011).

Limitations to morally inclusive rights and duties after mass violence

There are, of course, several limitations to the validity and generalizability of inclusive victim consciousness and related perceptions of the duty to protect human rights of everyone. Importantly, these ideas are not shared by all group members, and discourse about shared fate and resulting solidarity often gives rise to controversy within a given group or movement (see Blauner, 1972; Perumal, 2006). When it occurs, the scope of inclusive victim consciousness is often still limited to certain groups. Moreover, in some cases inclusive victim consciousness is in fact expressed for strategic and ingroup-focused reasons. For example, some statements of inclusive victimhood by Alevi activists described by Yildiz and Verkuyten (2011) appear to be primarily aimed at gaining acknowledgment of the ingroup’s victimization by drawing comparisons with cases of group violence that are more recognized in larger society; and in some cases inclusive victimhood is used to appeal to other groups for mutual support. In other words, even inclusive victim consciousness can be strategically geared toward ensuring ingroup rights, and not necessarily focused on the duty to protect the rights of other groups as well.

Conclusion

Despite the increasing focus on rights in the past decades, there has also been a growing international norm to take moral responsibility for mass atrocities and human rights abuses (Barkan, 2000; Minow, 1998). This norm has been constructed and communicated through imposed as well as voluntary trials, truth commissions, reparation payments, apologies, monuments, and other forms of publically enacted redress of harmdoing that have increased since the 1990s. To redress previous injustices has generally become accepted as a collective duty—although obviously not always followed (Barkan & Karn, 2006; Leach et al., 2011). This simultaneous development of two complementary moral movements speaks to Passini’s (2011) call for the need to consider not only rights but also duties, and to take responsibility to ensure the protection of these rights for everyone. In addition, the international movement toward increased redress of human rights violations has gone beyond the focus on individual rights criticized by Passini (2011), bridging individual and group rights (Barkan, 2000).

On the surface the roles seem to be distributed clearly between so-called victim groups and perpetrator groups: parallel to the general tendency for majorities to focus on duties and minorities to focus on rights (Moghaddam, 2008), in the context of redress after mass atrocities there also appears to be an emphasis on the duties of previous perpetrator groups (namely to provide redress of past injustices) and on the rights of former victim groups (to receive compensation and protection from renewed injustices). However, there are several complexities that result in a much stronger integration of rights and duties in this context than one might first think. These complexities include a growing recognition that victim and perpetrator roles are not always clearly demarcated (Bilewicz & Vollhardt, in press; Gross, 2001; Minow, 1998; Robins & Jones, 2009). Historians, sociologists, and political scientists have recently written about less known incidences that complicate the picture—such as the displacement of Hutus prior to the Rwandan genocide in 1994 or the killing of Hutu refugees in the Eastern Congo in the aftermath of the genocide by Tutsi-led militia groups (Lemarchand, 2009). These facts depart from the national narrative in Rwanda of Hutus as the clear perpetrators and Tutsis as the clear victims in this period. Similarly, recent writing about Polish massacres of Jews during and in the aftermath of the Holocaust have contributed to a more nuanced discussion of Poland’s strong and exclusive collective memory as victims of the Second World War (Gross, 2001, 2006). The growing recognition of these kinds of complexities places responsibility and duties on all groups involved. However, it should also not lead to victim blaming or moral equivalence and reduction of responsibilities among those who committed harm.

Additionally, among most victim groups throughout the world, several distinct meanings have been derived from the ingroup’s experience of victimization and mass violence—many of which include a focus on responsibilities and duties and not just on rights. These duties have been conceptualized in more or less inclusive ways, focusing either primarily on the ingroup—especially in the immediate aftermath of violence and when the group’s situation has not yet been acknowledged and improved—or taking upon oneself the responsibility to prevent other groups from experiencing harm and injustice as well. Importantly, these meanings cannot be imposed, but must be developed individually or jointly. While speeches by leaders that promote inclusive meanings and duties after mass violence can be helpful in facilitating a sense of responsibility to prevent violence and human rights abuses, these kinds of messages might nevertheless give rise to backlash if the individual or collective actors do not feel that their own victimization has been acknowledged and their rights and needs have been addressed. Future research in social psychology and in cultural psychology will need to systematically study the cognitive construals and meanings that enable morally inclusive actions, such as inclusive victim consciousness (Vollhardt, 2009a, in press). More research is also needed on the societal conditions that foster these meanings—such as their embeddedness in existing cultural narratives or universalist ideologies, their prevalence in the societal discourse of various victim groups as well as endorsement by leaders, and the recovery of resources and so-called social capital that enables people to act on behalf of others (see Brysk & Wehrenfennig, 2010).

In sum, even among individuals and groups who are most deserving of an emphasis on the restoration of their rights, rights and duties are not mutually exclusive; and individual as well as collective meanings exist that link individual and ingroup rights after mass violence in a morally inclusive way to the responsibility to prevent violence from occurring to others.