Europe handles its war reconciliation much better than Asia
Montblanc  Updated: 2004-04-07 09:14

This is the story how European "hereditary Enemies" in the Wars 1870/71, 1914/18, 1939/45 came to the actual state of "European Union".

Since 1950 Robert Schumann and Jean Monnet were seeking " a equality of rights and duties between those who have won the war and those who lost it". The dialog started among very polite and elitist poeple on the French side, who had to face Germans which were at 90% involved in the war atrocities. They tried everthing to make the other side not feel bad, incomfortable, guilty, embarassed or the like, if only by allusions. One tried to single out or avoid questions, which could have hurt. It is interesting to note for Chinese, that the French, as official war winners and occupation force in Germany, had rather the inferiority complex, than the Germans. One had told them too often, mostly from American and British side, that they were the losers in the war and only victorious because of the American intervention. This factor may have pushed them to seek arrangements ending the "hereditary enemy" period.

The bridge-building policy took mainly two directions:

1. on a larger European level
2. very much bilaterally between German and their direct war foes in direct neighborhood

The European way started with the

· Coal and Steel community 1951 (only very limited success as long steel and coal were important raw materials for Europe)
· European Defense treaty (no success, supplanted by NATO)
· Rome treaty 1957 (big success, evolution to today's European Union)

The reconciliation process did concentrate very much on German neighbors. France in the first place, much later Poland and the Czech Republic. The reconciliation with the eastern neighbors of Germany was much more difficult because of big landtaking (Oder-Neisse line) of the former German Reich and large unsettled population expulsions. It had to wait the break up of the Soviet Union but then went forward very fast leading to the membership in the European Union from beginning May this year.

The German-French reconciliation started much earlier:

1. 1963 French-German "Elysee Treaty" between President de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer laid the ground work.
2. Common television network ARTE. bilingual German, French
3. French German youth office, exchange of 7000 young people
4. German-French University currently 3000 students
5. French-German Day at the 21 January each year
6. 2200 couples of town partnerships between French and German towns and many more with other towns over Europe and the whole world. Berlin e.g. has partnerships with Brussels, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Jakarta, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mexico-town, Moscow, Paris, Beijing, Prague, Tashkent, Tokyo, Warsaw and Windhoek. In addition Berlin has specific cooperation projects, with Copenhagen, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Shanghai, Seoul, Sofia, Sydney and Vienna.
7. 1991 Triangle of Weimar (including Poland in the French-German reconciliation
8. 1997 Czech-German reconciliation declaration

In contrast, Japans has done much less than Germany, so admitted recently H.E. Mr. Koichi Haraguchi, Permanent Representative of Japan at the Open Debate of the Security Council on "Post-Conflict National Reconciliation: The Role of the United Nations".

I must confess that Japan is still in the process of studying this issue and has not yet arrived at a firm position on it. However, I am sure that everyone will agree that reconciliation is indispensable for the consolidation of peace in unstable post-conflict societies. Consolidation of peace is one of the key elements of "human security," which the Government of Japan has been advocating

There is a stark difference of the demands of "victims" in Asia towards Japan, compared with Europe. So North Korea demand's officially: That the victim will decide how much compensation is enough, not the perpetrator. Then the North Korean conception of "real apology". There are six elements:

- it has to come from a Prime Minister in power;

- it has to be in writing, preferably in a joint communiqué;

- it has to contain the word "apology", not only remorse or regret;

- it has to list specific damage and suffering caused in Korea;

- it must be "deep", i.e., reflected in school textbooks; and

- it should reflect the general world trend of apologies and
compensation.

I think that the softer approach in Europe should inspire the relations between perpetrators and victims in Asia.

I personally would recommend very warmly the European way of Town and regional partnerships. But the list above, of French-German, German-Czech, German-Polish measures, which is by far not exhaustive, could maybe give Asia some supplementary inspirations. Anyway, the reconciliation process is open for new inventions.

I hope that this will lead to a fruitful discussion

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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