On the eve of the National Remembrance Day, Susan Neiman, American moral philosopher, talks to anthropologist Gloria Wekker about coping with black pages of history. How do you take responsibility for past atrocities?

For her book Learning from the Germans (2019), Susan Neiman, who grew up in a Jewish family in the southern US and has lived in Berlin since 1982, explored how Germany is trying to come to terms with its Nazi past. She then looks to the US, where a history of slavery polarises society. What is the best way to collectively face a traumatic history?

Gloria Wekker, in her influential book White Innocence (2016), analysed how the Netherlands suppressed its history of slavery for years to maintain a positive self-image and how that influences contemporary racism.

How should we commemorate in today’s polarised society? Can we process the past into a positive ideal of ‘never again’?

Language: English