https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6642-2319
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Abstract
Via an examination of the current state of German attempts to come to terms with the country’s genocidal Nazi past, this article underscores the utility of an approach to historical scholarship and ‘truth telling’ that might be called historiographical agonism. It articulates how historiographical agonism deals with the difficulties of assimilating and reconciling problematic national pasts such as the Holocaust and the radical violence and dispossession that characterises Australia’s settler colonial history. It also demonstrates historiographical agonism’s capacity to adapt to changing social and political contexts.
Acknowledgement
Thanks are due to A. Dirk Moses, Catherine Kevin and Alessandro Antonello for their assistance in clarifying my argument in this article.
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Gabrielle Appleby and Megan Davis, ‘The Uluru Statement and the Promises of Truth’, Australian Historical Studies 49, no 4 (2018): 508.
2 Henry Reynolds, Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement (Sydney: New South, 2021); Josie Gill, ‘Decolonizing Literature and Science’, Configurations 26 (2018): 283–8.
3 See recently, for example, Vanessa Barolsky, ‘Truth-Telling about a Settler-Colonial Legacy: Decolonized Possibilities?’ Postcolonial Studies, 2022, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13688790.2022.2117872 (accessed 31 May 2023).
4 On nationalist historiographical mythopoesis in Australia, see Ann Curthoys, ‘Disputing National Histories: Some Recent Australian Debates’, Transforming Cultures 1, no. 1 (2006): 6–18; Mark Hearn, ‘Writing the Nation in Australia: Australian Historians and Narrative Myths of Nation’, in Writing the Nation: A Global Perspective, ed. Stefan Berger (New York: Palgrave, 2007), 104–25.
5 Chris Healy, Forgetting Aborigines (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2008), 214. For a copy of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, see Shireen Morris, ed., A Rightful Place: A Roadmap to Recognition (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2017), 1–3.
6 Kim Benterrak, Stephen Muecke, and Paddy Roe, Reading the Country: Introduction to Nomadology (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1984), 11.
7 Miranda Johnson, ‘Writing Indigenous Histories Now’, Australian Historical Studies 45, no. 3 (2014): 330.
8 For other approaches to agonism, see Barolsky; Sarah Maddison in ‘Agonistic Reconciliation: Inclusion, Decolonisation and the Need for Radical Innovation’, Third World Quarterly 43, no. 6 (2022): 1307–23.
9 Daniel May, ‘Rethinking The Biggest Estate on Earth: A Critique of Grand Unified Theories’, History Australia 20, no. 1 (2023): 154–72.
10 Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, ‘Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor’, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2021): 1, 9, 11.
11 Ibid., 3. There is the danger of an infinite regress here in which claims, such as those made here, regarding the need to refuse the status of scholarship as the work of decolonisation, are in themselves a new, barely obscured settler move to innocence.
12 Benterrak, Muecke and Roe, 16.
13 Evelyn Araluen, ‘Resisting the Institution’, Overland 227 (2017), https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-227/feature-evelyn-araluen/ (accessed 31 May 2023); Natalie Harkin, ‘Intimate Encounters Aboriginal Labour Stories and the Violence of the Colonial Archive’, in Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies, eds Brendan Hokowhitu et al. (New York: Routledge, 2021), 147–61; Evelyn Araluen-Corr, ‘Silence and Resistance: Aboriginal Women Working Within and Against the Archive’, Continuum 32, no. 4 (2018): 487–502.
14 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed. (London: Zed Books, 2012), vii, xi.
15 Martin Nakata, Disciplining the Savages: Savaging the Disciplines (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007), 215.
16 Lester Irabinna-Rigney, ‘Indigenist Research and Aboriginal Australia’, in Indigenous Peoples’ Wisdom and Power: Affirming Our Knowledge through Narratives, ed. Julian E. Kunnie and Nomalungelo I. Goduka (Burlington: Ashgate, 2006), 41–2.
17 Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization (New York: Routledge, 2018), 3.
18 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Outside in the Teaching Machine (New York: Routledge, 1993), 4–5; Martin Nakata, Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007).
19 Martin Nakata, ‘The Rights and Blights of the Politics in Indigenous Higher Education’, Anthropological Forum 23, no. 3 (2013): 302.
20 Edward W. Said, The World, the Text and the Critic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 150.
21 Andrew Bonnell and Martin Crotty, ‘An Australian “Historikerstreit”? Review Article’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 50, no. 3 (2004): 425–33; A. Dirk Moses, ‘Coming to Terms with Genocidal Pasts in Comparative Perspective: Germany and Australia’, Aboriginal History, 25 (2001): 91–115; Neil Levi, ‘“No Sensible Comparison”? The Place of the Holocaust in Australia’s History Wars’, History and Memory 19, no. 1 (2007): 124–56.
22 Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, ‘The Pre-History of the Holocaust? The Sonderweg and Historikerstreit Debates and the Abject Colonial Past’, Central European History 41, no. 3 (2008): 480.
23 Ann Cento Bull and Hans Lauge Hansen, ‘Agonistic Memory and the UNREST Project’, Modern Languages Open, 1 (2020): 2.
24 Keith Jenkins, Rethinking History (London: Routledge, 2002), 26.
25 Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso, 2013), xi.
26 Deborah Tannen, ‘Agonism in Academic Discourse’, Journal of Pragmatics 34, nos. 10–11 (2002): 1651.
27 James Tully, ‘The Unfreedom of the Moderns in Comparison to Their Ideals of Constitutional Democracy’, Modern Law Review 65 (2002): 219.
28 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 57–61.
29 Andrew Schaap, ‘The Absurd Proposition of Aboriginal Sovereignty’, in Law and Agonistic Politics, ed. Andrew Schaap (New York: Routledge, 2009), 209–10.
30 Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 13.
31 Shino Konishi, ‘First Nations Scholars, Settler Colonial Studies, and Indigenous History’, Australian Historical Studies 50, no. 3 (2019): 296.
32 Anna Cento Bull and Hans Lauge Hansen, ‘On Agonistic Memory’, Memory Studies 9, no. 4 (2016): 390–404.
33 While the debate includes a range of other themes pertaining to positionality in German history and the effects that the perspectives of migrants, colonised peoples, and the globalisation of the history discipline have had on German history and society, for the sake of intelligibility the following concentrates on that part of the debate related to changing approaches to Holocaust history. For the classic statement regarding a ‘multidirectional’ approach to the Holocaust, see primarily Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009).
34 Ernst Nolte, ‘Vergangenheit die nicht vergehen will’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 June 1986.
35 Nolte, as quoted in Jürgen Habermas, The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’ Debate (Cambridge: Polity, 1994), 239; Jürgen Habermas, ‘A Kind of Settlement of Damages (Apologetic Tendencies)’, New German Critique 44 (1988): 25–39.
36 Alfred Dregger as quoted in Elliot Y. Neaman, A Dubious Past: Ernst Jünger and the Politics of Literature after Nazism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 224. For the positions of German historians in this debate, see Steffen Kailitz, ‘Der “Historikerstreit” und die politische Deutungskultur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’, German Studies Review 32, no. 2 (2009): 279–302.
37 Alfred Dregger, as quoted in Habermas, The New Conservatism, 230–231.
38 Robert G. Moeller, ‘War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany’, American Historical Review 101, no. 4 (1996): 1008–48.
39 Habermas, The New Conservatism, 252.
40 Ibid., 233.
41 Susan Neiman and Michael Wildt, eds, Historiker streiten: Gewalt und Holocaust – die Debatte. (Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 2022); Natan Sznaider, Fluchtpunkte der Erinnerung. Über die Gegenwart von Holocaust und Kolonialismus (Munich: Carl Handers Verlag, 2022); Frank Bajohr and Rachel O’Sullivan, ‘Holocaust, Kolonialismus und NS-Imperialismus: Forschung im Schatten einer polemischer Debatte’, Viertel für Zeitgeschichte 70, no. 1 (2022); Urs Lindner,‘Die Singularität der Shoah und die postkoloniale Herausforderung der deutschen Erinnerungskultur’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 48, no. 2 (2022). For some recent contributions to the Catechism debate in English, see Jennifer Evans, ed., ‘The Catechism Debate’, http://newfascismsyllabus.com/category/opinions/the-catechism-debate/ (accessed 31 May 2023). For a more exhaustive list including press commentary in English and German, see https://serdargunes.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/a-debate-german-catechism-holocaust-and-post-colonialism/ (accessed 31 May 2023).
42 Notwithstanding the rearguard action of Saul Friedländer, Norbert Frei, Sybille Steinbacher, Dan Diner und Jürgen Habermas, Ein Verbrechen ohne Namen. Anmerkungen zum neuen Streit über den Holocaust (Munich: Beck, 2022).
43 Elie Wiesel, ‘Trivialising the Holocaust: Semi-Fact and Semi-Fiction’, New York Times, 16 April 1978, II, 29.
44 Natan Sznaider, ‘The Summer of Discontent: Achille Mbembe in Germany’, Journal of Genocide Research 23, no. 3 (2021): 412–9; Michael Rothberg, ‘Lived Multidirectionality: “Historikerstreit 2.0” and the Politics of Holocaust Memory’, Memory Studies 15, no. 6 (2022): 1319.
45 A. Dirk Moses, ‘Der Katechismus der Deutschen’ Geschichte der Gegenwart, 23 May 2021, https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/der-katechismus-der-deutschen/ (accessed 31 May 2023), 49.
46 Dirk Moses, ‘Der Katechismus der Deutschen’; Jürgen Zimmerer, Michael Rothberg, ,Enttabusiert den Vergleich!’, Die Zeit, 4 April 2021, https://www.zeit.de/2021/14/erinnerungskultur-gedenken-pluralisieren-holocaust-vergleich-globalisierung-geschichte (accessed 31 May 2023); Michael Wildt, ‘Was heisst: Singularität des Holocaust?’, Zeithistorische Forschungen 19 (2022): 128–47.
47 On the progressive origins of the ‘German catechism’, see Frank Biess, ‘Confessions of an Ex-Believer’, in Jennifer Evans, ed., ‘The Catechism Debate’, New Fascism Syllabus (25 May–2 June 2021) http://newfascismsyllabus.com/opinions/the-catechism-debate/confessions-of-an-ex-believer/
48 Jürgen Habermas, ‘Der neue Historikerstreit’, Philosophie-Magazin 6 (2021): 10. For his reply, see A. Dirk Moses, ‘Dialektik der Normalisierung’, Berliner Zeitung 229, 2 October 2021, 19.
49 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 3.
50 Mirjam Brusius, ‘Stones Can Talk Back: Vergangenheitsbewältigung Revisited’, in Jennifer Evans, ed. ‘The Catechism Debate’, New Fascism Syllabus, (25 May–2 June 2021), http://newfascismsyllabus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Catechism-Debate.pdf (accessed 31 May 2023).
51 See for example Helmut Walser Smith’s contribution, ‘“Sieferle von links”: A Fair Criticism?’ in Jennifer Evans, ed., ‘The Catechism Debate’, https://newfascismsyllabus.com/opinions/sieferle-von-links-a-fair-criticism/ (accessed 31 May 2023).
52 Bill Niven, ‘A Plea for More Balance’, in Jennifer Evans, ed., ‘The Catechism Debate’ https://newfascismsyllabus.com/opinions/a-plea-for-more-balance/ (accessed 31 May 2023).
53 Indicative of this are new perspectives on the German colonial past, the new Humboldt Forum and repatriation policy. Daniel Morat, ‘Katalysator wider Willen: Das Humboldt Forum in Berlin und die deutsche Kolonialvergangenheit’, Zeithistorische Forschungen 16 (2019): 140–53; Jeremiah J. Garsha, ‘Expanding Vergangenheitsbewältigung? German Repatriation of Colonial Artefacts and Human Remains’, Journal of Genocide Research 22, no. 1 (2020): 46–61.
54 A. Dirk Moses, ‘Der Katechismus der Deutschen’.
55 Jennifer Evans, ed., ‘The Catechism Debate’ http://newfascismsyllabus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Catechism-Debate.pdf (accessed 31 May 2023); Jürgen Habermas, ‘Der neue Historikerstreit’, 11.
56 Tiffany N. Florvil, ‘Queer Memory and Black Germans’, https://newfascismsyllabus.com/opinions/the-catechism-debate/queer-memory-and-black-germans/ (accessed 31 May 2023).
57 Bain Attwood, ‘Unsettling Pasts: Reconciliation and History in Settler Australia’, Postcolonial Studies, 8, no. 3 (2005): 243–59.
58 Miranda Johnson, ‘Reconciliation, Indigeneity, and Postcolonial Nationhood in Settler States’, Postcolonial Studies 14, no. 2 (2011): 187–201; Penelope Edmonds, Settler Colonialism and (Re)conciliation (Berlin: Springer, 2016).
59 Shelley Reys, ‘Foreword’ to 2021 State of Reconciliation in Australia Report: Moving from Safe to Brave Summary Report (Canberra: Reconciliation Australia, 2021), 1.
60 Jack Latimore, ‘PM Prompts Fury by Looking for Forgiveness 14 Years after Rudd’s Apology’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 February 2022.
61 Lyotard, The Differend, 13; Habermas, The New Conservatism, 212.
62 Tuck and Yang, 3.
63 J Kēhaulani Kauanui, ‘“A Structure, Not an Event”: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity’, Lateral 5, no. 1 (2016).
64 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte (Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 1924), 12.
65 A similar conclusion has been reached very recently by Sarah Maddison in ‘Agonistic Reconciliation’.
66 Samia Khatun, Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2018); Sukhami Khorana, ‘From “Dewogged” Migrants to “Rabble-Rousers”: Mapping the Indian Diaspora in Australia’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 35, no. 3 (2014): 250–64; Levi, 134, 148.
67 Tuck and Yang, 19.
68 Eddie Synot, ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: Indigenous Rights and the Uluru Statement from the Heart’. Australian Journal of International Affairs 73, no. 4 (2019), 324.
69 Bronwyn Fredericks and Abraham Bradfield, ‘“More than a Thought Bubble … ”: The Uluru Statement from the Heart and Indigenous Voice to Parliament’, M/C Journal 24, no. 1 (2021), https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2738 (accessed 31 May 2023).
70 Jesse John Fleay and Barry Judd, ‘The Uluru Statement: A First Nations Perspective of the Implications for Social Reconstructive Race Relations in Australia’, International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies 12, no. 1 (2019), 10.
71 Appleby and Davis, 503, 508.
72 Megan Davis, ‘The Long Road to Uluru: Walking Together – Truth before Justice’, Griffith Review 60 (2018).
73 Megan Davis, ‘The Truth about Truth Telling’, The Monthly (December 2021–January 2022).
74 Ibid.
75 Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 57–61.
76 Attwood, 243–59.
77 Laura Rademaker and Tim Rowse, eds, Indigenous Self-Determination in Australia: Histories and Historiography (Canberra: ANU Press, 2020), 27.
78 Konishi, ‘First Nations Scholars’; Tim Rowse, ‘Indigenous Heterogeneity’, Australian Historical Studies 45, no. 3 (2014): 297–310.
79 Also exemplified in Laura Rademaker, Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2018).
80 In this sense, see Lorenzo Veracini, ‘Decolonizing Settler Colonialism: Kill the Settler in Him and Save the Man’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 41, no. 1 (2017), 1–18.