Political Economist

* The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is one of the most prestigious spiritual leaders of Buddhism not only in his own country, Tibet, but also around the world. After the Chinese government’s invasion and occupation of Tibet, he escaped to India in 1959. Since then he has continued to preach to Tibet people nonviolent and peaceful independence movement.

As a Buddhist spiritual leader, he asserts that we “should forgive persons who have committed crimes against oneself and humankind.”(129) According to him, however, this forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting those atrocities. Instead, it is necessary not to forget in order to prevent such atrocities from reoccurring. Thus, his opinion to Simon’s dilemma is to forgive, but never forget.

However, Simon has no right to forgive the dying SS man on behalf of other victims in the first place. As a respected Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama has to say that we should forgive criminals. But it is very hard for ordinary man and woman to follow his maxim.

* Mary Gordon + Cynthia Ozick

Mary Gordon is a novelist and a professor of English at Barnard College. I do not have any clues for understanding why she has been invited to respond to Simon’s dilemma, but her opinion is one of the clearest ones. Instead of asking how Simon should have behaved in such a circumstance, she asks what the dying Nazi expected from a desperate Jew. According to Gordon, Karl’s request to forgiveness from Simon was a mere “narcissistic act,” not a moral one.

From this perspective, she argues that the dying SS man’s request for forgiveness was wrong in following two reasons: firstly, by asking forgiveness, the dying SS man was asking Simon to “serve as a public symbol for all Jews.” However, Simon was not able to be such a public symbol in that circumstance. In other words, he was not in the position granting forgiveness on behalf of others. Thus, the dying SS man was asking something impossible from Simon; secondly, the dying Nazi misunderstood the meaning of confession. Even in Catholic Church, according to Gordon, sinners must acknowledge their guilt publicly before asking for absolution if their crimes had affected the public. Thus, Simon, neither as a Catholic priest nor as somebody who has moral authority, cannot grant forgiveness to Karl.

Like Mary Gordon, Cynthia Ozick is also a famous novelist. Her essay is composed of 4 parts, each of them dealing with the characteristics of Hitler’s Third Reich, differences between vengeance and forgiveness as a response to crimes, and the significance of moral responsibility of intellectuals. Even though her essay is filled with so many metaphoric expressions, it is evident from the beginning that her position to the question of forgiveness is explicit and stubborn; she asserts that it is impossible to forgive the Nazi soldier.

Ozick starts her essay by mentioning the fact that the dying SS Nazi has Catholic education. However, whether or not the dying SS man had Catholic education before does not have any significant meaning in this story. So this fact has nothing to do with the question of forgiveness.

Secondly, Ozick reveals that the Third Reich was a sort of Moloch state demanding human’s live flesh and blood to live on by citing the Second Commandment of the bible. If that is the case, how can we deal with these collective crimes? Ozick asserts the necessity of vengeance, not forgiveness. She argues that forgiveness is possible only when there is a possibility of repentance on the condition that there will not be the same mistake. However, if a murderer kills somebody, this murder cannot be “revocable” and “reversible.” In these extreme cases, she argues that there is no room for forgiveness to the dying Nazi soldier.

Of course, Ozick admits, even if we revenge somebody, this act will not also be able to bring the dead back. Yes, it is true. But this vengeance can bring public justice to evil. Contrary to public justice, forgiveness sometimes became merciless to victims, not to murderers. “Vengeance, only vengeance, knows pity for the victims,” she says.

In the last part of the essay, Ozick deals with the problem of moral responsibility. As we already know, the dying SS personnel was not the same as other brutal SS soldiers; he had a moral temperament. He was educated in Catholic Church. He was also intelligent enough to think what his crimes would bring about.

However, Ozick argues that this difference cannot be a tool for immunity privilege of the SS man’s crimes. Rather, the Nazi soldier should be punished more severely than other brainless brutes because he committed the same crimes even though he had conscience and sensibility. “The intelligent man of conscience also shovels in the babies, and it does not matter that he does it without exaltation. Conscience, education, insight – nothing stops him. He goes on shoveling. --- He is a morally sensitive man, and he shovels babies to glut the iron stomach of the idol. --- The morally sensitive SS man goes on shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling.”(219) Here Ozick seems to insinuate the heavy moral responsibility of the intellectuals.

*  Dith Pran

Dith Pran is a New York Times journalist and a survivor of Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime’s labor camp. As a survivor of the brutal military regime’s concentration camp, he says that “he can never forgive or forget what the top leadership of the Khmer Rouge has done to him.”(230)

However, he asserts that we should differentiate ordinary soldiers from the leadership of the regime because what they did was to follow the orders from the above under the threat of death. Even though these ordinary soldiers are not without guilt, “there is a chasm between someone who intentionally plots to destroy the very souls of people and someone who is not only stupid and brainwashed, but fears death enough to be forced to do wrong.”(232) In this perspective, Pran says he would have forgiven the dying SS man if he were Simon.

His argument on (the necessity of the) distinction between the top leadership of Khmer Rouge and ordinary soldiers is very interesting point and seems to be very useful especially when we judge the degree of crimes. However, the problem is that this kind of distinction is not evident from the beginning. Sometimes it may be very difficult to differentiate those who are mainly responsible for the crimes from those who involuntarily follow the orders. How about those who voluntarily followed the orders or voluntarily involved in such crimes without any physical or mental threats? Should we forgive them? How and why?

Furthermore, it may be also argued that the distinction between two groups of criminals has nothing to do with forgiveness. Even though someone admits the necessity of the distinction between two or three (or more) groups of people according to their relative degrees of crimes, he or she can also argue that they do not deserve to be forgiven. In other words, the differentiation of the degree of crime has nothing to do with forgiveness because it is not about moral judgment but about the issue of legal punishment.

Thus, once again the question of forgiveness still remains untouched. Should we forgive the dying SS man. His relative degree of guilt is, of course, slighter than Hitler or Himmler. He was not an architect of the notorious gas chamber. However, he is not like “ordinary soldier” Pran mentioned. He was engaged himself in the massacre of the Jews even though he was repenting his crimes. Should we forgive him?

* Mattheiu Ricard

Mattheiu Ricard is a Buddhist monk and serving as a French language interpreter for the Dalai Lama. As a sincere Buddhist, he says that “forgiveness is always possible and one should always forgive” in any cases. According to him, “forgiveness does not mean absolution, but an opportunity for “the inner transformation” of both victim and perpetrator.” Forgiveness is a way of transforming the victim’s own grief, resentment or hatred into good.

Furthermore, the author argues that Simon should have said to the dying SS man that he should pray that he would be able to atone for his crimes by doing as much good as he had done evil in his future.” As a Buddhist, the author also argues that Simon should have felt compassion not just for the soldier and his victims, but for all sentient beings in the world until endless cycles of suffering end.

Even though the feeling of mercy and pity is one of the most significant virtues in Buddhist teachings, however, I think the author’s argument does not have any relevance to Simon’s case. Firstly, the argument that “an action cannot not be considered negative or sinful in and of itself” has nothing to do with true Buddhism. As far as I know, Buddhism is not a religion without any moral, ethical judgments regarding human behaviors. Rather, Buddhism is based on the most ethical and highly moral sentiments on human being. In other words, every human is always deemed to be judged by their action.

Secondly, if human beings are surely supposed to suffer continuously in later world due to their misdeeds in this world, there is no room for forgiveness in this world. Nobody can forgive someone who commits crimes because he or she will surely be suffering someday in the later world due to his or her own deeds. Thus if we once accept the principle of chain rule of suffering, we don’t have to decide to forgive or not to forgive the criminals. In other words, this basic circular viewpoint of the world contradicts to another Buddhist principles; so-called unconditional possibility of forgiveness.

Thirdly, I cannot accept this Buddhist’s indiscriminative attitudes toward victims and perpetrators. It may be true that “inner transformation” is the most important moment for both victims and perpetrator. However, most innocent victims are already dead without having chances for what is called inner transformation or giving forgiveness to perpetrators. The problem was that Simon was expected to forgive the dying perpetrator on behalf of other Jews who are already dead. Thus, the argument on the significance of the moment of inner transformation can only be uttered at the expense of the ignorance of sacrificed victims.

Finally, it is surprising to see this Buddhist’s ignorance of the situations. Ricard does not want to see the situations where Simon was forced into. Simon was under the continuous threats of death in concentration camp. If he really knew what was going on in the camp, can he still argue that Simon should deliver these kinds of abstract Buddhist cannon – Buddhist would have felt compassion not just for the soldier and his victims but for all sentiment beings until endless cycles of suffering ends - in such a horrible situation?

In sum, Mattheiu Richard’s opinion seems to be based on either so highly unrealistic principles or total ignorance of the situations that Simon would not be able to find proper answer to his dilemma.

* Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu is a South African bishop and a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He argues that Simon should have forgiven Karl on his death chamber. In order to justify his response, he cites various examples of forgiveness in his home country. Among them are those who “have been tortured, whose loved ones were abducted, killed and buried secretly,”(267) but in front of the commission’s testimony say that they are ready to forgive. Nelson Mandela’s sublime attitude toward former Apartheid regime was also cited as a good example of forgiveness.

However, there seems to be nontrivial difference between these examples Tutu cites and Simon’s case. Contrary to Simon’s case, former victims including Nelson Mandela in South Africa are all on the winner’s position both morally and politically when they say they can forgive the former perpetrators.

For them, forgiveness may be “practical politics.” But, for Simon, who had to face ceaseless threat of death and humiliation without any hope for surviving in concentration camp, forgiveness cannot be conceived as practical politics.

From this significantly different circumstance emerge Simon’s dilemma: he had to decide to forgive or not to forgive the dying SS man when he was a prisoner of concentration camp, not as a investigation commission member; he had to accept lots of innocent Jewish people’s death as their common fate in the camp; under this gruesome circumstance he also had to decide whether or not he could forgive the dying, repenting SS man on behalf of other Jewish victims.

Once this different situation is considered, then the question of forgiveness can be justifiably brought back to Tutu and other South African leaders in different form: Can you forgive them if you were still in the position of victims? Can you forgive white racist police officers, who are torturing you, intimidating you, killing your loving sons and daughters, if you are still forced into as a prisoner of Apartheid camp? Can you justifiably say that forgiveness is always practical politics in such a situation?

* Harry Wu

Harry Wu is a Chinese writer and a human rights activist. He had experienced Chinese prisoner’s labor camp for 19 years. Instead of dealing with Simon’s moral question of forgiveness directly, he introduces his own experiences as a political conscience prisoner of communist labor camps; he was detained and imprisoned due to his refusal to join in self criticism and “struggle session.” He experienced harsh treatments and humiliations by the prisoner guards.

Upon released from the camp, he had a chance to meet Comrade Ma who played major role in his indictment and imprisonment. However, she did not apologized to him or asked for his forgiveness. Instead, she advised him to forget the past.

Harry Wu thought that Comrade Ma was a typical character the Chinese communist regime had produced. Compared to the dying SS soldier, Harry Wu exclaimed that there had been no such a person like Karl who had asked for forgiveness in China. Rather, at least for him, communist China was filled with so many “Comrade Ma” who did not care about an individual’s well-being.

In the end, Wu says that he would not have forgiven the Nazi soldier on his deathbed, but “I would have been able to say to him: I understand why you were a part of a horrible and vicious society. You are responsible for your own actions but everyone else in this society shares that same responsibility with you.”(274)