Experts and politicians from former communist states in central and eastern Europe called yesterday for the full opening of the communist-era secret police files to allow the region to come to terms with its past.
“The delay in opening the files and the controversies around it are evidence of the fragility of the democracy,”
I'm not so sure. I say burn them. According to Bruce Akerman:
"the demand for justice, if given full play, can undermine the fragile political conditions for the powerful development of a liberal constitution. The better part of wisdom is to keep the demand for corrective justice under control while channelling energy toward the construction of an enduring constitutional order"
Ackerman (1992:4)
After all, 1989 wasn't about revenge:
"the aim of liberal revolution is not collective truth but individual freedom - freedom for each person to assert his or her [unique] moral ideals"
Ackerman (1992:32)
An Act of Oblivion might be a good thing for, say, the Poles: but I'd rather like to know who of my countrymen were spying for the Warsaw Pact.
Posted by: dearieme | July 23, 2006 at 06:20 PM