This is the season for historical purification. All over the world, religions and nations seem ready to peek into the dark places of their histories, to learn from the atrocities of the past and thus to experience a kind of collective catharsis. It is an imperfect process, but the press for it is undeniable. In Australia the prime minister formally apologized for the past treatment of the aboriginal population. In America there is similar talk about slavery and torture. Turkey struggles with the stain of Armenian genocide a century ago. Islam battles with the association of jihad with mass murder. But the nexus between purification and apology makes the process delicate.
We are never pure, and I think the tendency to critically review the past has gone on a bit longer than 1990. It should happen on a regular basis as an exercise in humility.
As for Mr. Reston’s comment about Islam: “Islam battles with the association of jihad with mass murder”. I would be grateful for a reference to a prominent self-critical Muslim commentary on jihad that reflects this — I haven’t seen any. What I have seen is a lot of redefining of jihad as “purely defensive” — which it most certainly was not in either classical Muslim thought or action. The early Muslim conquests were described as jihad, and they were purely offensive (a fact usually ignored in discussions of the Crusades).
Believers aren’t the only ones who could benefit from some truth-telling. I am thinking of officially atheist states — including China and the Soviet Union and others — guilty of slaughtering tens of millions of their own citizens for…what?