Restorative Justice, Humanitarian Rhetorics, and Public Memories of Colonial Camp Cultures

The abuses and atrocities committed against indigenous populations during the colonial era are coming back to haunt the old imperial powers. As the idea of retributive justice becomes increasingly popular, former colonizing countries such as Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands are being held to account, through lawsuits and national apologies, for crimes they committed against native populations, requiring them to confront some of the grimmer aspects of their imperial pasts. This comparative study explores attitudes toward the existence of German, Spanish, American, and British concentration camps at the turn of the 19th Century. Through a critical genealogical study of these camp cultures, this text explores how imperialists and anti-imperialists have justified and condemned these camps and analyzes the continued debate on their legality, legitimacy, and necessity. Crucially, the study looks at current disputes between those who wish to revive memories of the struggles faced by Cuban guerillas, the Boers, and the Herero and Nama communities who were the victim of such horrendous atrocities and those who against calls for restorative justice for these crimes.

Marouf Hasian, Jr., is a professor of communications in the Department of Communications at the University of Utah. He is the author of more than 140 articles and book chapters, and he continues to write about the importance of rhetorical histories in 21st-century studies of atrocities, large-scale massacres, and genocide. He is especially interested in investigating how military communities appropriate humanitarian discourses to justify national and international interventions.