• support the International Criminal Court as a ground-breaking institution in the development of an international community founded on the rule of law with a view to ensuring the effective prosecution of persons guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”26
3. With humanity still scarred by genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, anti- Semitism and xenophobia, the international community shares a solemn responsibility to fight these evils. Together we must uphold the terrible truth of the Holocaust against those who deny it. We must strengthen the moral commitment of our peoples and the political commitment of our govern- ments to ensure that future generations can understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences.
4. We pledge to strengthen our efforts to promote education, remembrance and research about the Holocaust, both in those of our countries that have already done much and those that choose to join this effort.
5. We share a commitment to encourage the study of the Holocaust in all its dimensions. We will promote education about the Holocaust in our schools and universities, in our communities, and encourage it in other institutions.
6. We share a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honour those who stood against it. We will encourage appropriate forms of Holocaust remembrance, including an annual Day of Holocaust Remembrance, in our countries.
7. We share a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust. We will take all necessary steps to facilitate the opening of archives in order to ensure that all documents bearing on the Holocaust are available to researchers.
8. It is appropriate that this, the first major international conference of the new millennium, declares its commitment to plant the seeds of a better future amidst the soil of a bitter past. We empathize with the victims’ suffering and draw inspiration from their struggle. Our commitment must be to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”27
Unfortunately, the first concrete expression of this recognition of a common European responsibility was the improvised and heedless boycott of the Austrian coalition government of the Conservative People’s Party and Jörg Haider’s so-called
“Freedom Party.” This attempt left deep scars in several member countries, espec-
27 Declaration of the First Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, 27 January 2000.
ially Denmark, where the result was deep resentment against the in reality rather ineffective office of the monitoring of racism and xenophobia in Vienna.28 Despite all this, the ceremony was a moving and thought-provoking experience, which finally enabled Göran Persson to take on the role of an international statesman with a deeply felt mission to prevent violations against weaker groups.
But there is a limit to benevolence, especially when it revolves around something as controversial as “European values”.29 The failed attempt by EU heads of state to boycott the new Austrian government was to become the last manifestation of social-democratic supremacy in the circle of government leaders. One by one, centre-left governments had to hand over to center-left governments, at times in coalition with national populist parties, as in Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark. Suddenly it became less clear what “European values” are, or should be.
Once proclaimed as self-evident, the lessons of the Holocaust, international conventions on refugees and even universal human rights became politically contentious issues. Denmark led the way, thanks to two unusually articulate theologians who build on a particularly minimalist – and nationalist – Protestant version of Christianity.30 The battle for European values, however, is being waged in all member states, spurred on by the current proposal for a constitutional treaty for the EU. Values are on the agenda, but the outcome is less certain than at the stately Stockholm gathering assumed in January 2000.
Moreover, current debates in Poland and Germany over the establishment of a Zentrum für Vertriebene in Berlin to commemorate the millions of German speakers who were driven from their homes in eastern and central Europe show that reconciliation between nations has not progressed as far as we thought. This has long been evident in the discussions between the Czech Republic and Christian Social Union politicians in Bavaria about the Benes decrees that legalized the expulsion of nearly three million Sudeten Germans, primarily to Bavaria, after 1945.
Disputes about which pasts should be eligible for commemoration and which not are once again on the European agenda. They will remain there, especially now that the older members of the EU can no longer use EU membership to discipline
28 For an analysis of this incident as viewed from Denmark, see Olesen, 2001.
29 I have attempted to define these values in Østergård, 1997.
30 In Danish this organisation is called Tidehverv, literally “Turn of the tide”. The organisation dates back to the 1920s and was founded in rejection of the liberal theology of the then influential Oxford Movement. Gradually the fundamentalist Lutheran minister Søren Krarup has taken this organisation, which originated rather to the left of the political spectrum, and moved it to the radical and populist right which he, of course, calls the “center”. The Danish sociologist Mette Zøllner, (2000) has already analysed this organisation as a laboratory of radical intellectual nationalism on a par with the French Club l’horloge.
nationalist tendencies in the new countries and similar nationalist animosities are on the prowl again in the West. Europe is a battleground for the struggle for values as well as for vested political and economic interests. At the same time, we encounter an ever-widening rift between the US and Europe, or at least between some European states and the current American administration, a rift that also partly revolves around memories of the Holocaust and debates over whether national courts or the International Criminal Court are the proper places to try those accused of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Gradually, through the Stockholm process, definitions and intentions were expanded in their scope. The declaration at the conclusion of the last Forum in January 2004 summed up the four conferences as follows:
“1. We are committed to using and developing practical tools and mechanisms to identify as early as possible and to monitor and report genocidal threats to human life and society in order to prevent the recurrence of genocide, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. 2. We are committed to shouldering our responsibility to protect groups identified as the potential victims of genocide, mass murder or ethnic cleansing, drawing upon the range of tools at our disposal to prevent such atrocities in accordance with international law, and fully upholding the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 3. We are committed to ensuring that the perpetrators of genocidal acts are brought to justice. We are also committed to supporting the survivors of genocide in rebuilding their communities and in returning to normal life. 4. We are committed to supporting research into the possibilities of preventing genocide, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. 5. We are committed to educating young people and the wider public against genocidal dangers of all kinds through formal and informal educational structures. We are also committed to disseminating knowledge of these dangers to those involved in government, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, humani- tarian and peace support operations and the media. 6. We are committed to explor- ing, seriously and actively, the options presented at this Forum for action against genocidal threats, mass murders, deadly conflicts and ethnic cleansing, as well as genocidal ideologies and incitement to genocide, including the concrete proposals presented by the United Nations Secretary-General. 7. We are committed to cooperating in our search for effective measures against genocidal dangers with all members of the family of nations, in the United Nations and other relevant global and regional organisations, as well as with non-governmental organisations, labour organisations, the media and with business and academic communities.”31
31 Declaration by the Fourth International Forum on Genocide, Stockholm, 28 January 2004.