From: "fuller" <fuller-AT-bekkers.com.au>
Subject: Re: How many happenings to break 4 silences?
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 01:05:44 +0800


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Hugh,

You write:

 can't we simply perceive victims of past and present holocausts, genocides, sucide bombers, military attacks, as murdered human beings?  They no longer exist. For them,  justice (Le Differend) is not an issue.

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I agree with you to some extent, however I would argue there is nothing 'simple' about (re)constructing 'victims' as 'murdered human beings'. 'Murder' and the 'human' do not have the simplicity of definitive meanings. One persons murder is another persons casuality, etc, etc. To reduce them to being murdered human beings is to efface one side of the differend, even though such an act may aid the 'victim'.

However, I do agree with your final remark regarding justice not being an issue for the dead. So if justice is not for the dead, but justice is for victims, then who is the 'victim'? And if the differend is encountered in the pursuit of 'justice', then who is really seeking out justice?

Perhaps it is (to get all cynical;) a case of the dead not being able to contest in the resolution of difference over their place as referents (as murdered human beings or casualties or whatever).

The dead do exist and are very 'real' (in the sense that they can 'exist' as referents, errr, kind of how 'God' can exist...)

Justice would be for those 'affected' by how the dead are represented as referents, and part of that is the act of seeking out 'justice,' which may not be an encountering of the differend (an event). That is, before the differend of the phrase universe can be encountered, reality must be performed, or demonstrated, so that the differend can exist, part of that reality is of 'victims' requiring 'justice'. So my question is: who is the 'victim'?

Glen.     

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