Sven Lindqvist

“Can we feel contrition for other people's crimes? Can we feel contrition for crimes we have not committed personally, but have subsequently profited from? How can we formulate the criteria for contrition to make them applicable to collective responsibility for historical crimes? Perhaps like this:We freely admit that our predecessors have done wrong and that we are profiting from it.We ask forgiveness of those who were wronged and of their descendants.We promise to do our best to make amends to those who were wronged for the effects that still remain.The larger the collective, the more diluted the personal responsibility. The less intimate the contrition, the greater the risk that it will just be hollow ceremony.”

“In my dream I see the sea, the utterly calm sea. I see the coast, the utterly calm coast. When this utterly calm sea meets the utterly still coast, huge breakers are suddenly thrown up. Two sorts of stillness touch one and other and explode in roars and foam.”