Thursday, August 17, 2017

Retroactive Social Justice: It’s Complicated

By Andrew Regnerus, Ontario Construction Coordinator

“Make sure we get retro!” As a labour negotiator, I often hear this demand from members seeking retroactive payment of a wage increase that was delayed because the previous contract had expired. They want an adjustment made back to when the increase should have been applied.

And rightly so. It’s a simple matter of applying retroactive fairness.

When it comes to the workplace, retroactivity is a simple concept—although not always easily applied! But when it comes to fixing historical and systemic unfairness in society, retroactivity becomes a much more complicated concept. How should we address yesterday’s injustices?

Recent items in the news made me wonder if history ever gets settled. Marches in Virginia and systemic mistreatment of people based on race are troubling. Justice demands addressing tensions caused by imperfect agreements and conquests. Factions should not have to remind each other and us that their lives matter.

History, like the news, is biased, since it is usually written by the “winners.” Throughout history, the side that won has written the “official” records and erected the statues. The vanquished side, historically, doesn’t have pen, paper, or statues.

The question for us today is whether amending the historical record can affect retroactive justice. In evaluating events and people’s work and place in history, we’re challenged to determine whether we have properly honoured them—or whether they should be honoured at all.

The marches in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, were sparked by a debate over whether to remove or keep a tribute to Confederate General Robert E. Lee, whose memory evokes racial tension and sparked deadly disagreement. Some view it as a monument to white supremacy while their opponents accuse them of trying to erase history. The battle about this statue offers little hope that the outcome will help achieve racial peace in the future.

In Montreal, a bank is being pressured to remove a plaque that marks a battle of the mid 1600s. Certainly, the description of the event is insensitive by today’s standards. When the marker was forged, it was considered acceptable—at least among those who had a voice. Today, some are asking that this bit of history be “redescribed.”

Throughout Quebec, cities are renaming parks and streets that honoured Nobel Prize winning scientists Alexis Carrel and Phillip Lenard. Montreal city officials promised to “erase any trace” of Dr. Carrel, whose support of Nazi ideology is a recent consideration that overshadows his scientific accomplishments.

Ironically, as reprehensible as Hitler’s regime and philosophy were, his name will never be erased from history.

News reports of the debate also reflect bias. Some headlines refer to “collaboration” with the Nazis while others say “alleged support.”

Canada’s sesquicentennial gave occasion to hear the voices of the country’s Indigenous people, who have been scarred by stolen land, broken treaties, residential schools, eugenics, poverty, and hopelessness. All Canadians deplore such mistreatment.

Those who benefit today from yesterday’s actions bear particular responsibility to work for justice among Canada’s Indigenous people. We also owe a debt to the slaves who built the trans-Canada railway and the immigrants who were interned during the Second World War.

Systemic and racial mistreatment is and should be condemned as the evil that it is. Even so, we also need to examine the context in which it took place, not to excuse evil behaviour, but because healing and equality demand that we understand the past.

Should we ignore good achievements, such as a medical breakthrough, because of behaviour incidental to that work? Does context matter? Did the scientists intend good or evil? Were they under the pressure of enemy occupation?

Yesterday’s bias in favour of objective scientific accomplishment led us to revere Carrel and Lenard for their scientific efforts while ignoring their lives outside the lab. Today’s more fulsome reexamination of their lives and beliefs also reveals a bias, and shows us the difficulty we face when applying standards of justice retroactively.

All people, through history, are imperfect. We are mostly motivated by taking care of ourselves. But we can listen. We can try to understand the hurt. We can learn a people’s perspective on an event to appreciate their claim, their pain. We can know what resolution they seek. The Golden Rule applies here: do to others as you would have them do to you.

As a nation, we apologize for injustices of decades and centuries ago. We support resolution of land claims and treaty issues in partnership. We work for justice and thriving of all people. When there is drinking water on reservations, we will have also begun to right historical wrongs and honoured a people. Justice today can alleviate the distrust caused by yesterday.

But if we just erase history, we lose not only a reminder of the good work that was done. We lose a reminder of the reconciliation work we still need to do.

History sometimes hurts and shames but we must remember. So we do not forget. So we do not repeat. We must hear from those who have lost privilege, not just those who have gained a benefit from history.

Whether bargaining contracts or redrafting social architecture, the concept of retroactivity is important. We must consider how things ought to have looked—no matter the pain or complexity. Achieving renewal, justice, peace and flourishing among those who live together is more likely when we share our joys—and our disappointments.

Retroactive Social Justice: It’s Complicated

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