The paradoxes of colonial reparation: Foreclosing memory and the 2008 Italy–Libya Friendship Treaty

Abstract

This article explores a paradox relating to the highly contested project of compensating for mass crimes perpetrated during the colonial period. It analyses the only postcolonial reparation treaty to be signed to date: the Italy–Libya Friendship Treaty of 2008. While all other former colonial powers have consistently refused to apologize and pay compensations for their colonial crimes, this has not been the case with Italy, which agreed to pay over US$5 billion as reparation for the harm done to Libyans by the ruthless Italian colonial rule between 1911 and 1943. By analysing the text of the Italy–Libya Treaty as well as its immediate consequences and the transnational dynamics of remembrance it engendered, I argue that the agreement short-circuits the production of social memory and actually leads to systematic violations of human rights against migrants and refugees. Moreover, I contend that looking at ‘cynical’ apologies and reparations can yield interesting insights into the politics of regret. Most importantly, the Treaty shows how the problem with such a politics is that it ‘forgets’ colonialism, or rather, building on Ann Stoler’s notion of ‘colonial aphasia’, fails to speak it.