2022 MF CASR Annual Lecture with Achille Mbembe (31 May, 2022)

RESTITUTION, REPARATION AND THE CAPACITY FOR TRUTH Any restitution, if it is to be authentic, must be enacted on the basis of a corresponding recognition of the seriousness of the harm suffered and the wrongs inflicted. Further still, restitution is an obligation whenever a conscious and deliberate act of destruction has been undertaken against another's life. The truth is that Europe took things from us that it will never be able to restitute. This debt of truth cannot be erased as a matter of principle. Honouring it is not a matter of charity or compassion. As Edouard Glissant never ceased to reiterate, honoring truth comes with the commitment to learn and remember together. It goes by way of a commitment to repairing the fabric and visage of the world, to embracing, eyes wide open, the inextricability of the world and its composite character, in memory of the Earth that we share and in memory of all its inhabitants, humans and nonhumans. Introduction by Research Professor Sindre Bangstad (KIFO) Discussant: Associate Professor Moumita Sen (MF) Moderator: Professor Liv Ingeborg Lied (MF) Achille Mbembe is Research Professor in History and Politics at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Mbembe is renowned for his critique of colonialism and its consequences and among the world’s leading intellectuals.