On “visualising the truth of genocide”

reflections on Whakapapa and finding southern epistemology, occasioned by a tattered album from the Nomos of the holocaust

Abstract

In common understandings modern International Criminal law is founded upon the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, at which images and accounts of the genocide of the Jews were presented; further that the later Genocide Convention is Lemkin’s child that addresses some weaknesses of the earlier proceedings. By contrast this chapter argues that Nuremberg did not do justice nor did it allow the imagery of the holocaust to be viewed untainted; it was rather an operation that reinforced the established nomos in which power talked for and described the Jews. Against the mainstream narratives this chapter offers an exercise in southern epistemology, a kōrero, or address working in tikanga Māori, an understanding and mode of performance that was itself nearly destroyed in the genocides of colonialism. In this korero, mana of scholarly authority is derived from whakapapa, or heritage, thus an interactive set of reflections are offered centring around a Māori proverb, an album of images and an extract from a novel, namely The Reader; together they are focal points in scenes for reflections and lead on to different relationships of academic, professional and lay responsibility towards genocide.