Beyond Sovereignty: Absolute Apology, Absolute Forgiveness

Much of the world’s uranium is mined from Indigenous lands. The uranium for Little Boy, the atomic bomb detonated by the US military over Hiroshima, came in part from territories of the Sahtu Dene, an Indigenous people on the shores of Great Bear Lake, Canada. Most of the Dene men who mined and transported the ore died of cancer. Their families all suffer from exorbitant rates of malignancy. Ignorant at the time of the intended purpose of the ore, the Dene nonetheless felt implicated once they learned of their connection to Hiroshima’s fate. In response, they sent a delegation to Hiroshima to apologize. Their act raises the question of what it means to take responsibility for a historical catastrophe for which you are not quite responsible. Extending Jacques Derrida’s notion of “absolute forgiveness,” the chapter proposes a corollary concept of “absolute apology” to explore a politics of repair beyond sovereignty.