Genocide between history, law and politics. A Commentary about the Proposal for a new Law on Hate Speech in Sweden

According to the proposal, those instances of mass murder that Swedish courts or international tribunals have defined as genocide should be “acknowledged” as such. Accordingly, denying them or their classification would become criminalised, providing it is done in a context where the person involved in “denial” simultaneously engages in hate speech.

The proposal raises several questions that transcend law and history, especially considering that the Lawgiver explicitly wants to use legislation to “protect” the memory of a historical event or process. It also highlights the clear distinction between the “binary” character of a legal process in which a court has to choose on a conviction and a historical analysis that allows for re-interpretations and different perspectives that may change once new sources prove previous assumptions wrong. Most importantly, the proposal raises numerous questions of principal importance. Should the state use the legal system to proscribe a particular interpretation of history? What is the relationship between history and scholarship? Is it possible to reconcile the state-sponsored prescription of historical interpretations with the emphasis on independence and a critical stance towards established “truths” governing the Swedish legislation on higher education and academic freedom? These issues will be discussed during the lecture, focusing on the relationship between law, justice, collective memory and pedagogical practice in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies.

Tomislav Dulić is a professor of Holocaust and Genocide studies at the Hugo Valentin Centre at the Department of History, Uppsala University. His research focus is on the social dynamics of violence, comparative genocide, the spatial dimension of mass killing, and collective memory about historical atrocity.