Читать книгу Black Panther and Philosophy - Группа авторов - Страница 27

Perhaps the most obvious way to correct an injustice is to restore the material conditions prior to it: as Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it, “If you take my pen and say you are sorry but don’t give me the pen back, nothing has happened.”⁶ Restitution seems an especially natural response to theft or fraud, whether it’s money, a pen, or a centuries-old axe. In other situations, though, putting things back as they were is impossible; try as you might, you can’t unscramble the egg or put the toothpaste back in the tube. T’Challa, N’Jadaka, W’Kabi –none of them can get their fathers back. Wakanda could open its arms to the long-lost N’Jadaka, long abandoned by his uncle T’Chaka, but the years of neglect cannot really be compensated for.

Indeed, the aim of restoring material conditions to the way they were often seems inappropriate or at least insufficient in response to wrongdoing. If one person accidentally takes my pen and another steals it, they should both return my pen. But doesn’t the latter owe me something more than the former, something that differentiates theft from an honest mistake? The material conditions disrupted by injustice are surely relevant to correction, but for serious historical injustices, is putting things back as they were an adequate response?

The case for restitutive justice at the museum is pretty strong, but Killmonger does a poor job of it: like his brief reign as king, his corrective justice begets further injustice. The axe doesn’t just belong to him, so other Wakandans may rightly object to him partnering with Klaue and selling it to the highest bidder (the CIA) in Korea. His crew preemptively poisons and shoots museum staff before any effort to argue their right of repossession. And to add insult to injury, Killmonger swipes a traditional African mask as he makes his escape. (“You’re not telling me that’s vibranium too?” “Nah, I’m just feeling it.”) Chances are the Museum of Great Britain has no more of a claim to that mask than to the vibranium axe, of course, but whoever deserves to have it and to be made whole again, it’s not Killmonger and Klaue.