At best they are palliative and patronising, at worst they reinforce the victimhood of Africans and the saviour status of westerners.
For example, some argue that the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, while a model of how to investigate and understand past wrongs, also relied on a too narrow definition of victimhood, excluding descendants of those who lost their land or were subject to forcible resettlement.
The creditors have a sense of victimhood that mirrors that of the debtors.
The mood of victimhood in Uruguay, it seems, protected him, and there was a similar mood in Brazil after Neymar's injury.
Their victimhood is an invention like, it has to be said much of the rest of what passes for history in Scotland, from the romantic myths about kilts and tartan to the fatuous film "Braveheart".Andrew Wilson, a Scottish Nationalist member of the Scottish Parliament, says Scotland must lose its national chip if it is to rise above "mediocrity".
Few challenged the Sunni assumption of superiority, while the Shias, with their doctrinal emphasis on martyrdom and victimhood, thrived on their own marginalisation.In this section Will the bloodstained Shias resist the urge to hit back?
The feeling that Islam is "under threat" in many parts of the world is arguably a politically motivated cry of victimhood rather than a statement about the meaning of sacred texts.Even the al-Shareef recantation, like those of the Jamaa Islamiya, seems to accept the legitimacy in principle of violent jihad in defence of the faith.
But there is something in British public opinion that is unusually resistant to that whole side of anti-Americanism that is tied up with victimhood and conspiracy theories.
Aren't Republicans supposed to deplore the politics of victimhood?
But later in her narrative, as she attends a lavish fund-raising dinner in Washington, she feels that something darker is at work: a mixture of "fear, injured pride, ignorance and perceived victimhood" whose brooding extremism could have dire consequences.
But the Opium Wars are always there, lurking in the Chinese subconscious, perpetuating the tension between pride and victimhood.
