Truth commissions often claim the nation is a living entity, one that can be healed with truth telling. For some of the victims, truth commissions do offer the closure and healing they desperately need to move on with their lives. However, the diverse needs of the individual result in very few reconciliation efforts targeting the needs of the majority of victims.
There is an obvious issue of dealing with both national and individual needs in the post-conflict setting, especially in regards to reparations and memorialization. Reparations and reconciliation schemes are often developed nationally, at the public level of a truth commission. Memories are often repressed to the detriment of individuals suffering in the state. The commitment to cultivating the image of a nation in recovery at the expense of treating individual needs leaves victims unable to deal with their personal trauma long after a truth commission releases its report.
One victim may solely desire a confession or enough funds to buy a house for their family; their neighbor may want to find the body of their loved one in order to finally lay them to rest. If it isn’t possible to recover a body, the victim is left in a state of grief that cannot be ameliorated by a truth commission’s investigations. Is it ethical for a national truth commission to claim a successful healing process occurred when its people are still reeling from psychological damage that cannot be addressed?
Individual wants and needs for closure in reparations and reconciliation efforts is my primary critique of truth commissions. I remain unconvinced that, upon deeper investigation, a researcher would find that a truth commission delivered the healing that a nation may claim occurred after the fact. Victims left unsatisfied never find closure and are literally haunted by the ghosts of the dead. The person is psychologically barred from closure or stuck with their grief, vowing to get their own vengeance or never forgive.
I think the most effective solution to this issue of individual yet multitudinous conceptions of needed reparations and reconciliation lie with Hamber and Wilson’s idea that “coming to terms with the past can only be eased by recognizing as legitimate the multiple and contradictory agendas which exist among a heterogeneous community of survivors.” They argue for the use of public and private spaces to fully deal with the issues of individual victims; this seems like a viable method to deal with myriad reparations expectations, provided the state has the resources to undertake such services. Catering to both private (counseling) and public (theatre) solutions allows for more trauma recovery than a national truth commission can deliver, leading to a truly healed society.
Just like individual ideas of reparations and reconciliation, memories are also individualized, even though politics and truth commissions advocate for the formation of a national collective memory. The politics of memorialization is a palpable concern for any site primed to become a national site of memory. Hamber and Wilson assert that reparations do not take place via an object (like a monument) but rather via the process that takes place around the object. Jelin highlights this concept a bit further with the idea that memorialization is a shared project between state and societal forces.
A proposed memorialization (or a site currently in existence) will usually be opposed by some sectors due to lack of a collective memory, “single vision and interpretation of the past shared by a whole society” (Jelin). Understanding the concept of memory is quite similar to the idea of constructing individual reconciliation processes: memories are subjectively “anchored in experiences and in material and symbolic markers.” Jelin argues that there is a link between the individual, society and displaying the past in cultural products that serve as a vehicle for memory.
Not only do individuals rarely benefit from one sweeping attempt at reconciliation (via a national truth commission), most individuals do not share the same memories. Although groups experience the same events, the way in which meaning of the event is constructed can be different and contradictory. Thus, the politics of memorialization suffer from the same difficulties inherent in the reparations process. In an attempt to materialize memory via monuments and plaques, dates, famous figures, and events are all remembered differently and politically contested. How does one decide, not only how to best treat trauma, but also how to put it on display?
I see the politics of memorialization as a perfectly suitable public space to engage with individual reconciliation. The give and take between societal forces and the state opens up a new domain for discussion to address the issue of memory, and whether the established collective memory is acceptable to the citizens. While the individual is just as problematic in the memorialization process, the issues are more likely to be dealt with by the state than in truth commissions.
An ICTJ report corroborates Jelin’s argument by asserting that “the creation of memorials or the preservation of memory sites should never be at the expense of truth and justice.” I agree, and prefer the mix of state/individual methods of approaching the truth, reconciliation and healing. I examine these arguments to highlight a pervasive problem for the field of conflict analysis and resolution: the individual.
Reconciling the needs of the state with the needs of the individual in a national healing process is daunting, if not completely impossible. What benefits the state may prove detrimental to the masses, but focusing solely on the individual ignores important national stabilizing needs. It is tempting to be pessimistic in this area, but I think a more focused and targeted approach that encompasses national and individual needs is achievable in post-conflict states.
Sources
Hamber, Brandon and Richard Wilson 2002. “Symbolic Closure through Memory, Reparations and Revenge in Post-Conflict Societies.” Journal of Human Rights 1(1):35-53.
Jelin, Elizabeth 2007. “Public Memorialization in Perspective: Truth, Justice and Memory of Past Repression in the Southern Cone of South America.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 2007 1(1):138-156.
International Center for Transitional Justice, 2008. “Memorialization and Democracy: State Policy and Civic Action.” Available at: http://ictj.org/publication/memorialization-and-democracy-state-policy-and-civic-action
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