Today we highlight critical and policy perspectives by African institutions on the topic of reconciliation. The Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Studies runs regular trainings on relevant issues and CIHA Blog Luce Graduate Fellow, Huguette Kazeneza reports back on a recent training led by Ms. Warigia Hinga, a peace practitioner and PhD student in Kenya. We also highlight The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR)’s latest report looking at reconciliation in the South African workplace. This is the first report in their Reconciliation and Development Series, a multidisciplinary publication focused on the themes of peacebuilding and development. The series serves to build up a knowledge base of research topics in the fields of peacebuilding and development, and the nexus between them. The full report is available for download at the bottom of today’s post.
Training week at Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Studies on National Healing and Reconciliation
By: Huguette Kazeneza, HIPSIR
Societies or communities emerging from extended periods of war or violent conflict are wounded societies that need to heal and rebuild healthy relationships. Otherwise, further wounds could be created. Reconciliation, at its core, is about restoring the right relationship between people who have had conflicts. Earlier this year, CIHA Blog posted initial insights from the “National Healing and Reconciliation” training that was held at the Hekima Institute (Nairobi, Kenya). In this second post based on the training, I would like to explore the theme of reconciliation. In the training, this theme was led by Ms. Warigia Hinga, a Kenyan peace practitioner and PhD student at the United States of America International University (USIU) in Nairobi and I use her lecture as a basis for the post.
Building on peace scholar J. Lederach, Ms. Hinga highlighted that reconciliation seeks to create an encounter where people focus on their relationship and share their perceptions, feelings and experiences with one another, with the goal of creating new perceptions and a new shared experience (Lederach 1998: 27). Lederach identifies four key concepts of Reconciliation: Truth, Justice, Mercy, and Peace.
Truth telling (remembering of the past) should be a chance for the victims to confront and defeat their fears. Truth telling helps aggressors understand how their actions impacted on their victims. Lessons need to be learned that will enable people to avoid a repetition of history. Truth however is only part of the process. Knowing the truth without knowing how to proceed towards the future can lead to bitterness and resentment. Ms. Hinga explained why mercy/forgiveness is therefore also an important element in the reconciliation journey. Mercy or forgiveness is the need for an offender to be accepted, released from the offense and for a new beginning. It is the ability of those affected by violence to cultivate a respect for their common humanity and agree that it is possible for them to co-exist. However, we cannot ignore justice. This represents the search for individual and group rights, for social restructuring and for restitution. Justice entails holding someone accountable either through retributive processes or restorative measures to promote reconciliation.
Retributive Justice is a form of justice focused on punishment according to the law; those who break the law are punished. It builds public confidence in the law. Punishment holds perpetrators accountable as individuals, not as groups. The offender receives punishment equal to amount or wrong committed.. However, punishing the offender does not benefit the victim and the focus on the perpetrator leaves the victim unattended.. Punishment alone therefore does not promote relationships and reconciliation and should not be the only tactic used.
Ms. Hinga highlighted why it is therefore important to seek alternative forms of justice like restorative justice, which aims at repairing damage and rebuilding relationships between the victim and perpetrator. It views offence as harms on others rather than laws broken. It involves victim and offender and their community of care in discussions on repairing harms. Restorative justice recognizes that the crimes do not happen in a vacuum but within a community. In many African cultures, restorative justice also includes elements of punishment and shaming.
Finally, a true process of reconciliation concludes by creating a culture of peace, which consists of values, attitudes, behaviors and ways of life based on non-violence and respect for the fundamental rights and freedom of everyone. , within this conception of peace, structures should be available through which personal and social differences can be identified and worked out in way satisfactory to all parties as well as to the society at large (Hizkias Assefa 1993).
The role of reconciliation is to develop a shared vision of an interdependent and fair society, acknowledging and dealing with the past, building positive relationships, cultural and attitudinal change by transforming the societal narratives and making a substantial social, economic and political change, in all with the goal of creating new national identities. The transformation has to happen at the personal, relational, cultural and national (structural) level.
“Today’s aggressors are often yesterday’s victims.” Olga Botcharova
It is highly evident in many countries that have been for so long in war, that when peace agreements are reached; efforts are focus on power sharing and military arrangements. The promotion of reconciliation at the middle and grassroots does not have the same attention. What can be then the contribution of humanitarian agencies in the process of reconciliation in divided societies?
I want to conclude this paper by proposing some points which in fact are recommendations first made by a team of the United States Institute of Peace sent to Angola in 1996 to explore how Angolan and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could promote reconciliation in Angola as part of the post-war peace process. These recommendations were directed to Angola, but I believe they may also be helpful for other countries engaged in peacebuilding.
- Promote contact and interaction: this involves the organization of meetings to bring together church members from the opposing sides, villages leaders from the opposing sides, organize women’s groups and exchanges, joint training programs for the relief staff of the opposing sides, bring young people together in camps or conferences, professional groups from various parts of the country to discuss their professional interests, national issues, and peacemaking. It involves the facilitation of functional cooperation in training projects. It can involve the use of food aid as an incentive for collaborative activities across the line. Provide opportunities for group confessions, apologies, and forgiveness by organizing sessions for people from both sides to hear about each other’s suffering as well as their hopes for the future.
- Use the media to promote peace: This includes exert pressure on the conflicting parties to reduce hate propaganda promote conflict resolution program and provide training for journalists to help them serve as agents of peace in their reporting.
- Organize think tanks and policy analysis devoted to peace issues, such as power-sharing and decentralization; alternative electoral systems to that of the winner-take-all approach, economic policy to address regional economic disparities; educational policy to address disparities in educational achievement; analysis of school texts and teaching to reduce ethnic and political stereotyping and misinformation; transitional justice options including amnesty, limited amnesty, or, alternatively, punishment for war crimes; policy options on military demobilization, reintegration of those demobilized, and use of the proposed fourth branch of the military to advance the peace process; and options for resettling and reintegrating those who were internally displaced by the war.
- Provide training on conflict resolution: this includes training of NGO staff and leaders in peacemaking skills, training of military and party leaders.
- Training of a Corps of Mediators: this includes development of a corps of trained mediators to deal with local conflicts and disputes or even national political disputes and ensure that the mediators are politically independent and widely respected for their wisdom and good judgment.
- Promote peace monitoring and fact-finding: this includes sponsoring citizen peace missions on particular issues, documenting and dissemination of successful case studies of the local peacemaking initiatives and bringing to national attention critical issues that may threaten the peace.
- Foster grassroots economic development: this includes ensuring that basic human needs are met and that workers and villagers can be confident about their economic future.
- Advocate peace: this involves helping the media communicate messages of tolerance and peace, encourage churches to advocate peace and reconciliation, helping schools teach tolerance and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, organizing a national peace conference, bringing together all segments of society, organizing peace marches, peace festivals, and peace tents, inviting highly regarded Africans or other international figures associated with peace to come to Angola to reinforce the peace message.
References
Lederach, J. (1998), Building Peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies, Washington, DC: The United States Institute of Peace
Assefa, H. (1993), Peace and Reconciliation as a Paradigm: A Philosophy of Peace and Its Implications on Conflict, Governance, and Economic Growth in Africa, Nairobi: Nairobi Peace Initiative.
IJR Reconciliation and Development Report (Number 1)
Report is authored by Elnari Potgieter and Mikhail Moosa (The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation). Summary written by Angela Okune.
The report, “More than a space for interracial contact: Exploring the importance of the workplace for social cohesion and reconciliation in South Africa,” finds that almost three decades since the advent of democracy in South Africa, the need for transformation and the need to address inequality is still evident. Workplaces are where South Africans report having the most interaction with people from ‘other’ race groups, but this is also where they experience the most racism. The report found that more South Africans might address racist behaviour demonstrated by a colleague, rather than someone in a more authoritative position (such as a manager). They also found that some South Africans do not approve of taking instructions from a person from a race group that they find difficult to associate with, as well as relatively low levels of interpersonal trust – both in terms of trust in colleagues and people from ‘other race groups’.
Nonetheless, the report highlights that the majority of South Africans agree that the workforce should be representative in terms of race, gender and disability – showing that there is widespread support for formal equality (not necessary substantive equality). The authors also found that the majority of South Africans remain open to interactions with people from other race groups and all spaces (public and private), citing confidence and language as the main barriers to interaction. The report noted that further focus on developing greater processes within the workplace environment for the building of interpersonal trust across race groups and other intersectional identities is important for reconciliation and social cohesion processes and should receive greater focus by employers and government.