Abstract
This edited collection is concerned with the process of building a common narrative following mass victimisation and the role of such collective memory for healing in post-conflict countries. The book does not look at individual victims, but at social groups as victims. As such it transcends one of the limits of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) identified by Urban Walker in the first chapter, that is, reliance on individuals who directly witnessed atrocities. Bird and Ottanelli have bundled highly insightful chapters written by scholars from a variety of scientific disciplines. None of them misses a beat and manages to adhere to the book’s clear-cut aim. Chapters are remarkably informative and concise, and thanks to the clever use of nuanced but clear language, they form a truly digestible read.
The theoretical groundwork is laid in Part I. In the first chapter, Urban Walker explains the epistemological approach to truth adopted in the collection, that is, a constructivist approach, which recommends that building a common memory is a dialectical process. A key message concerns the need to respect multiple narrators’ discourses, whether or not they contradict common or official narrative. Urban Walker also discourages overreliance on TRCs. These have a moral and political agenda and are restricted in time and in who is invited to testify. She argues that, whilst a TRC is an important political gesture, it can only unveil part of the truth. It is a start, but not the end: ‘among [TRCs] central recommendations should be that truth recovery continue through varied projects and institutions’ (p.20). López (Chapter 2) expands on this idea and challenges the potential of formal justice mechanisms to facilitate shared narrative. She argues that collective memory, which emerges from collaborative narrative, matters because it strengthens social solidarity, which is instrumental in post-conflict nations. It is then in the interest of collective healing to supplement formal procedures with more organic forms of justice.
Parts II and III include case studies that offer insight into various mechanisms through which collective narrative and transitional justice might be achieved. In accordance with the constructivist approach, they all illustrate that there is not one truth – there are multiple truths. Moreover, multiple truths can only be uncovered through not one but multiple ways of memory building. Also, throughout, it is argued that memorialisation and truth building should be seen as on-going processes. Across the different cases, it is clear that contributors agree with López that institutional and judicial responses often fall short in uncovering the full truth. In their respective chapters, contributors look at both formal and informal mechanisms, all the while underlining their complementarity. A common observation is also that formal initiatives (such as public apology, trials, national inquiries, TRCs) have to be followed through with inclusive action. Therefore, the memory mechanisms described include not only memorials and days of remembrance, International Courts, gacaca and TRCs, but also contributions to popular culture (such as video and music) and art, inclusion of past incidents in school curricula, support and compensation, and preservation of archives of narratives. Furthermore, cases illustrate the power of private and bottom-up initiatives.
The editors acknowledge that Rwanda is overrepresented in the book because ‘genocide there has in a sense become the archetypical atrocity of the recent era’ (p.3). Wolfe (Chapter 3) reports that Rwanda has succeeded in achieving symbolic and historical redress but has failed to achieve transitional justice owing to ‘enforced silencing of voices’ (p.44) that did not recount traditional victim narrative propagated by the government. Lindsay (Chapter 5) emphasises that in the absence of reconciliation initiatives discordant narratives may continue to fuel deeply rooted conflicts, but that muting dissident truths might equally have endangered lasting peace. As such, Lindsay implicitly refers to the need for recognition of social identities, which is an important source of justice. The imposition of one official narrative in Rwanda is somewhat nuanced by Auchter (Chapter 10): ‘official documents reveal that the government is well aware of the tension inherent in the efforts at social unity and reconciliation, and also that attention is being paid to how to respect a multiplicity of memories’ (p.169). She describes how multiple truths produced a variety of ‘memorialisations’ (p.167), including educational memorials, collaborative art constructions and films, and (should be allowed to) continue to do so.
These issues are echoed in the stories of memory building in Spain, Israel, Australia, Guatemala, Argentina and Nigeria. They all highlight the danger of silencing (certain) voices, even if this is done in the interest of unity and a future-oriented approach. It might be painful to confront different, possibly dissident, truths but there is no forward-looking without full acknowledgement of the past. For instance, because Spain adopted a ‘pact of silence’ (p.98) in response to its dictatorial past, private memories failed to enter the public domain. Also recent laws, which enable compensation for individual victims, do not comply with a collective need for truth. The account of Guatemala is one of misrecognition of collective adverse experiences as personal and idiosyncratic events. Finally, in his chapter on the exclusion from the official narrative of the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Israel in the 1948 war, Nets-Zehngut advances the idea that such misrepresented truth blocked a move to peace in the Israel–Palestine conflict.
What I personally particularly appreciated were the final two chapters, which zoom in on the role of fictional literature and poetry as forms of memorialisation. Hemer explains how fictionalised memorialisation (Spiegelman’s comic Maus on the Holocaust sprang to mind) allows a different type of interrogation and understanding than authentic testimonies. Imagination allows incubation time and putting unspeakable memories into words. A case in point is Hawkins’ poem in the final chapter on his visit to a former concentration camp.
In summary, The Performance of Memory as Transitional Justice is an engaging read, notwithstanding its not-so-trivial and sombre topic. It balances theoretical reflections and insightful case studies. This is particularly, but not exclusively, useful for someone who is not or only slightly familiar with transitional justice, like myself. If there is anything I might have missed and the book might have benefited from, it could be further reflection on the value of collective memory for individual as well as collective healing. Also, given the efforts of the different authors to emphasise how memory building and transitional justice cannot be limited in time, I cannot help but wonder whether they can ever be achieved or at least approached, or whether this is another never ending story ….