Reconciliation and T

1
Reconciliation and T R Commissions Part 2

• Dynamics and Insights

2
Blurred Lines Among and Between Victims and
Perpetrators

• Rsch in South Africa reminds us of the dangers of
  oversimplification and homogenization.
• That is, not all victims are the same,
• not all perpetrators are the same, and
• some victims are also perpetrators of
  injustice or atrocities.
• This is relevant to issues such as amnesty and
  compensation.
• Thus, it would be helpful to employ a more
  precise terminology than merely victims and
  perpetrators.
• e.g., Secondary Victims e.g. dependents of a
  jailed breadwinner
• Beneficiaries as distinct from perpetrators
• Direct vs Indirect Perpetrators to take into
  account persons issuing orders
• Institutional Perpetrators e.g., Security
  Service in S.A.
• Sectoral Perpetrators e.g., mass media,
  health agencies, business
• Passive Perpetrators i.e. those who
  committed acts of omission

3
Moral GenerosityDanger of Excessive Reliance on
It

• Repentance, transformation and restitution by
  perpetrators take place in a context of grace or
  acceptance that comes from the moral generosity
  of victims who want to build an inclusive
  society.
• However, reconciliation can become overly
  dependent upon the moral generosity of victims.
  In other words, it is not self-evident that
  morally transformative approaches are suitable
  or politically workable.
• In South Africa, national reconciliation was
  premised upon moral transformation of victims as
  forgiving rather than angry, and generous rather
  than demanding.
• The strong pressures to forgive misplaced the
  burden of reconciliation on victims rather than
  on those who were responsible for apartheid.