How should societies with decades of human rights violations deal with past injustices? This is a politically controversial question. Across the world truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) have become prominent components of transitional justice mechanisms, which aim to move societies toward democratically meaningful political transitions. When designed in the right manner, TRCs foster social cohesion, bridge the gap between perpetrators and victims, and create a more just and fair society. When designed in the wrong manner, however, they foster resentment, perpetuate structural inequalities, and undermine civil and social trust. How can TRCs achieve the former outcome? What are suitable benchmarks to measure their output? What can and should citizens reasonably expect from commissions seeking to bridge the gap between a violent past and a hopeful future?
Fanie du Toit, Gabrielle Lynch, and Abena Ampofoa Asare take these questions as points of departure and review the politics behind, the unfolding of, and the effects of TRCs from different disciplinary angles. Fanie du Toit is the former director of the South African Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. He currently works as chief technical adviser for the United Nations Development Program in Iraq. Gabrielle Lynch is professor of comparative politics at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. Abena Asare is professor of Modern African Affairs and History at SUNY Stony Brook. Their three books all have noteworthy strengths, are written in accessible language, and contribute to the ongoing debate about reconciliation commissions with considerable depth and breadth. The three authors carefully avoid sweeping generalizations about the desirability and the effects of TRCs. It is evident from their writing that all three are deeply committed to the countries they study.
Fanie du Toit’s book reexamines the South African reconciliation process at a moment in time when many, in retrospect, regard the process as having failed the aspirations of those who suffered at the hands of the apartheid system. The book counters such pessimism. Drawing on insights from actors involved in the struggle for transitional justice and reconciliation, du Toit convincingly shows that what brought Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk to the negotiating table was a pragmatic acknowledgment of the interdependence between South Africa’s white minority and black majority. More often than not, historical accounts portray Mandela and de Klerk as moral exceptions and idealize the notion of individual forgiveness. In fact, the two leaders engaged in a realistic assessment of South Africa’s current and future predicament. The book emphasizes that the work of the TRC was embedded in the efforts of a broad set of civic actors. Historical accounts often overlook these other civil society players, which provided additional reconciliation platforms and thus complemented (or even facilitated) the truth and reconciliation process. By addressing the manifold liberal and left-wing critiques of the TRC, the book provides an inspiring defense of its achievements. Du Toit convincingly argues that the TRC acknowledged the structural violence that shaped apartheid South Africa and thus did not exclusively focus on individual victims; it also recommended various forms of reparations. The failure of the South African state to compensate apartheid’s victims cannot be blamed on the TRC, but is rather the failure of post-apartheid South African political elites.
Following this analysis, du Toit departs from his empirical approach and engages the reader in political theory. Drawing on (among others) Miroslav Wolf, Charles Taylor, Hannah Arendt, and Daniel Philpott, the book outlines and critically discusses a typology of how to think about reconciliation. It distinguishes between reconciliation as social restoration, as liberal peace, and as agonist deliberation. The discussion provides the book with considerable theoretical clout, which forces the reader to think beyond the South African context. In its conclusion, the book formulates a new theoretical approach to political reconciliation based on the South African experience.
Accordingly, reconciliation is not a fixed endpoint but an open-ended process in which former antagonists articulate and negotiate a shared and unavoidable future. The South African reconciliation experience thus differs from other possible outcomes such as secession, the institutionalization of conflict lines, military victory of one party over another, peace treaties, majoritarian rule without any political impact of the minority, and ongoing conflict. Measured against these benchmarks, the South African TRC made an important contribution to a more just and fair society, because “reconciliation politics propagated the idea that South Africa’s radical groups were (and remain) fundamentally (unchangeably) and comprehensively (politically, economically, socially and morally) interdependent … as a matter of unavoidable socio-political reality” (p. 191).
The book is an impressive achievement and spans the insights of two decades of reconciliation research. Unfortunately, du Toit does not discuss how many former antagonists it takes for a reconciliation process to be meaningful. Nor does his theoretical approach deal with reconciliation apathy and general withdrawal from national debates about what a just society might look like.
Gabrielle Lynch uses the South African TRC as a comparative benchmark for her own assessment of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission of Kenya (TJRC). She is less interested than du Toit in how reconciliation can be defined in abstract terms, focusing instead on the effects of the TJRC on Kenyan society. She embeds her analysis in performance theory, which allows her to examine a multitude of actors, audiences, and their respective interactions. A long-term scholar of Kenyan politics, Lynch emphasizes that there is no general blueprint for reconciliation that fits all countries. Local contexts differ, and reconciliation processes have to accommodate local power dynamics if they are to be meaningful.
The book’s main intention is to highlight the specificity of the Kenyan context, which Lynch achieves with an implicit comparison between the South African TRC and the Kenyan TJRC. Her book thus inadvertently confirms many of du Toit’s claims about the South African TRC. The work of the Kenyan TJRC took place in the aftermath of Kenya’s 2008 ethnic clashes. A profound political transition before the establishment of the TJRC, however, eluded Kenya. The Kenyan state’s main priority was not to conduct an exercise in Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past). Instead it pursued peace-building defined in minimalistic terms: the absence of violence. By emphasizing “peace,” the Kenyan state propagated an ideology of order, stifled dissent, and, avoided an open-ended debate about past injustices. From the very beginning, it framed “the good Kenyan citizen as one who protects and promotes stability” (p. 49). The shortage of well-known and integer commissioners, as well as financial problems, hampered the work of the commission. In South Africa the media covered the hearings of the TRC; in Kenya the work of the TJRC more often than not went unnoticed. The TJRC’s lack of visibility and its broad mandate created the widespread perception that the TJRC was just another effort in a seemingly endless series of commissions of inquiry.
By discussing the high-profile intervention of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Kenyan party politics, Lynch shows how well-intentioned external interventions can be detrimental to local attempts to rectify past human rights violations. Drawing on an impressive amount of field research, Lynch’s analysis does not deny or downplay the TJRC’s achievements. The commission’s final report provides ample evidence of past injustices and suffering. However, the TJRC ignored the voices of historically marginalized communities, including youth, refugees, migrants, and members of religious and sexual minorities. By trying to focus on the experience of Kenyan women, the commission fostered the “homogenization of women as vulnerable, innocent and resilient” (p. 216). Finally, the TJRC lacked amnesty provisions and the mandate to prosecute perpetrators. Perpetrators thus had many incentives to remain silent and to deny their responsibility and complicity. The Kenyan parliament has yet to discuss the final report of the commission, which is another stark difference from the South Africa reconciliation process. In her conclusion, Lynch argues that the Kenyan reconciliation commission failed to create a persuasive break with the past and fell short of its stated goals.
Lynch’s book is a real eye-opener that makes an important contribution. Its innovative theoretical framework allows for a holistic and thorough analysis of the politics of reconciliation. At the same time, those who study Kenyan politics might ask what one could reasonably have expected from a reconciliation process led by government ministers whom the ICC had accused of crimes against humanity.
Abena Asare examines Ghana’s TRC. As in South Africa (and in contrast to Kenya), the Ghanaian TRC began its work after a successful political transition in 1992 and the first democratic handover of power in Ghana’s history in 2000. Despite this and despite the fact that the establishment of the TRC was politically highly controversial, the Ghanaian TRC had little or no impact on Ghanaian society. As in Kenya, the Ghanaian government has failed to discuss the report in parliament and to compensate the victims of state abuse.
In contrast to du Toit and Lynch, Asare stays away from any theorizing. She does not lament the fact that TRCs may contribute little to national healing and social cohesion. Her book treats the archive of the Ghanaian TRC as a “site of passionate debate about the past, present, and future” (p. 9) and puts forward a citizen’s history of key political developments in post-independence Ghana. Fulfilling a historian’s core mission, Asare adds a pragmatic and refreshing new angle to the literature about transnational justice. The exceptional clarity of her writing makes the book accessible to students of African politics and to scholars of other disciplines. Her analysis sheds new light on Ghana’s past and the often overlooked long-term ramifications of state-induced violence on everyday life. The manner in which the Ghanaian state engaged with people’s testimonies reveals which memories the state regarded as worthy of including in its official human rights history.
Each chapter focuses on a specific theme and provides diverging interpretations of the past. The chapter about market women in Accra (known as kalabule women) counters dominant narratives about these women’s alleged wealth, influence, and power. Other testimonies examine the effect of state violence on individuals and their families. The book vividly demonstrates that state violence not only affects the individual targeted by the state but also has a long-term impact on relatives and future generations. It also critically reexamines the detrimental consequences of development projects for the well-being of hundreds of thousands of people. Here Asare highlights the areas in which citizen and government ideas about violence and human rights diverged, given that the Ghanaian state did not regard these projects as human rights violations. Reading through the TRC accounts also challenges the binary distinction between perpetrators and victims. Many soldiers who committed human rights violations later became victims of state violence. Finally, the book honors those who defied the mandate of the TRC and who discussed human rights violations that took place during the colonial period and thus outside the remit of the TRC.
The three books under review here put forward new, provocative ideas and findings about truth and reconciliation processes. All three will attract the interest of scholars working on nation-building and democracy-making. All three make an important contribution to the dense literature on truth and reconciliation commissions.
