From Reconciliation to Coexistence
In “Reconciliation after Ethnic Cleansing” (Public Culture 14 [spring 2002]: 281–304), John Borneman stresses that reconciliation requires acknowledging personal loss. Through witnessing, listening, and truth-telling, we can restore trust and regain a larger, more inclusive moral community. Truth-telling involves more than just finding out who did what to whom. It is about assessing these various truths in an intersubjective, relational way, or what Borneman calls “listening.” When carried out in public forums with skilled listeners, truth-telling creates a community that can transcend the ethnicization and revenge cycle that is all too common in ethnic conflicts.
Restoration of social bonds of trust also requires retributive justice executed by institutions enforcing a higher morality, so that neither I nor my children have to take revenge. Retributive justice helps facilitate the mourning process by wiping the slate clean. Legitimate judicial institutions and rule of law can help people begin the memory work needed to deal with the trauma of ethnic cleansing.
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