Abstract
Although democratization is desirable, the reframing of ethnic identity, witnessed for example in the peace campaigns of South Africa and Rwanda, raises two questions: First, there is an empirical question: can ethnic identities actually be modified? Second, there is a normative question: should ‘problematic’ elements of ethnic identities be modified? This article is divided into three sections. In the first section, I demonstrate that each of these questions provokes, and indeed merits, debate. In the second section, I argue that in each case these debates are the result of an incoherent response to the complications of identity politics. Thus to address these debates, I first develop a theory of how to manage the machinations of social and ethnic group identities: the recognition–redistribution–participation theory, inspired by the work of Nancy Fraser, which comprises a two-dimensional conception of justice and accompanying norm of equality of participation opportunity. I then in my final section proceed to show that the debates that develop from efforts to desecuritize ethnic relations can be resolved by applying this theory.
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Notes
For further discussion of this point see: Rouhana (2008), Crocker (2002), Bhuta and Popkin (1999), Dwyer (1999), Little (1999), Tutu (1999), Minow (1998).
Hugo van der Merwe (2003) further explains the failings of the South African TRCs. He shows that the TRCs were pulled in opposite directions, by some people favoring top-down approaches and others favoring bottom-up approaches to reconciliations. He further discusses the practical (budgetary) and theoretical (the impossibility of providing a common path of healing for disparate individuals) limitations that the TRCs faced. With these explanations, he offers further explanation as to why the TRC was unsuccessful.
See also Sanders (2007), Daly (2008), Garcia-Godos (2008).
Consociational government involves a grand coalition in government, proportionality, minority vetoes and segmental autonomy. It depends on elite cooperation and takes for granted that divisive or centrifugal forces can be balanced by policies of collaboration among representatives of the various groups within a polity (Lijphart, 1977).
Similar refusals to forgive are found in the grieving political positions of Las Madres of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, and South African widows. Referring to Las Madres’ refusal to accept monetary reparations, M. Suarez-Orozco writes: ‘The Mothers argue that any such bureaucratic intervention requires them to psychologically become their children's executioners: they would first need to psychologically kill and bury their children before proceeding with the legal route. And this is too costly, much too guilt inducing. It is as if giving up hope is betraying their children’ (Suarez-Orozco, 1991, p. 496). Making a similar point, Hamber and Wilson draw attention to the fact that in many post-conflict situations there is great ambiguity concerning whether or not someone was killed. Moreover, recovering the remains of the dead is furthermore problematic. This puts the mourners into a deeply ambivalent situation: on one level they know their loved one is dead, yet on the other hand, without firm evidence and without a corpse to be buried, they are unable to initiate the mourning process. They are trapped in a hellish liminal zone, from which it is impossible to forgive (Hamber and Wilson, 1999).
In April–July 1994 the Hutu-led military and Interahamwe militia groups killed about 800 000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates in the Rwandan genocide. Between July and August 1994, Kagame's Tutsi-led RPF troops first entered Kigali and soon after captured the rest of the country. Over two million Hutus fled the country, causing the Great Lakes refugee crisis. Between 1994 and 1996, the Tutsi-controlled RPA government of Paul Kagame continued its retribution against Hutus in Rwanda. The RPF killed thousands of recent returnees from Zaire in Kibeho camps (Destexhe, 1995).
As Brandon Hamber and Richard Wilson argue, Las Madres of Argentina and the widows of South Africa represent the same shortcoming (1999, p. 26). Expressing a similar perspective, Timothy Garton Ash (1997) argues against reconciliation on the grounds that it violates the liberal values of individual freedom of thought and conscience.
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Walker, K. Resolving debates over the status of ethnic identities during transitional justice. Contemp Polit Theory 11, 68–87 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2011.7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2011.7