Large-Scale Reconciliation, Part 2

By
Heidi Burgess
Guy M. Burgess

March, 2021

You can download this video from Vimeo for offline viewing.

 

Full Transcript:

Slide 1:  Hi! This is Heidi Burgess. This is the second part of my discussion of Large Scale, Top-Down Reconciliation.

Slide 2:  Going back to the title of this video and the preceding one, the title includes the phrase “top down,” as well as “large scale.”  Top down refers to reconciliation processes that are developed by and/or carried out by leaders, or “the elite,” not the grassroots. Aside from problem-solving workshops, which are typically run by scholars, and are sort of a hybrid small scale/large scale, and you might say “middle out” rather than “top down” or “bottom up,” most large-scale societal-level reconciliation processes have been top down.

Slide 3:  Most truth and reconciliation commissions, for instance, were initiated and carried out by leaders of the regime that followed the one that was being investigated.  The same is true for war crime tribunals, with the addition of the International Criminal Court, which is, of course, a global body.

Slide 4:   According to Eric Brahm, an expert on truth commissions who did his dissertation on them while working with us at the Conflict Information Consortium, at the most basic level, truth commissions uncover the details of past crimes. “In many cases, he wrote in his BI article on Truth Commissions, they serve to officially acknowledge what many already know about the past. In this difficult time, it is a way for a new government to establish legitimacy by espousing democratic ideals, the rule of law, formal legal equality, and social justice. ” So, he observes, they help to look forward, as well as backward.  However, he cautions, “Societal reconciliation is an often-professed goal of truth commissions, but [is] almost always beyond its reach at least for a truth commission on its own.

Slide 5:   This corresponds with Desmond Tutu’s and Ebrahim Rasool’s statements that we discussed earlier in the semester that the South African TRC was “just the beginning” of the process.  Achieving reconciliation required much more work over a much longer period of time.  Unfortunately, that work was never completed in South Africa, and the reconciliation process there has stalled.  The same thing has happened in many other countries that have used TRCs.  They have been successful (to varying degrees, of course), to document past crimes.  But the extent to which such documentation leads to changes in future behavior, attitudes, or relationships is much less clear.

Slide 6:   Indeed, in his dissertation, Brahm studied the degree to which 27 different TRCs accomplished two broad goals: improving human rights in their target countries, and improving democratic governance in those countries.  Few, he found, were able to do those things on their own.  And sometimes, they did the opposite, legitimizing new, but corrupt, undemocratic regimes, as happened in Uganda and Chad.  In other places, such as Zimbabwe, Haiti, Bolivia, and Ecuador, the TRCs were disbanded because they were too critical of the new government.  But in other cases, such as the best-known case of South Africa, they did contribute substantially towards healing.  True, the South African Commission did not bring about reconciliation or peace writ large on its own, but I completely agree with Rasool and Tutu, that it made a peaceful transition from Apartheid possible.  If it hadn’t been for the TRC, a much bloodier, and perhaps unsuccessful revolution would have been very likely.

Slide 7:  Large-scale peacebuilding efforts also tend to be top down, in that they are  carried out by large, often foreign governments and NGOs (both of which are generally seen as foreign and “elite”)  Since peacebuilding is often the tool used to bring about reconciliation, large-scale reconciliation is also usually top-down.

Slide 8:  We’ve seen that small scale reconciliation processes don’t necessarily scale up well to the societal level.  Do processes that are designed to work at the full societal level do any better? Again, it is rather hard to say, but traditional often Western-implemented visions of peacebuilding have come under increasing criticism.

Slide 9:   This article, published in the Global Observatory, a journal published by the International Peace Institute, is one of many which challenges both the assumptions and the accomplishments of international peacebuilding work.  One assumption now often challenged is that most peacebuilding work presupposes the Western liberal ideal of democracy as the final, most desirable form of government. A second critique is that the interventions of international peacebuilders were more aimed at creating international order and stability for the benefit of the powerful nations, more than for the benefit of the host country. So the result was often to empower and institutionalize abusive governments and structures, as long as they didn’t threaten the international order.  The authors suggest that peacebuilders would be better off working toward what they call “popular peace” as opposed to liberal peace.  Popular peace, they say, is framed by local priorities and is serviced through local institutions (helped, sometimes, with external cooperation.)  This, of course, is similar in image to Antti Pentikäinen’s notion of insider reconcilers.

I do want to note that when I was talking about this video with Guy, he argued that the critique that peacebuilding shouldn’t work towards liberal democracy was, in his view, wrong.  There are two fundamental ways governments and societies can function, he argued.  There’s the “power with” model, in which everyone shares power to govern themselves fairly and in ways the majority desire (ideally with minority protections), and there’s the “power over” model which is some form of autocracy or tyranny. Which is better, he argued, and I agree, is clear.

Slide 10:   The book produced by CDA  in 2018, Adding Up To Peace, provides a much more positive view of the societal impacts of peace processes, which of course, are different from reconciliation processes.  But, as is explained at the beginning of the book, “peace” here is viewed as “peace writ large.” This is a term that they introduced in their earlier book, Confronting War to describe changes at the macro level of society, comprising two basic goals: first, stopping violence and destructive conflict, and second, building a just and sustainable peace by addressing the political, economic, and social grievances that drive the conflict. 

Slide 11:  What’s missing, in the context of reconciliation, is any notion of improved relationships.  Now it can be surmised that it one addressed each sides’ political, economic, and social grievances that relationships, too,  would be improved.  I find that reasonable.  So if you are willing to assume that, then “Peace Writ Large” would bring about societal reconciliation too.

Slide 12:  This notion is supported if you look at how CDA measured “progress” (in other words, “success” in the cases they studied).  They report that the cases needed to show progress in six different domains.”  They were: 1. Physical security and sense of security; 2. Acknowledgment of key conflict drivers and commitment to address them; 3. A durable political arrangement for handling power; 4. Resilient relationship between government and society; 5. Economic fairness and opportunity; and 6. Social cohesion.

Slide 13:  •Social cohesion, particularly, seems to relate to “reconciliation.”  They go into more detail about what they were looking for in that category in Chapter 2: a meaningful improvement in inter-group relations, as reflected in, for example: changes in group attitudes, public opinion, social norms, or public behaviors.  They go on to note that improved relationships between conflicting groups constitute an important building block for peace—often a preliminary step towards other initiatives. So if you will agree with me that these changes reflect steps toward reconciliation, then they see reconciliation as an early step in the peacebuilding process, not an ending one, as is more commonly assumed.

Slide 14:  Adding up to Peace presents what CDA calls “factor trees,” which are very similar to what I call conflict maps, to show what factors lead toward or away from a particular factor or attribute.  Here’s their factor tree for social cohesion. They suggest, for a start, that cooperation, dialogue, and local dispute resolution processes contribute to cohesion, as does a common identity (though that seems a bit tautological), and tolerance and peaceful behavior.  Also positively contributing to cohesion are leadership messages from key socialization actors and institutions. Strangely, they seem to have factors that detract from social cohesion shown in this diagram in the same way as the factors that contribute to it.  I’d suggest that “fear, anxiety, and distrust across groups should either be relabeled to read “reduction of fear, anxiety, and distrust across groups,”

Slide 15:  Adding up to Peace presents what CDA calls “factor trees,” which are very similar to what I call conflict maps, to show what factors lead toward or away from a particular factor or attribute.  Here’s their factor tree for social cohesion. They suggest, for a start, that cooperation, dialogue, and local dispute resolution processes contribute to cohesion, as does a common identity (though that seems a bit tautological), and tolerance and peaceful behavior.  Also positively contributing to cohesion are leadership messages from key socialization actors and institutions. Strangely, they seem to have factors that detract from social cohesion shown in this diagram in the same way as the factors that contribute to it.  I’d suggest that “fear, anxiety, and distrust across groups should either be relabeled to read “reduction of fear, anxiety, and distrust across groups,”

Slide 16:  or, alternatively, putting a dashed arrow between fear etc. and social cohesion, which is the standard way I show a negative relationship when I am building a conflict map.  Dealing with the past might be changed to “dealing effectively with the past,” and connected to fear, anxiety and distrust also with a dotted arrow, suggesting that if one societies successfully deal with the past, this will reduce fear, anxiety, and distrust across groups, thereby increasing social cohesion. (Or one could, more simply, just recast the fear element as “reduction in fear etc.” which would then allow the factor tree to have all solid arrows.)

Slide 17:  Another approach to large-scale reconciliation that I haven’t yet talked about is reaching out through the media to help people learn more accurate information about the other side, learn conflict skills, and to encourage a change in attitudes about “the other,” the conflict, the future, and possible steps to get there. One of the most notable efforts along this line that I know of is Search for Common Ground’s work with radio and TV soap operas teaching conflict skills.

Slide 18:  This picture is from the filming of The Team in Yemen, a soap opera about football (soccer in the U.S.). “Typically the team at the center of the story is made up of people from different sides of the ethnic, tribal, religious or economic fences that divide a society, and they have to learn to work together.” The Search for Common Ground shows often have a strong subtext about fighting gender stereotypes as well. The Nepalese version has a woman coach for the mens’ team; in the DRC the team is an all-woman squad, dealing with the impact of rape, which has been used extensively as a weapon of war in the DRC.

Slide 19:  Search is not the only organization that does peacebuilding/reconciliation related soap operas. Dicky reports that a number of other NGOs have used this tool, as have local filmmakers. “Some of the best, Makutano Junction in Kenya, for instance, and Soul City in South Africa, originated locally.  Now, clearly, not all of these soap operas are designed specifically to bring about reconciliation.  But they pave the way, make the field “ripe,” as we’ve said in earlier videos, for reconciliation work.

Slide 20:  Search is not the only organization that does peacebuilding/reconciliation related soap operas. Dicky reports that a number of other NGOs have used this tool, as have local filmmakers. “Some of the best, Makutano Junction in Kenya, for instance, and Soul City in South Africa, originated locally.  Now, clearly, not all of these soap operas are designed specifically to bring about reconciliation.  But they pave the way, make the field “ripe,” as we’ve said in earlier videos, for reconciliation work.

Slide 21:  Another form of media working toward (or paving the way for) reconciliation is “peace journalism.” Originally promulgated by Johan Galtung, peace journalism has grown to be a globally distributed movement of reporters, academics, and activists who select stories to report and the ways to report them such that they “create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict.”

Slide 22:  Unfortunately, though, the amount of what might be called “Hate Journalism” and “Hate Media” far, far, outweigh the reach of peace and reconciliation journalism and media.  And while the Right is certainly to blame for a lot of this, the Left has its share of culpability too.  I was very distressed to see the extent to which the New York Times assumes that hate crimes are always committed by whites, and reports it that way, when other races actually are well-represented too.

Slide 23:  For instance, this article explains that Blacks have been committing far more hate crimes against Asians than have whites when one corrects for population size. And, it points out, the attacker in Boulder (from which this picture was taken) was apparently Muslim—at least he had a Muslim name. (Thankfully, Boulder being very progressive, there hasn’t been any mention of Muslim extremism in response to this incident—surprisingly to all of us, nothing at all locally has been said about a motive.)  And the most recent, high-profile attack on Asians (the Atlanta Massage Parlor killings) really appears to have much more to do about sex than race.  But that is not the way the Times or other Left-leaning media reported it.  Far too often, their reporting blames whites, driving up the escalation spiral against whites, and making whites distrust and even hate The Times and people of color.

Slide 24:  Hate journalism and hate-driven and driving social media are one of a number of destructive conflict dynamics that are being carried out by a large group of people, organizations, and even state actors that Guy Burgess has labeled “bad faith actors” -- actors who are intent on disrupting peacebuilding and/or reconciliation processes for their own, nefarious,  purposes.  The political science literature refers to such people as “spoilers,” but who has been exploring the problem of bad-faith actors in depth, argues that they are much more diverse and multi-faceted than the “spoiler” concept usually suggests.  That will be the topic of our next video.

 

References:

Slide 4: Eric Brahm “Truth Commissions” Beyond Intractability. June 2004. https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/truth-commissions.

Slide 9: Youssef Mahmoud and Anupah Makoond "Can Peacebuilding Work for Sustaining Peace?" Global Observatory. April 10, 2018. https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/04/peacebuilding-work-sustaining-peace/

Slides 10-16 Diana Chigas and Peter Woodrow Adding Up to Peace. CDA Collaborative Learning Projects. 2018. https://www.cdacollaborative.org/publication/adding-peace-cumulative-imp...

Slides 17-19 at https://www.sfcg.org/the-worlds-most-subversive-soap-operas/

Slide 21: http://www.peacejournalism.org/Peace_Journalism/Welcome.html

Slide 23; Zaid Jilani “What People Don’t Have a Monopoly on Hatred.” Common Sense with Bari Weiss. March 23, 2021. https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/white-people-dont-have-a-monopoly-40c

Slide 24: Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess "Part 3: Challenging "Bad-Faith" Actors Who Seek to Amplify and Exploit Our Conflicts. Beyond Intractability. https://www.beyondintractability.org/frontiers/bad-faith-actors

 

Photo Credits: 

Slides 3 and 8:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TRC_Canada_They_Came_for_the_Children... public domain.  ICC logo: public domain.

Slides 4 and 6: Image from https://ualr.edu/mideaststudies/home/faculty/brahm/

Slide 5: Ebrahim Rasool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebrahim_Rasool Public Domain. Desmond Tutu: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Desmond_Tutu_2013-10... Förlag, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Slides 7 and 8: USAID.gov, sfcg.org, http://internationalalert.org/, and peacedirect.org

Slide 19: Picture: https://snappygoat.com/o/b05db17af6a607e15c0c87012be217dc989cf0d2/orphan.... Open source.

Slide 20: Makutano Junction Season 1, episode 1 (in its entirety) on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjwuveQiaS4. Soul City Trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqR3aUulqMQ

Slide 22: Fox: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnysilvercloud/22319224443. by Johnny Silvercloud. Fox News. CC BY-SA 2.0. Facebook: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stockcatalog/40563463444. Stock catalogue CC BY 2.0