In the uprisings of the “Arab Spring,” the question of dictators leaving power arose.   The question became: Would Egypt’s Mubarak or Yemen’s Saleh receive amnesty? Today in Syria, the international community gropes for a solution and confronts the question: Would Bashar Assad receive amnesty? Meanwhile, international lawyers and human rights activists tout judicial punishment as their greatest accomplishment. The recent conviction of Radovan Karadzic by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia fits these aspirations perfectly. Whether there will be punishment for arch-criminals is the question. Law and judicial procedure are the language. Thirty years after the fall of Latin American dictators launched the field of transitional justice, this language remains dominant.

During the same period, though, an alternative language has arisen. It does not necessarily reject punishment and law, but it calls for something more holistic that will address the wide range of wounds experienced by a population and will seek to change the people’s hearts and minds. It goes by the language of reconciliation. This language, too, has become widespread and attends efforts to deal with the past around the world. As I outline an ethic of reconciliation in my book Just and Unjust Peace, it calls for a range of practices, including acknowledgment, reparations, apology, and forgiveness, as well as punishment and the building of the rule of law. It is disproportionately promoted by the religious.

The most radical practice of reconciliation is forgiveness. The international community ignores forgiveness or criticizes it for foregoing punishment, circumventing the rights of victims, and even burdening victims once more. On the ground, though, in countries ranging among Ireland, Uganda, South Africa, Sierra Leone and East Timor, it has been much more common.

A study that I undertook in Uganda with the Refugee Law Project showed that in the wake of the 25-year long war in the north, 68.3% of the victims said they forgave the perpetrator of violence against them; 60.94% said they would forgive members of rebel groups when presented with forgiveness among a number of options; 53.91% said they would forgive members of the Ugandan military; and 85.97% said they “agreed” that “it is good for victims to practice forgiveness in the wake of armed violence.” Other questions showed that victims still demanded other measures like reparations, apologies, the exposure of the truth, acknowledgment, and, yes, judicial accountability. Remarkably, though, they were willing to forgive even in the absence of these measures. Focus groups held across the country corroborated the numbers in personal testimonies.

What reasons did Ugandans offer for why they forgave? Psychological healing, peace in the community, and their tribal traditions all appeared prominently, but most important of all was their religious faith. A well-respected Catholic prelate, Archbishop John Baptist Odama, along with other leaders of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, were strong and public advocates of forgiveness; many ordinary people followed in their wake (see here for a video on Odama and forgiveness). In villages, at the crossings of dusty dirt roads, thousands of miles from the twin glass towers of the International Criminal Court in the Hague – not without complications and controversies, to be sure – people spoke a language that rang true.

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Daniel Philpott

Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies
Director, Center for Civil and Human Rights (On Leave)
1144 Flanner Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(574) 631-0573

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Professor Daniel Philpott

Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies