Painting from the Same Palette

The Art of Conflict Transformation Event Series hosted a talk by Drs. Lundy and McGovern on “Public Truth Recovery: Memory, Justice and Conflict Transformation” as part of the  Panel on Conflict Transformation, Narration, and Public Space in the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland, on Thursday, April 30, 2009 Cape Cod Lounge, Student Union, UMASS Amherst 1:00pm-5:30pm.

Societies transitioning out of war and conflict face challenges recovering the truth about individual in/actions as well as about institutional policies and practices that led to massive loss of life and injury, systemic violence, and violations of human rights and the law.  Those creating and implementing structures for dealing with the past face societal needs which are both inter-related and quite disparate:  learning more fully what actually happened to a loved one, the development of a shared narrative of the past and future, reconciliation between groups, institutional and individual accountability, restitution, reparations, retribution, justice, and healing, for example.  Internationally and nationally run truth commissions, locally run storytelling and reconciliation groups, and living memorial museums are among the many avenues that communities and societies have chosen to deal with the past; each with their strengths and limitations.

Public discussion about truth recovery in the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland has been underway for over a decade and recently, has taken center stage as the British Government appointed Consultative Group for Dealing with the Past issued its report in January 2009.

Dr. Patricia Lundy (U. of Ulster) and Dr. Mark McGovern (Edge Hill U .), international experts in transitional justice, write that truth recovery and transitional justice need to be driven from the bottom up; controlled by the local people who experienced the trauma in society.  “Popular participation and local agency, it is argued, is necessary to achieve ends identified in much transitional justice discourse, and to embed mechanisms for the creation of sustainable peace…a bottom-up ‘truth-telling process can make a significant contribution to transitional justice and [cast] doubt on the validity of the deference to legal dominance in current policy and practice” (in Whose Justice?  Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up, Journal of Law and Society, June 2008, 35(2), 265).