Definition
Reconciliation is a critical part of the peacebuilding process and is intertwined with achieving justice, reducing violence, and conflict transformation. Discussions are still ongoing whether reconciliation is a process, an outcome, an ideal and perhaps utopian goal, or a specific stage or moment in the process of overcoming violent conflict. However, there is a certain tendency to see reconciliation as an overarching concept for the long-term process to create better relationships after violence. Many scholars and practitioners also stress the importance of reconciliation efforts for the cessation of violence in the middle of conflict. Reconciliation researcher Martin Leiner defines reconciliation studies as the "scholarly description, interpretation and evaluation of processes to develop 'normal' and if possible 'good' relationships between states, groups, organizations, and individuals reacting against past, present or preventing future grave incidents such as Wars, Civil Wars, Genocides, Atrocities, Forced Displacement, Enslavement, Dictatorship, Oppression, Colonialism, Apartheid, and other Human Rights Violations and injustices, and creating a scientific discourse of developing a common future to enable the transformation of conflicts towards the path of peace." Stressing the main goal of reconciliation as improved intergroup relations and the building or rebuilding of trust, Professor Karina V. Korostelina defines reconciliation as "a process of management of social identities and reckoning with the past. Reconciliation processes depend on interrelations among conflict, power, social identity, and collective memory/ narratives about history." According to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy, political reconciliation includes the following practices: "Apologies, Memorials, Truth Telling, Amnesties, Trials and Punishment, Lustration, Reparations, Forgiveness and Participation in Deliberative Processes" Reconciliation is also viewed as a process of building long-term peace between former enemies through bilateral initiatives and institutions across governments and societies. Other scholars would add at least trauma therapies, encounter programs, and the construction of a common human security structure in order to achieve no repetition. Within this field, reconciliation studies are characterized by four guiding assumptions: * Relationship. Reconciliation studies are focusing on the question of how trustful and cooperative relationships can be (re)built in the face of grave incidents of violence. This implies a closeness of reconciliation studies to philosophical and scientific anthropologies of humans as relational animals (Hegel 1807, Buber 1923, Rosa 2012, Fuchs 2007, du Toit 2017). This focus on relationships has also practical consequences. For many reconciliation scholars, their field also includes the study of the distortions of relationships before grave incidents are happening. The social construction of enemies, pathologies of communication connected with imaginaries of the other (Kearney 2003), frames for war, missed reconciliation in the initial moments of conflict, certain long-term structural realities of discrimination such as Apartheid, racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, antiziganism, ableism, xenophobia, classism, patriarchate, colonialism, slavery, and different cultural habits of dehumanization and exploitation often indicate needs and possibilities for reconciliation in order to create better relationships before violent incidents occur. * Intergroup and Identity Dynamics. Reconciliation not only creates a foundation for peaceful coexistence but also promotes cooperation between conflicting parties based on the management of social identities and addressing a contentious past. It requires reduction of intergroup threat, relative deprivation, and addressing trauma. It also involves the dissolution of rigid social boundaries and the formation of common and cross-cutting identities; these identities then act as a foundation for stable and peaceful coexistence building on the respect and trust between former enemies. Thus, reconciliation processes are deeply rooted in interconnections between conflict, power, social identity, and collective memory. * Inclusiveness. Reconciliation studies often assume that all parties involved in a distortion of a relationship must be integrated into the process of reconciliation and that multiple kinds of processes of reconciliation (such as reconciliation with oneself, with the own group and with others) are intertwined and are happening simultaneously. Reconciliation studies try to overcome limited concepts of reconciliation such as working only on individual I-Thou-relationships between persons or only working in so called "post-conflict settings". * Transdisciplinary. The factors why reconciliation succeeds or fails are so multiple and complex that transdisciplinary research including a wide range of disciplines is required. * Scientific ambition. An important group of reconciliation scholars, the group that founded the International Association for Reconciliation Studies (IARS), aims at the goal of lifting reconciliation studies from the self-reflection of practitioners to a high-level scientific field.Historical background
History of reconciliation
Practices of reconciliation are indispensable for the survival of human communities, because without restoration of relationships after grave incidents - which always happen - community is put into question. These practices can be traced back to animal behavior and have been documented in every so far described human society. They are most salient in intimate relationships, inter- and intragroup relationships, religion and ethics, but also touch other fields of life.History of the notion of reconciliation
The history of the notion of reconciliation and its translations into other languages is still to be written. It can be found in ancient Greek comedy (Aristophanes, Lysistrata, performed 411 BC) with reference to peacemaking in the war between Athens and Sparta, in Apostle Paul's writings (2. Cor 5, 11-21), in legal and economic contexts such as accounting, as a key idea in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel (cf. Rosza 2005) In the 20th century, reconciliation became an often used - and misused - political term. Between others it was misused to legitimize the collaboration with the Nazi occupation in France and to legitimize amnesties for former dictators, but it was also used in a better way as guiding notion for several peace-making initiatives (cf. the NGOs:History
From the 1990s on, academic interest in reconciliation started to get traction. From the point of view of many different disciplines and from the experience of practitioners, important studies of reconciliation processes have been presented. The first push for reconciliation as a research topic came from practical work in the field. Based on his experience of the war in former Yugoslavia, theologian and later professor at Yale, Miroslav Volf published in 1996 ''Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation''. A year later, the German-Canadian scholar Gregory Baum together with Harold Wells edited the first edition of his book ''The Reconciliation of People: Challenge to the Churches'' (1997) promoting the study of reconciliation in both Catholic theology and the WCC. Scholar-practitionerHistory
The history of reconciliation studies as an academic project on its own must be distinguished from research and M.A. programs on reconciliation. Reconciliation studies started with the programmatic text by Susan Flämig/Martin Leiner "Reconciliation in the Middle of Dispute". Both have developed the following principles: 1. Reconciliation has to be studied globally- comparative and 2. in a transdisciplinary way, 3. The symbolic meaning of actions, the multi-perspectivity actors in conflicts and different scientific disciplines are taking and the role of the Media require a special hermeneutics of conflict. 4. They suggested to work on a new theory of conflict under the Hölderlin-perspective stating the reconciliation is in the middle of the conflict. When in 2013 the Jena Center for Reconciliation StudiesControversies in the field
Actual controversies in reconciliation studies concern between others the definition of reconciliation (see above), the measurement of reconciliation, the relationship to neighboring approaches such as Transitional Justice-Research and Conflict Resolution, and the evaluation of the classic cases of reconciliation. For quantitative measurement of reconciliation, scholars have proposed indirect measurement through behavior (such as frequency of cooperation with the other, symbolic gestures of reconciliation and their acceptance in the population, or comments, reactions and interactions on Social Media), and direct measurements through self-assessment on the quality of relationships and on attitudes towards the other. Concerning the relationship between transitional justice research and reconciliation studies is determined by the view scholars have on transitional justice and reconciliation. We can distinguish (A.) models of competition underlining that there should be an either-or or a priority in time and importance between justice-oriented activities and reconciliation and (B.) models which see transitional justice as a necessary and to a certain extent independent part of overarching reconciliation policies. Since the works on intractable conflicts (see Bar-Tal and Mitchell above) the relation between conflict resolution and reconciliation is often seen in a way which understands reconciliation as the overarching process and conflict resolution as part of that process. However, the place of conflict resolution within that concept needs further development.Classical cases
Germany since WWII and Holocaust
After losing WWII and being responsible forNorthern Ireland
The transformation of the Northern Ireland conflict from a violent conflict during the times of the "Rwanda
Reconciliation in post-1994 Rwanda is a process that began after the tragic genocide in which some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were killed. After the massacres ended, the country faced a huge challenge of social and political reconstruction. One of the key elements of this process was the Gacaca tribunals, which aimed to try the perpetrators of the genocide at the local level. These tribunals, inspired by traditional Rwandan methods of conflict resolution, aimed not only to dispense justice, but also to promote reconciliation by allowing victims and perpetrators to meet face-to-face and bring about forgiveness and initiate a process of reconciliation. An estimated 2 million people were brought before the Gacaca tribunals between 2001 and 2012. In addition, the Catholic Church has played an important role in the reconciliation process, promoting forgiveness and non-retaliation as key elements of social reconstruction. Many reconciliation initiatives have focused on education, psychological support, pastoral care for prisoners and community development programs to rebuild trust between different ethnic groups. Despite these efforts, the reconciliation process in Rwanda remains difficult and complicated. According to an independent survey conducted between 2018 and 2021, 68% of Rwandans believe that “reconciliation is a process that is still ongoing,” while 22% of Rwandans believe that “reconciliation has not yet happened.” Only 11% of Rwandans say “reconciliation has already happened.” Many are still struggling with trauma, and some aspects of reconciliation are criticized as superficial or insufficient.Source will be published soon Excessive control of the Rwandan state over the reconciliation process is pointed to as the main weakness of the reconciliation process in Rwanda. It is treated as one of the main elements of official state policy. A vision is promoted about reconciliation as a perfectly realized process which is expressed in the departure from the use of the name Hutu and Tutsi for Rwandans. Any attempts by foreign scholars in Rwanda to study reconciliation are distrusted and obstructed.East Asia
The main issues of reconciliation in East Asia have been about Japan’s war with China and the United States and Japanese colonial rule over Chōson and Taiwan. As for the war with China, Japan’s reconciliation involved both the Kuomintang party and the Chinese Communist Party. Japan’s reconciliation with the Republic of China (Taiwan under the Kuomintang party) and the People’s Republic of China (China under the Chinese Communist Party) was complicated. Due to the dispute over which was the legitimate representative of China in the intensification of the Cold War, neither was invited to the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951 in which Japan made diplomatic reconciliation with former adversaries. Japan and Taiwan concluded the peace treaty in 1952. Taiwan waived Japan’s services in production, salvaging and other work for repairing the wartime damage. Later in 1972, Japan switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. Then Japan made diplomatic reconciliation with China in the Joint Communique in 1972. Japan expressed deep remorse and China renounced any claim for war reparations. Still, some Chinese forced laborers had been captured as prisoners of war by Japan and forcibly taken away to Japan. They were forced to work for hydropower plant construction and coal mining in wartime Japan. In the 1980s, they began seeking individual compensation from their former Japanese employers. They eventually made reconciliation with them; Japanese construction corporations, such as Kajima Corporation and Nishimatsu Construction, set up special funds to pay moral compensation to them in the 2000s. Reconciliation between Japan and the United States has evolved from diplomatic reconciliation in the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951. Since then, the two states have maintained long-lasting alliance relations and deepened mutual confidence. The Japanese government started a program in 2009 to invite former American prisoners of war to Japan to promote mutual understanding. In May 2016, then U.S. President Barak Obama visited Hiroshima, urged for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons, met with atomic bomb survivors. In December of the same year, then Japanese Prime Minister Abe visited Pearl Harbor and offered “sincere and everlasting condolences” to the victims of Japan’s attack in December 1941. As for colonialism, Japan expressed deep remorse and apologies for colonial rule in the statement of Prime Minister Murayama in 1995. Still, Japan has had difficulties in reconciliation particularly with South Korea in the issue of comfort women. Comfort women were young women and girls who were taken to former Japanese military installations, such as comfort stations, for a certain period during wartime in the past and forced to provide sexual services to officers and soldiers. There were many Korean comfort women. The Japanese government expressed deep remorse and sincere apologies to the former comfort women in the Kōno Statement in 1993 and made moral compensation through the Asian Women’s Fund starting in 1995. Yet many survivors and their supporter activists criticized and rejected the moral compensation since they recognized that only legal responsibility could vindicate their dignity. Still, the Japanese government has not acknowledged its legal responsibility due to the absence of official documents found about forced recruitment of comfort women. This point has remained a thorn in the reconciliation efforts between the two states. After renewed efforts for reconciliation, the two governments agreed in 2015 to resolve the issue of comfort women “finally and irreversibly.” Still, this failed to completely resolve the issue. The Healing and Reconciliation Foundation established in 2016 based on the agreement, funded by the Japanese government and operated by the Korean government, was dissolved by the South Korean government in 2019. While two-thirds of the survivors accepted money from the foundation, Korean supporters for the survivors recognized the absence of explicit acknowledgement of legal responsibility of Japan as problem. Japan and South Korea also had the issue of compensation for former conscripted workers from the Korean peninsula. The two governments disputed whether their claims settlement agreement in 1965 had already resolved any issues stemming from the colonial era from 1910 to 1945. The Japanese government has continued to insist that the 1965 agreement covers the issue of former conscripted workers from the Korean peninsula. In March 2023, South Korean president Yun made political decision to conduct a third-party compensation scheme: a Korean government-backed fund, donated by South Korean companies, will shoulder the compensation payments to South Korean plaintiffs who won the compensation lawsuits against Japanese companies which employed them during the wartime. Though the South Korean government expects that Japanese companies also participate in the donation, Japanese companies have not yet joined. As of December 2024, all the surviving plaintiffs so far have received compensation from the fund.Organizations
References
Sources
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