Invitation: Book Launch and Discussion

Manifestations of Woundedness - Violence and Xenophobia

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, War Trauma Foundation (Netherlands), The International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE) and the African Centre for Migration & Society cordially invite you to a book launch and public discussion coinciding with the hosting of an international conference titled ‘Healing communities, transforming society: Exploring the interconnectedness between psycho-social needs, practice and peacebuilding’.

This book - Healing and Change in the City of Gold: Case Studies of Coping and Support in Johannesburg-edited by Ingrid Palmary, Brandon Hamber and Lorena Nunez - offers radically new ways of thinking about precarious life in the city of Johannesburg particularly for migrants. Using case studies as varied as Pentecostal and Zionist churches, brothels, shelters, political movements for change in Zimbabwe, ex-soldiers groups, counselling services and art projects, this volume grapples with the way its predominantly migrant residents navigate the opportunities, challenges, moral orders and relationships in this iconic and complex city.

Given the recent xenophobic violence in South Africa, the volume has a deep resonance, as it traces through in-depth case studies how migrant residents seek support, to cope and to heal, going beyond what mental health professionals traditionally consider support mechanisms or interventions for those in distress. The book will be launched as part of a public panel discussion focused on the current context for migrants in South Africa and abroad.

SPEAKERS

Professor Brandon Hamber
Director, International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE), Ulster University, Northern Ireland

Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
University of the Free State, South Africa

Dr Ingrid Palmary
Director and Associate Professor African Centre for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand

DATE: 7 May 2015
TIME: 6 for 6:30pm
VENUE: Sunnyside Park Hotel, Parktown, Johannesburg

TO RSVP please send an email to justiceandreconciliation@gmail.com

Reconciliation

Duncan Morrow in the US Institute of Peace Insight Newsletter (Fall 2014) noted “Reconciliation,” according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, means “to make friendly again after an estrangement” and “to make acquiescent or contentedly submissive to something previously disagreeable”….. Classical peacemaking focuses on the first definition, with its emphasis on mutual friendship and the making of new relationships on all sides. Politics … has often seen reconciliation in the second sense, as something the loser in a conflict must do to come to terms with reality.”

There is a view, as outlined by Morrow above, that reconciliation aims at rebuilding fractured relationships after a conflict. This objective is pursued through dialogue, sharing stories, mediation, or other peacebuilding activities that convene individuals, groups, or communities. The purpose of such activity is to foster those deep and lasting connections across the society considered essential to sustainable peace.

It is challenging to think of political entities engaging in such work, as the Morrow quotation indirectly implies. In politics, claims Morrow, reconciliation has a harder edge and reconciliation is more about the loser becoming “contentedly submissive” with the victor after a conflict ends.

Relationships at all levels matter following political conflict, as they determine whether and how the progress to peace and stability will be made. In a divided society, building a new road is never simply a technical task—it invariably requires negotiation and discussion about the benefits for each actor. Inevitably, harms due to past violence, even in the most mundane of policy decisions, will surface during that process.

Reconciliation is not about a simple decision to cooperate, or designing processes so former adversaries can work together with the long-term aspiration that deeper connections will follow. This could result in a forgive-and-forget mentality or, if Morrow is right, an approach akin to getting on with “negative peace” in a resigned manner. This approach is not conducive to long-term stability or what I understand reconciliation to be.

In the short-term, coexistence and cooperation might be all that is possible. However, if lasting peace is to be guaranteed, we cannot avoid addressing relationships in a deliberate and strategic way. Justice, apology, reparations, acknowledgement, and healing are part of this process— issues that are not separate from reconciliation but central to it.

Published by Brandon Hamber in US Institute of Peace Insight Newsletter (Fall 2014), click the link to also see  alerie Rosoux's Response to my comments and other articles on reconciliation in the edition.

Victims, Perpetrators and Healers at the TRC

by Trevor Lubbe (Cape Town)

The focal point of this paper will be to describe a piece of work I undertook for the Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa during April 1996. This involved facilitating a group of TRC staff during the very first week of the public hearings. I would like to use this group experience to highlight some of the difficulties that arise in a specialised truth-seeking process of this kind, and in order to understand some of these difficulties I have drawn upon some ideas from psychoanalytic practice – which is also a truth-seeking enterprise of sorts, and which also brings in the past as part of its healing objective. Of course while analytic concepts can be used to illuminate other areas of inquiry it also the case that terms like truth-seeking, forgiveness, reconciliation are not commonplace in psychoanalytic discourse, though the term reparation has some currency when discussing the aims of psychoanalysis.

Read more,click here.