Universals (continued)

This post is based on a fantastic op-ed. One quote in particular that stood out for me was where Plenel explains, "A just war does not legitimate the perpetration of serious violations of human rights in the pursuit of just objectives," the Commission wrote, thus pursuing to the very end the conviction that a just war proposes to achieve just ends by just means. And that a long-lasting and solid peace excludes the injustice of victors' justice." This has been a long standing dilemna has it not? How to bring about peace (through war) that will not feed a future war, a future hatred, a future dictator or dictatorial/genocidal policies? I especially appreciate the Commission's words "A just war does not legitimate the perpetration of serious violations of human rights in the pursuit of just objectives" The points in the op-ed raise human rights above military might and the philosophy that might makes right or that good intentions can do no real wrong. I.e., that torture, imprisonment without trial, AND the very idea of "just war" are neither necessary to secure peace nor are the automatic stepping stones in that process. These too must be severely scrutinized because the "ends" DO NOT necessarily JUSTIFY the means.
I've argued this before on this blog but I keep coming back to it because I think it is such an important point of refutation which leads to the question of responsibility. What responsibility do we have as individuals, as citizens, as human beings, as people living within the boundaries of the most militarily powerful nation in the world, with regard to our nation's actions here and abroad? The following op-ed comes from the French "Le Monde." Please read it and respond with your thoughts/concerns/criticisms. peace!


"Ubuntu", Humanist Declaration By Edwy Plenel Le Monde

Thursday 30 December 2004

It's a Bantu word we should make our own. It is so rich that linguists call a "crowditude" of other words to the rescue to express its nuances. "Ubuntu" is, in academic terms: "the quality inherent in the fact of being a person with other persons." When he uses it in his autobiography, Nelson Mandela translates it into English as "fellowship," literally camaraderie or, in the context "fellow citizenship." In fact, ubuntu means much more, well beyond that: a way of being human, a way of conducting oneself as a human being, a practice of mutual humanity. Also, far from being simplistic, Mandela's translation is at the heart of South African political invention, that unprecedented response anti-apartheid militants brought to the question every liberation poses: how to live together after hatred, after civil war, after crime against humanity? How to reconnect there where there was nothing but separation?
We know their response: by reconciling oneself to the truth. It will soon be ten years ago that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Mgr. Desmond Tutu, was established by the South African Constitutive Assembly in 1995. Its power: to bestow individual amnesty, case by case, in exchange for complete revelation of their crimes, to the authors of serious violations of human rights associated with a political objective. No vengeance, no reprisals, but no oblivion, no getting off, no concealment. "Facing up" says the 1993 South African Provisional Constitution, to "a heritage of hatred, of fear" on the basis of a "need for ubuntu and not victimization."

"To Liberate the Oppressed and the Oppressor"

During the years of public hearings, a total of 21,290 victims appealed to the Commission; 2,975 other victims were discovered in the course of the proceedings, 7,116 amnesty requests were registered; 1,312 bestowed; 2,548 applicants spoke in public hearings... Behind these numbers, a political revolution took place, the impact of which we have still barely measured. Under the pen of Mandela evoking his prison martyrdom (The Long Walk to Freedom:Back Bay Books, 1995) the program is luminous: "My hunger for freedom for my people became a hunger for freedom of all people, Blacks and Whites... When I left prison, this was my mission: to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor. The truth is that we're not free yet; we have simply acquired the freedom to be free..."
In other words, the slave frees the master. To take the measure of this unprecedented reversal, one should absolutely read two recent works that shed much light on it: the write-up of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's work (Amnistier l'apartheid[To Amnesty Apartheid], Seuil, "L'ordre philosophique", 25 ¤ ) and the acts of an international colloquium held in Paris in 2003 (Vérité, réconciliation, réparation[Truth, Reconciliation, Reparation], Seuil, "Le genre humain," 15 ¤). To be truly free, it was necessary to reestablish the social contract, that is to say, to break with the political culture of violence that the injustice of apartheid generated. The guilty and the victims were consequently invited to face one another in a confrontation where the respect that was to characterize future relations plays out. General amnesty, equivalent to amnesia, was excluded. Only individual acts that involved the concrete relations between human beings were subject to amnesty and then only on condition that they be fully acknowledged by their authors.

Face to Face Truth

Politic and political, this reconciliation does not necessarily imply pardon or repentance. Only facing up; looking in the face; telling the truth face to face. The proof that this process is far removed from the moral simplification between Good and Evil, was that the field of Truth and Reconciliation included attacks on human rights committed in the name of an obviously just cause, the struggle against apartheid, certain militants of which also had to demand amnesty or go to trial. "A just war does not legitimate the perpetration of serious violations of human rights in the pursuit of just objectives," the Commission wrote, thus pursuing to the very end the conviction that a just war proposes to achieve just ends by just means. And that a long-lasting and solid peace excludes the injustice of victors' justice.
In liberated but occupied Iraq, where Saddam Hussein's trial is heralded before a "special tribunal" with the death penalty on its program, the South African way has not, alas, gained widespread acceptance.
Another Arab country, Morocco, has just been inspired by the South African way to set up "Equity and Reconciliation," a public body where victims of Hassan II's reign give their testimony. It is certainly an imperfect imitation: no names, no proceedings, an absence of those guilty. Nonetheless, a totally unheard of event that answers the universal question posed by this bit of graffiti decorating Desmond Tutu's house on the Cape: How to turn human wrongs into human rights?

Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
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