Truth Commission Discourse and the Aesthetics of Reconciliation

Abstract

Truth Commissions have come to be regarded as a turning point for post-conflict and post-authoritarian states in transition. In this article, I argue that truth commission testimony, broadly defined to include artistic, cultural, and media productions, must be experienced as forms of affective materiality over discursive inscription. Using as an instrumental case study the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2008–2015), I conceptualize testimony as a necessary re-fictionalization of the past, present, and future of a nation. The truth commission discourse, especially in Canada, works to protect the perpetrators by (1) disallowing their identities from entering into the public record, and (2) creating bystanders out of those perpetrators that allows for an innocent and ineffective witnessing. The push for forgiveness harnesses an imperative for truth commissions to idealize and idolize the emotional moment of testimony. It is imperative to resist the spectacle of confession and testimony. But the witness must not be discarded. The witness must be found in those cultural institutions beyond truth commission events to include the aesthetics of reconciliation.

Los actores religiosos en las comisiones de la verdad de Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Perú y Colombia

“…Aunque América Latina y África son las regiones con más experiencias de comisiones de la verdad (Hayner, 2011;Vallee, 2019) y en donde sus implementaciones han sido por diversas causas, los casos elegidos para este análisis tienen en común que son experiencias representativas en el marco de la justicia transicional y dan cuenta de la forma en que, en la práctica, ha avanzado este instrumento aplicable en situaciones de transición en diversas épocas y en razón de variadas situaciones políticas en cada país.…”

Truth Commission Impact on Policy, Courts, and Society

“…Human rights activism has played key roles in pushing for the creation of an officially mandated truth commission; pressuring the mandating body to incorporate their demands into the remit, mandate, and personnel selection; publicly supporting (and at times, criticizing) the work of the commission; seeking political-institutional change in light of the commission's recommendations (Balasco 2016); and establishing alternative initiatives if they are denied an official commission. In addition, it has scrutinized the exclusions, silences, and failures of commissions (Vallee 2019) during and after their work. Domestic human rights activism remains critical to the creation and ongoing operation of a truth commission (Kim 2012).…”

El papel de las comisiones de la verdad en los procesos de transición: aproximación a un estado de la cuestión

“…En Canadá se estableció la Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples (1991) para esclarecer el caso del Indian Residential School System, que separó a niños de sus familias indígenas para someterlos a un proceso de aculturación. Además de la comisión de la verdad, desde el activismo cultural se crearon escenarios alternativos basados en la expresión artística, para reivindicar el afecto y la estética en los testimonios por fuera del discurso oficial de los derechos humanos, como una forma de crear otros lugares de enunciación que generaran nuevas subjetividades políticas y nuevas relaciones (Vallee, 2015).…”