Global Indigenous Issues Series, no. 1. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 2017. xvi, 360 pp. (B&W photos.) US$34.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-55238-954-6.
To what extent can truth and reconciliation, as identity, culture, or formal institution, be adopted or embedded within a society, particularly a post-conflict society? This old question lingers on in this book edited by David Webster. Countries like South Africa, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, and Canada have encountered a pre- and post-truth and reconciliation process upon which all elements of society are intended to lay their foundation after prolonged ethnic and nationalist conflicts.
The five sections of the book, which consists of twenty chapters, provide a number of stories and explanations based on ethnographic studies. The departure point for the truth and reconciliation process is the state’s recognition of the historical context in which deadly conflicts linger in the personal life experiences of both victims and perpetrators. Even a truth and reconciliation process which results in the formation of commissions with the primary objective of creating transitional justice in a post-conflict country must work within a balance: between victims’ narratives and an established structure, aimed at protecting the interests of the government and perpetrators. Accordingly, there is great variety in the truth and reconciliation processes in the following countries in terms of how the state and society struggle to find common ground in addressing past violence without jeopardizing regime interests, while also paving the way for official recognition of victim narratives and stories.
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is the principal model and has been emulated by other countries: in Southeast Asia, the Melanesian region of the Southwest Pacific, and Canada. In South Africa, truth and reconciliation is seen as an historical record of the apartheid system as well as, to some extent, an ongoing process still holding some scars of past conflicts in the form of a continuing racial divide between reconciled and unreconciled South Africans, as noted by Sarah Zwierzchowski (30).
In Timor-Leste, a former occupied province of Indonesia (1975–1999), the violence is not new. The recurrence of conflict in Timor-Leste is attributed to multiple factors. Geoffrey Robinson notes a failure of leadership on the part of the former guerilla fighters, the top leaders of the country, who want to punish all perpetrators of serious crime, including those from Indonesia, and prefer stability over true justice for all Timorese. There is also a lack of international support to bring justice to all victims (57). In addition, as argued by Pat Walsh, the government lacks strong political will for follow-up actions based on the truth and reconciliation report, Chega, in order to bring legal punishment to the centre of public debate (72). The academic curriculum for children is a “middle way” to remember all the past violence. Moreover, the national leaders use an old method of a clandestine or a chosen identity, as highlighted by Jacquilene Siapno, to survive in an environment clouded by brutality and disorganization (however hidden) to keep their jobs and lucrative salaries, rather than bring about social change in the post-conflict society (87). The church in Timor-Leste, once a critical actor during the peace building following the conflict in the early 2000s, has turned itself into a moral guardian (114), relatively disappointing other civil society organizations (CSOs) in the country.
Despite such unimpressive legacies of past conflict, Laurentia Barreto Soares highlights how economic development in Timor Leste has been reoriented. It is inclusive of Timor Leste’s various needs, with an emphasis on reconciliation and human development in post-conflict society, rather than only following a donor assistance framework (103–105). Although Fernanda Borges sees little goodwill and respect for protecting human rights in Chega, she also appreciates the report as a progressive effort to keep the spirit of human rights in the living memory of the Timorese (119).
In the second section of the book, all the authors agree about why a truth and reconciliation process is not part of the Indonesian nation’s culture. As Baskara Wardaya describes, clashing historical narratives about the 1965 state-backed mass killing continue, between the hegemonic perspectives held by a majority of the country’s elites and the alternative narratives shared by CSOs and other elements in the society (139). The hegemonic narratives of the bloody 1965 massacre event, as argued by Bern Schaefer, hamper any effort of civil society to have access to the archival record from the period as a first step (151) to form a TRC on the 1965 event.
Despite the absence of a national TRC, at the regional level the wall of denial culture has started to break, such as in Aceh with the Acehnese Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR). Nonetheless, as Lia Kent and Rizki Affiat elucidate in section 4 of the book, the work of KKR still confronts constraining political factors stemming from both local and national elites, including the Indonesian military (174).
The most striking denial of truth and reconciliation is the case of West Papua. Todd Biderman and Jenny Munro argue that Indonesia’s non-truth, denial, and impunity are central to the suffering and grievances of West Papuans ever since the area was forcefully integrated into Indonesia in 1969 (206). West Papuans channel their bitter experience of gross human rights violations through their local music and songs as a strategy to counter the dominant narrative of state denial and a larger Indonesian identity, as explained by Julian Smythe (239). The international silence on systematic human rights violations in West Papua, argues Edmund McWilliams, also contributes to the culture of state denial in the easternmost area of Indonesia (261).
Section 5 comprises the cases of the Solomon Islands and Canada. Terry Brown, a peacemaker, explains how the deep-seated sentiments between the Solomon Islands’ two biggest ethnic groups, Malaita and Guadalcanal, a residual of the bloody conflict in the Solomon Islands (1998-2003) was finally reconciled through the Truth and Reconciliation Act in 2008. However, the TRC’s final report and recommendations have been ignored by the government and its relevant ministries due to political embarrassment, government liability, and limited funding (288). The case of Canada’s truth and reconciliation process, as elucidated by Betty Gigisi, presents a picture of how the church, which undertook cultural genocide to the aboriginal communities along with the government, is still a part of the established regime, thus hampering the ability of any strong initiatives or recommendations from the TRC to change the political situation in Canada (301).
David Webster’s concluding chapter reiterates the lack of political will among all governments and elite groups to respect and take strong action to respond to the recommendations produced by TRCs in their human rights reports.
This book is extremely useful to scholars, activists, and local communities as a way to understand the local and international dynamics of how truth and reconciliation is undertaken in post-conflict societies. In most cases, the reconciliation process between victims and perpetrators has been extensive, such as in South Africa, Timor-Leste, the Solomon Islands, and Canada; even when there has been no such process, such as in Indonesia, there has at least been a strong initiative by local communities and CSOs to gradually construct a counter-narrative of past conflict in opposition to the dominant narrative of the government. Nonetheless, the conflicting narratives and the recommendations produced by TRCs only amplify the asymmetrical relationship between on the one hand, the government and perpetrators and, on the other hand, the oppressed and victims of past violence. The TRCs in Indonesia and Canada have even assisted in building the foundation of widely acknowledged accounts produced by the government, despite other efforts to counter such “truth.”
Hipolitus Yolisandry Ringgi Wangge
Marthinus Academy, Jakarta, Indonesia