Sunday news: not a lot happened edition

It's Sunday morning!  A glorious time when all red-blooded Amer'kins sit around and read their local rag(s), immediately before or just after returning from their massively hypocritical suburban megachurch.  Looks like I do it too, just without the church bit (listen, I make it to a Friends meeting about once a year...).  

Anyway, aside from the latest greatest earthquake (hope everyone you know is ok!), it doesn't look like there's a lot going on this week.  Here's a recap:

• Absolute tenure corrupts absolutely, but maybe it makes for decent art?  (Seriously, how is that article so long?)
• There's trouble on Mt. Olympus, as the gods may well be idiots.
• Nurses:  Is your home entirely surrounded by two feet of snow and you can't for the life of you figure out how to get to work?  Well, fine, be inconsiderate like that, and WHC (across the street from your humble blogger) will fire your ass. 
• I still contend that belated justice is better than none at all. 
• A curious (to put it mildly) development in historic preservation.
• Time to make another trip to the National Gallery.
• The U.S. Senate is still dysfunctional.
• Race is still a major factor in southern politics.  Really?

Chile's transition and historical memory

I've been rather fascinated by some of the speculation of whether or not Chile has finally moved on from the Pinochet era. I only have a cursory understanding of that time and place, based mostly on my grad school studies of reconciliation processes.

On the one hand, some are arguing that Chileans must never forget the atrocities of the Pinochet regime, as brought most boldly to light by last week's opening of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights. On the other hand, others say that the election of the first right-wing government since Pinochet's ouster marks a closing of the books on that era, and gives both the left and the right wings new opportunities. The truth may be somewhere in the middle, and perhaps they're both correct. The recent election could symbolize a normalization of back and forth political discourse, now that the principle actors in both the atrocities and the recovery are largely out of the day to day political scene.

Anyway, fascinating to watch. I'm wondering what a vaunted scholar like Martha Minow thinks about all this.

Transitional justice in Zimbabwe?

So apparently some folks at the Institute for Security Studies have proposed that Zimbabwe go through a transitional justice process. I've yet to read the full report in detail, but it seems to me that this isn't the best idea in the current situation. Yes, I grant that the crimes committed under both the Rhodesian and Mugabe regimes need to be investigated and those responsible held accountable. Yet at the same time, Mugabe is still in power, so clearly 20 years are off the investigatory table. Plus, a big long unburying of Rhodesia era atrocities would be just what Mugabe needs to convince people he's still relevant.

This reminds me of Uganda's attempt at running a reconciliation commission back in the 1980s. The process got stalled when it had the audacity to question anything done by people acting under current president Museveni, either as a revolutionary leader or head of state. Eventually, the thing was shut down years after its reporting deadline, and not much resulted from the process. With lessons like this, it's probably best for Zimbabwe to wait until it isn't under the fist of one repressive regime seeking justice for another.

Stop misusing this word

As we say in my mother land, I'm "plum sick and tired" of the consistent misuse of the word "reconciliation" that has bounced about the international affairs world in the past six months or so. This most often occurs in the context of discussions of Iraq or Somalia, and in both cases the use is nearly always wrong. For examples, see here (near the end of the article) and here.

What all these politicians actually mean when they use the word reconciliation in either Somalia or Iraq is "cease-fire." That's right, cease-fire. This talk of reconciliation is a ruse. They use reconciliation because terms like cease-fire, armistice, etc., imply that Mr. Shit has met Mr. Fan, and the results aren't so hot.

Who's most responsible for this curious turn of phrase? Why, members of the Bush Administration, of course. We all know how well Iraq has turned out. Somalia, it seems, hasn't gone any better, even when we let Ethiopia fight it as our proxy.

Friends, the end of shooting/bombing/slaughter does not reconciliation make. Nor can reconciliation be agreed to via legislation, as is touted in Iraq, or in negotiations, as have been repeatedly delayed in Somalia. Reconciliation is a society-wide process that involves the pursuit of justice, the identification of truth, the factually informed assignment of historical responsibility, and finally (and most difficult to achieve), the transformation of conflict-generating and conflict-sustaining relationships into mechanisms for peaceable coexistence (see Nadim Rouhana, 2004). All this, quite obviously, cannot be accomplished by 5 or 50 guys sitting around in a room.

As much Somalia would benefit from a cessation of hostilities between the Hawiye and the Darood dominated Government forces, this wouldn't be reconciliation. It would be an end of fighting. Reconciliation could only even begin to come after this crucial step. The same holds true for the various patterns of inter- and intra-group violence seen in Iraq. The various political types that keep preaching this misnamed objective (the UN has gotten on board too, and the media hasn't questioned it), need to state their real short-term desires. They want a cease-fire. Of course, reconciliation can and should remain a goal for both Somalia and Iraq, but first things first.