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Catholic priest and academic concludes his analysis and remedy for healing decades of political division and civil strife in the West African country of Côte d'Ivoire
By Francis Barbey | Ivory Coast
In the first part of this contribution, I asked about the truth of the Ivorian crisis as it pertains to expectations for national reconciliation.
And I concluded by saying that in order to work towards this truth, a space for dialogue, whose relevance and credibility must be guaranteed, will definitely be needed, so that from plural truth we arrive at a "truth-result".
Restorative justice versus vindictive justice
"Love and truth meet, justice and peace embrace," the psalmist says with certainty.
Everything in this certainty contributes to the good of those who want to learn anew how to live with others.
Therefore, the process of reconciliation is truth. And given that, there can also be nothing other than justice.
But what kind of justice is it? And when would such justice be just?
While it is normal that any crime in a society calls for punishment, how can one accept to live again with criminals, rapists, thieves and extremist ideologues on the question of identity?
But only if we renounce vindictive justice which, in its natural logic, takes the executioner as a model, exalting the reign of violence in an endless cycle.
The only way to break the reign of violence and give coexistence a chance is to oppose it with other rationales. And this is where the need for restorative justice appears, which wagers on the future and on living together.
Such a justice can be defined as the justice of the law that punishes crime without encouraging injustice.
According to Paul Ricoeur, the sanction of restorative justice has several targets.
First, the law, for which principal is restored to the rule of law.
Second, the victim who is publicly recognized as being offended and humiliated.
Third, public opinion, for which "outrage is the basic feeling upon which educating the public about equity is likely to succeed".
Finally, the condemned, to whom the judge will pay particular attention in regards to it.
This is not a simple process, especially in the context of reconciliation. Because in the end, "as soon as the punishment is issued, the accused must know that he or she is at least recognized as being reasonable, responsible, that is to say the author of his or her actions".
Clearly, "as long as the punishment has not been recognized as reasonable by the condemned person, it has not reached the latter as a reasonable being" (Ricoeur, 1995), and the risk of recidivism becomes real, as well as the fragility of the reconciliation process itself.
As the theologian Christian Duquoc says, "Superior justice does not consist of destroying the wrongdoer, but in removing the person from their destructive power" (1978).
The path remains to be invented.
If justice in the ongoing reconciliation process is to be restorative and not vindictive, then let us look at in the next point about why reconciliation is ultimately an absolute social requirement.
Reconciliation as a social requirement
The term reconciliation implies a prior situation of division, hatred, trauma, injury and war.
Therefore, there was a time when, in our case, we were in violent opposition to each other. And it is time to think about healing the wounds of our oppositions in order to learn to live together again.
Such a choice supposes a space for dialogue, the truth about past facts, and a restorative justice that punishes the perpetrator and helps the victim learn to live again.
All this is by no means the only criteria for national reconciliation, for which we are dreaming and hoping.
We will also have to appeal to FORGIVENESS.
In this sense, two levels of action are possible.
Forgiveness from the victim (which must be encouraged and supported) to the perpetrator and the forgiveness that the political authority will need to offer the perpetrator in the name of all the citizens will determine how to turn the page on the past, with an absolute memory of the past, for a new coexistence and a future of shared peace.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, there can be no future without forgiveness.
At the first level of action, forgiveness offered to the perpetrator from the victim is, as Paul Ricoeur says, beyond-legalities and beyond-ethics.
It escapes the law.
It appeals to values of transcendence, because, humanly speaking, certain unspeakable acts are absolutely unforgivable and even call for vindictive justice as the only possibility of satisfaction for the victim.
Yet, in Côte d'Ivoire, we are in a context where pervasive religiosity is indisputable. The use and appropriation of religious terms in official speeches in a secular country such as ours are no longer to be expected.
This is our history. It is therefore a sign that religion has its place in the process of reconciliation in our country.
Forgiveness opens up the possibility of another relational life for the perpetrator, one that is no longer marked by the violence and disorder that weaken the social bond.
The second level of action is political.
This is a matter of coherent political will in relation to the expected result, i.e. national reconciliation, a guarantee of peace and prosperity for our country.
Such a step does not put into question the process that requires truth and justice.
It is a culmination, a melting pot in which all the requirements and initiatives in favor of reconciliation and the restoration of the social link between the sons and daughters of our country are coordinated with intelligence and pragmatism, the only condition to guarantee a lasting peace.
From this point of view, national reconciliation will require the political authorities to pay a price, to make a sacrifice: amnesty.
The future of the new Côte d'Ivoire depends on it. Otherwise, after 30 years of crisis for which the political actors and their activists are primarily responsible, very few Ivorians would escape the guillotine or the gulag!
All of this indicates that political leaders should be aware that the demands of a reconciled society oriented towards human progress do not sit well with political calculations, personal grudges or revenge against a "political enemy".
Sometimes, those whose names are remembered in history are unfortunately not the peacemakers.
They are, in a particular sense, the hardened gravediggers of the social bond.
That is, those who go down in history backwards, as the artist would put it!
May God help us!
Francis Barbey is a priest of the diocese of San Pedro in Côte d'Ivoire, an academic and a specialist in social communication sciences.
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