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Hum Rights Rev (2009) 10:309326
DOI 10.1007/s12142-009-0120-8
Published online: 12 February 2009# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract This article discusses the political possibilities of personal forgiveness in transitional justice. Personal forgiveness is extended by a single human victim who has been harmed by a wrongdoer. The victim forgives only that harm which has been done to him or to her. Personal forgiveness is distinguishable from three other forms of forgiveness: group forgiveness, legal forgiveness (a form of group forgiveness), and political forgiveness. In the context of transitional justice, I argue that: (1) personal forgiveness is a necessary condition for political forgiveness; (2) group forgiveness (including legal forgiveness), while not without a normative function, cannot effectuate either personal or political forgiveness, and (3) personal forgiveness requires a shared narrative framework to lead to political forgiveness. These assertions lead to two further observations. First, because the state has a normative role in its (limited) capacity to forgive on its own behalf and a practical role in its ability to spread and to transmit a shared narrative framework, the state is an important actor in political forgiveness. Second, because the primary historical example of political forgiveness in transitional justice is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that unfolded within an explicitly Christian theological framework, it may be that the shared narrative framework need be religious or even Christian in nature.
Keywords Transitional justice . Forgiveness . Amnesty. Justice . Christianity. Personal
J. D. Inazu (*)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected]
No Future Without (Personal) Forgiveness: Reexamining the Role of Forgivenessin Transitional Justice
John D. Inazu
310 J.D. Inazu
Stories of personal forgiveness are powerful. They are also startling and uncomfortable. You asked a court for mercy on behalf of the terrorist who killed your child?1 You started a foundation to help the young men who murdered your daughter?2 You share meals with the person who hacked to death your husband and children?3 Many of us are incredulous about such acts. Some of us are even roused to moral indignation on behalf of the silenced victim or perhaps rattled by the loss of an abstract justice that seems sacrificed by this kind of forgiveness. Yet, these acts happen and can...