6.   Interpersonal Reconciliation

Societal reconciliation is, in its most basic sense, about reconciling individuals, thus any theory of reconciliation must at some point face the difficult task of how to connect social and institutional processes of reconstruction with the personal dynamics between individuals. At this level, issues of repentance, acknowledgment, forgiveness, pardon, and vengeance occupy the moral space between victims, bystanders, and perpetrators. We are tasked with identifying which responses are morally legitimate, which are not, and (in a more theoretical-reflexive sense) what the limits of such an inquiry are. There is a danger here: A model of reconciliation should not reduce itself to the proposition that achieving broad-based social reconciliation requires every individual to reconcile him-or herself with the past and fellow citizens. It is not only empirically impossible but it is illiberal to ask for a degree of mutual acceptance that is achievable only through ideological coercion, and if so, it would most likely be a superficial reconciliation. Such an approach also represents a kind of reductive functionalism that places all possibility of reconciliation on individual behavior while downplaying its institutional, political, and social aspects. It is not the case that all individual perpetrators must be stigmatized and held accountable and all victims recognized individually for reconciliation to take root.

Consequently, any discussion of reconciliation at this level is complex, for it requires a noncoercive understanding of social life that distances itself from both vengeance and an imposed forgiveness. It requires a great deal of sensitivity to the issues of individual transformation of all the actors involved—many of these affected by the specifics of personal experience with violence—without dismissing the importance of other social levels. In this chapter, I trace several types of interpersonal relations that can occur at this level, drawing on my interviews with survivors in Chile and Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as the extensive literature on this topic, and ultimately I defend one type of interpersonal relation based on reciprocal respect.¹ Because this is a normative discussion I do not cover in any systematic detail the broad social psychological literature on what victims feel and desire, since what they seek may not necessarily be morally defensible, even though it is understandable. In a recent study, for example, researchers found that even if perpetrators pay reparations and accept guilt for their actions, many victims continue to feel insulted unless violators publicly express self-abasing shame. Here, guilt is associated with acceptance of the wrongness of an action and may lead to an apology or reparation while shame involves the perception that “one's core self is bad” and is thus a significantly stronger expression of self-abasement (Giner-Sorolla et al. 2008;Smith et al. 2002). While resentment, anger, and similar emotions are not morally empty—a point I address below—these findings suggest that what survivors want may sometimes be morally problematic, and thus any account of morally acceptable interpersonal reconciliation must rest on a set of justifications wider than particular victim desires, though these should of course be taken seriously.

Three Views

We can discuss three general views, or paths, that relations between perpetrators and victims may take. They range from the notion of forgiveness to vengeance, with the latter understood as the morally justified action that identifies punishment as a necessary and prime integrative mechanism for achieving peace among former enemies. I endorse an alternate satisfactory notion, one that is characterized by mutual respect, yet understood in a particular manner. As I hope to show, this middle conception is not merely a mitigated synthesis of forgiveness and vengeance but rather a distinct alternative. I then outline the relation of this level to the others by indicating how it is an important element for broader reconciliation.

Vengeance and Resentment

Revenge is often understood as little more than a perverse, irrational emotional reaction to harm (C. Lewis 1957). Jonathan Glover (1970, 145) has remarked that many see it as an immoral union of “hatred and pleasure,” and Robert Nozick (1981, 366) acknowledges its status as the “primitive view” of justice. Following mass violence, however, survivors may consider revenge appropriate for a variety of reasons, including the basic sense that perpetrators “deserve” to be punished for their crimes. Indeed, when we demand revenge, we are demanding that a violator be punished for some harm done. Jeffrie Murphy captures the intuitive sense of moral appropriateness encapsulated in vengeance: “I believe that most typical, decent, mentally healthy people have a kind of commonsense approval of some righteous hatred and revenge” and that “common morality” sees revenge as morally appropriate (1995, 136).² For Murphy, revenge is at its core tied to punishment: It gives perpetrators their just deserts for the unjustified and willful harms they inflicted on others.

The driving forces of revenge are the emotions of anger and resentment. Part of the difficulty here is that these emotions have become morally suspect and are often perceived as irrational or otherwise damaging to those who hold them (and in any case incompatible with reconciliation, “moving forward,” “letting the past go,” and so on). This has it roots, I think, in Nietzsche (1989) and Scheler's (1973) highly influential accounts of ressentiment as a form of self-obsession and pity animated by spite and malicious envy toward those of higher social status, which often reflects an irrational obsession with the past. This reading of resentment has effectively collapsed any sense of morally defensible outrage into indefensible feelings of hostility, reflecting moral stuntedness. This is unfortunate, as resentment can tell us much more about a person—and about morality—than Nietzsche (1989) suggests. A much more sensitive and insightful understanding has been put forth by Thomas Brudholm (2008, 11), who centers resentment not on how one feels but in the ways in which these feelings are articulated in terms of “injustice, injury or violation.”³ To the extent that resentment reflects a concern for one's moral value, holding on to it and refusing to forgive one's abuser is not categorically irrational or morally blameworthy; it may be morally defensible. While in Chile, I met Cristina H., a torture survivor who for many years sought to defend her right not to forgive to her family and friends. She went through terrible experiences and was insulted by the notion that the burden was on her to forgive her violators. “How can I forgive those people who harmed me? What they did to me was inexplicable, indefensible! To forgive them would be to say that it is OK, that I can move beyond the injuries. It would be to say that I don't take myself seriously and they can do whatever they want. I am a person, with rights, and they should be punished for harming me!” A resentful person need not be crazed with vengeance or obsessed with the past. While Cristina still undergoes therapy, she has also become a successful businesswoman with a family and finds numerous ways to channel her impressive energy and intellect. But she refuses to equate “moving on” with forgiveness and is adamant that her resentment is a reflection of her self-respect. Indeed, to be a person, morally speaking, means seeing oneself at least partly as an end in oneself, and resenting moral injuries and their perpetrators is a sign that one takes this moral status seriously. To relinquish the desire for punishment for a serious wrong is to deny one's own value as an agent with moral status; such relinquishment indicates that one neither considers oneself worthy of moral respect nor a bearer of rights. In a somewhat similar, though non-deontological vein, Aristotle also tied the feelings of resentment and vengeance to a proper sense of self, arguing that

the man who is angry on the right occasions and with those he should and also in the right manner and at the right time and for the right length of time is praised…. The deficiency, whether an inirascibility of a sort or whatever it might be, is blamed. For those who do not get angry on the occasions they should and in the manner they should, and when they should, and with those they should, are thought to be fools; for they are thought to be insensitive and without pain, and since they do not get angry, they are thought not to be disposed to defend themselves. But it is slavish for a man to submit to be besmirched or to allow it against those who are close to him. (1984, 1125b-1126a)

For Cristina, Brudholm, and Aristotle resentment and the desire for vengeance it animates are neither inappropriate nor irrational; rather they are understandable and legitimate moral expressions. Robert Solomon goes so far as to locate it at the center of justice. “Vengeance is the emotion of ‘getting even,’ putting the world back in balance.” Justice “begins not with Socratic insights but with the promptings of some basic emotions, among them envy, jealousy, and resentment, a sense of being personally cheated or neglected, and the desire to get even” (1990, 293). Solomon may be correct to claim that resentment and desires for revenge may be at the center of demands for justice, though the danger of justice degenerating into cycles of “righteous” violence should give us pause in endorsing the moral appropriateness of vengeance. Solomon holds nothing back when he states that “if resentment has a desire, it is in its extreme form the total annihilation, prefaced by the utter humiliation, of its target—though the vindictive imagination of resentment is such that even that might not be good enough” (1990, 266).

The desire for revenge following mass violence is, of course, expected. Victims understandably want to see their tormentors punished.⁴ More importantly for our purposes, I think resentment and the desire for revenge can be, at least in principle, morally defended. Here, however, I distinguish a bit further between two different conceptions of punishment, echoing an earlier discussion in Chapter 2. There is institutionalized punishment, bounded by clear rules, procedures, and protections, and the wild justice carried out by individuals that can quickly degenerate into reciprocal violence. The point here is not that the desire for revenge—much less the expression of resentment—is necessarily immoral or uncivilized, because the desire itself stems from the recognition that moral injuries should be punished and the moral worth of victims require acknowledgment. I agree with this as far as it goes. The point, rather, is that placing justice in the private domain (that is, taking justice into one's “own hands,” so to speak) reduces the morally defensible response of punishment to little more than the reactionary infliction of pain. Without laws and procedures limiting it, the demand for vengeance can become unyielding and escalate into open violence. As Solomon states, “If resentment has a desire, it is in its extreme form the total annihilation” of the opponent (1990, 266). Even short of the desire for total annihilation, revenge can easily degenerate into violence. One person I spoke with in Sarajevo, Mahir P., told me about how his Muslim family had been violently driven from Mostar during the war by Bosnian Croat forces. It was clear from speaking with him that the war still consumed him, and he spent much of his time thinking about private vengeance against Croats—any Croats. Mahir said, “I am furious every day. I hate the Croats. I recognize that this is unhealthy, in some way, but I can't let go. I simply hate these people who did this to us, and I doubt I'll ever change. I think of hurting the first Croat I see all of the time.” Not only is this psychologically unhealthy, but under certain circumstances Mahir and others like him can act on these attitudes by carrying out new violence against real or perceived enemies (the generalization to “the Croats” is typical; broad negative stereotyping is a necessary component of mass violence). It is interesting to note that Mahir actively speaks of vengeance, where as Cristina accepts that more violence will not bring her any peace. What she means to hold onto is a sense of justified resentment, not the right to seek out her abusers and personally harm them. She accepts that the courts are the proper space for accountability, and though she admitted to despairing over whether her perpetrators will ever see a courtroom, Cristina recognized that allowing individuals to carry out their own private justice reproduces the lawlessness of the previous regime, with victims now the victimizers.

Forgiveness

What, then, of forgiveness? Forgiveness means many things to many people, and I am unconvinced that there is a “true” objective form that holds for all societies and situations. The proliferation of theories on the concept seems to bear this out (Walker 2006). There are, however, certain elements that are shared across understandings including the emphasis on overcoming resentment, bitterness, and anger, and forswearing vengeance and laying the ground for a new future sworn of violence. In its most traditional Christian formulation, for example, forgiveness is understood as a duty, as Jesus commands one to forgive “till seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22). Forgiving not only allows one to let go of pain and recast future relations; it also reinforces the idea of fraternal love that is at the core of Christianity. Indeed, some theologians such as Martin Marty (1998) and Desmond Tutu (1999) have presented forgiveness as a principle ethos of the Christian faith (Botman and Petersen 1997). It is a righteous practice that promotes the love of one's enemies. Others, such as Jacques Derrida (2001), argue for a secular forgiveness that is both unconditional and non instrumental; one can forgive only what is unforgivable and it should be done for no extrinsic reasons (Verdeja 2004). Psychologists Robert Enright, Suzanne Freedman, and Julio Rique understand forgiveness as “a willingness to abandon one's right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who unjustly injures us, while fostering undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity, and even love toward him or her” (1998, 46). They claim that “The offended may unconditionally forgive regardless of the other person's current attitude or behaviors toward the offended, because forgiving is one person's volitional response to another” (1998, 47). Such an understanding clearly rests on the transformative power of forgiveness, with its emphasis on the qualities of “compassion, generosity, and even love.” In fact, it is remarkable for its insistence that the offender's repentance and apology are not even necessary.

Forgiveness is often cast as a more fundamental embrace of one's enemy, or “positive mutual affirmation,” in the words of Donald Shriver (1997, 8). The objective is to combine “realism with hope,” which emphasizes the distinctly practical relevance of forgiveness in a world torn asunder. Indeed, forgiveness is eminently of this world, and not an abstract concept for philosophers or saints.

While there are some differences among them, all of these approaches share several keypoints.⁵ First, they conceive of forgiveness as the abandonment of resentment and hatred toward one's violator. Second, forgiveness becomes the primary way for achieving a fundamental transformation of both victim and perpetrator, allowing for the emergence of a new relationship between the two that is no longer anchored in the past. It is a transformative faculty. And not only is it transformative; it is morally superior to mere tolerance, indifference, or resentment because only forgiveness provides the possibility of a shared future that does justice to memory while eschewing vengeance. Finally, all of these thinkers emphasize the practicality of forgiveness. Rather than placing it solely in the province of theologians, forgiveness should play a central role in political and personal life, especially following mass violence.

How extensive is forgiveness likely to be? Without doubt, some persons will forgive even the most awful acts committed against them or their loved ones. Indeed, we should not declare a priori when survivors can and cannot forgive. Suleyman L. explicitly forgave the murderers of his family, who were killed outside of Biha in northwestern Bosnia, telling me, “It is necessary that I forgive these soldiers, for this is the proper thing to do. I realize that they have not come forth to seek my forgiveness, but I do so anyhow.” Maria Helena C.'s brother was tortured by the Chilean military, and while she knows the perpetrators and they have not asked for her forgiveness, she forgave them anyhow, stating, “I am a Christian, and thus I must forgive. It is hard, very hard. But my faith directs me to do so, and I believe that by forgiving them someday they will come to see the wrongness of their actions.” Some will forgive unconditionally, moved by a deep faith or other moral resource, others will demand certain conditions such as a show of contrition, and yet others will refuse to forgive under any circumstances. Forgiveness is ultimately the decision of the individual. But the likelihood of forgiveness becoming a generalized practice in transitions—at least forgiveness of the deeply transformative type discussed above—is probably rather low. Many survivors do not want to forgive but rather seek recognition, truth, and (often) retributive justice, if not outright revenge. A more satisfactory normative approach would leave open the possibility of forgiving while identifying other responses that are compatible with moral respect. Indeed, the real problem is not with forgiveness as such but with the problematic way in which these discussions are often formulated; that is, pitting the moral superiority of forgiveness against vengeance as if there were no other defensible alternatives. Berel Lang imagines a world without forgiveness as “less than human—one where resentment and vengeance would not only have their day, but would also continue to have it, day after day” (Govier 2002, 42). Tutu shares this, arguing, “Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence” (1998, xiii). But is this truly the case? Again, this partly depends on what is meant by forgiveness, whether it is requires substantial inner transformation or simply a recognition of the need to let go of poisonous feelings of anger. For Lang, as for Shriver, Tutu, and others, forgiveness is more like the former, leaving us with two fundamental choices: (1) commit oneself to the difficult process of forgiveness with the ultimate goal of securing a deep transformation of both victim and perpetrator, or (2) risk falling into paralyzing despair or obsession with vengeance. But this overlooks the variety of forms of interaction that are short of forgiveness yet significantly deeper than mere coexistence and which are morally defensible. It also establishes a rather substantial requirement for reconciliation because if interpersonal forgiveness is part of a theory of reconciliation, we risk placing an immense burden on all citizens.

Many victims may feel that their violators should not be forgiven and they argue this sentiment morally. Cristina H.'s passionate defense of not forgiving shows how rejecting a hasty forgiveness is a moral claim, thus signaling to society that she sees herself as a moral agent with self-worth and dignity. But she is also clear that she has been able to move forward with her life and has renounced any interest in seeking personal payback. Nevertheless, Cristina bristles at the idea that she should forgive for the sake of society, stating that “those who want us to forgive for the sake of everyone are hardly speaking for victims; they are often the killers, or at least were complicit in supporting Pinochet.” Of course, many people calling for forgiveness are simply trying to articulate the need to avoid a return to violence; they are not necessarily apologists for dictators. But it is also clear that expecting a victim to overcome resentment and “leave the past behind” for the sake of solidarity does little to convince survivors that society takes them seriously.

We should pause before accepting forgiveness—at least transformative forgiveness—as the prime way of securing reconciliation. Embracing it as the fundamental moral response to violence disregards legitimate anger and resentment while placing a burden on victims that they may find inappropriate. Victims may become instruments for some broader good without taking into account their desires or needs. Civil society can suffer, too, because if reconciliation comes to mean an imposed harmony with dissent and contestation suppressed, and disagreement is tarnished as the forerunner of political instability, then legitimate politics itself risks disappearing. We should be wary of treating any alternative to forgiveness as dangerous. Doing so robs us of the potential of distinguishing theoretically between acceptable disagreements and even legitimate resentment from personal revenge.

A weaker formulation of forgiveness seems to me both normatively defensible and practically attainable. This certainly has a utilitarian edge to it, insofar as it recognizes the need to give up debilitating feelings of anger that would otherwise continue to harm the victim in some way. Uma Narayan, for example, defines forgiveness as abandoning a right to a “sense of grievance” that the violated may otherwise continue to hold. A victim may still desire punishment or compensation, but has effectively repudiated the legitimacy of continued anger and resentment (1998, 172). By forgiving, the victim acknowledges that these emotions are no longer appropriate, even though they may resurface. This sense of letting go, then, is a recognition that while anger is unlikely to disappear it cannot continue to define relations and some alternative form of living together without violence is necessary. Here, forgiveness is not so much about moral transformation on the part of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders but rather is about forswearing violence and coming to acknowledge the basic moral status of former enemies. This weaker conception of forgiveness, which I call a partial pardon, is closer to what I have in mind below, where I sketch an account of mutual respect among individuals. A partial pardon is not particularly transformative in individual ontological terms but it does require a substantial change in social relations.

An Alternative: Mutual Respect

Vengeance and transformative forgiveness face a number of challenges for establishing personal reconciliation. An alternative would allow for a certain skepticism toward some of the stronger claims of forgiveness while remaining morally satisfactory, yet reject the danger of revenge. This steers clear from a concern with repentance and instead argues that a pardon may be partial and offer a kind of acceptance of the perpetrator as an equal for the purposes of social coexistence without any requirement of deep ontological transformation on the part of victim and violator. Such a “partial pardon” includes several elements, and in no way absolves a perpetrator of responsibility. Rather than springing from the principles of “love,” “fraternity,” and “pity” toward one's enemy, this approach seeks to establish interpersonal relations on the principles of mutual respect. It is not set in opposition to substantive understandings of forgiveness—as I have said, these are morally praiseworthy—but remains a considerably thinner articulation while including elements that are more demanding than either forgetfulness or vengeance.⁶ In order to make the distinction sharper, I first discuss what is meant by respect and tolerance interpersonally, and then turn to the idea of a partial pardon.

Tolerance assumes both disagreement (and even strong disapproval) with the beliefs or actions of others and a willingness to not impose oneself on those with whom one disagrees. As the long history of liberal social thought has argued, tolerance assumes that disagreements are a given part of social life and they can be eliminated only through an indefensible demand for uniformity. Especially in post-conflict conditions, disagreements can run deep. Nevertheless, tolerance also assumes that we remain in a relationship with those whom we are in conflict; we recognize the necessity of maintaining more than merely temporary relations. Tolerance emerges from the recognition of a shared fate or a sense that we are part of a larger community with a common past and future in which we are invested (or the very least from which we cannot escape), and thus we are tasked with establishing morally acceptable grounds for living with one another. This point of a shared fate, or of the awareness that we must live with those who harmed us and whom we harmed, underscores the importance of finding ways to live together peacefully and justly.

Tolerance, then, means simultaneously accepting fundamental disagreements and the importance of reciprocal moral recognition. How this occurs in practice depends on the case at hand and various available strategies. We cannot deduce the full spectrum of the means for securing tolerance solely theoretically (though a commitment to the rule of law is indicative of at least one aspect of this, as I have discussed). The central point, however, is that tolerance is not simply unilateral; it is premised on establishing and nurturing relationships over time, even where conflict and differences are still part of the social background. Such an understanding of tolerance is based on the notion of respect. Respect is the recognition of the value of others, not because of their political views or identity but because of their status as beings carrying moral rights that we have an obligation to recognize. Interpersonal relations that privilege respect and tolerance establish the necessary conditions for the emergence of future social trust. The powerful dynamics of violence, which neatly divided everyone into one category or another, are weakened to allow for the development of alternative political identities over time; former enemies establish new alliances and identities that overlap with earlier, conflict-era identities. This requires, at a minimum, that former adversaries realize that in politics negotiation and compromise do not signify defeat. Victory does not mean absolutely vanquishing the other side. Similarly, views and beliefs about others must be transformed so that others are seen as worthy of respect—that is, that enemies become opponents. Another way to put this is to say that interpersonal moral respect reflects several things: The overcoming of dehumanizing hatred that is typical of relations between hostile groups, a rejection of personal claims to vengeance, and finally the rehumanization of the other, so that we come to see former enemies in human and individual terms, rather than stereo typical examples of an out-group. This is deeper than mere coexistence because it implies recognition of the humanity of the other and of recognizing in others individualizing qualities that are familiar to us. To some extent, this also means a capacity to entertain, if only briefly, another's perspective and views and give them serious consideration, even though we may ultimately reject them. Most importantly, however, is the notion of acknowledging former enemies as beings whose status as moral agents make claims, or demands, on us that we must respect. What then can facilitate the emergence of respect and tolerance between individuals?

First, consider the status of the perpetrator. There is always the possibility that perpetrators may not be held accountable and society instead “chooses” to forget. Here, reconciliation is highly unlikely because victims do not receive the recognition they deserve. But even if accountability is pursued, there is no guarantee of reconciliation. The perpetrator must reflect on his or her actions critically and accept several conclusions: (1) the moral criminality of his or her actions, (2) a sense of personal responsibility for those actions, (3) the injured party as a victim of those actions, and (4) a commitment to a new, inclusive political and social order that recognizes the moral status of the victim. Now, the perpetrator may indeed begin a profound process of self-examination, culminating in repentance and possibly a plea for forgiveness. But more common is the example of Petar L., a Bosnian Croat who fought during the war with a small guerrilla group that frequently engaged Bosnian Serb forces near Brko in present-day northern Bosnia. While he was unwilling to go into detail about what he did, he made it clear to me that he participated in “what you would probably call criminal attacks” against civilians, though Petar gave little indication that this troubled him. “Do I regret what I did? Of course not. It was a war and they attacked us, and the only solution was to fight back, even if that meant attacking their people. They are dogs.” During our conversation, Petar made it clear that he saw all Serbians in essentially the same terms, that is, as violent thugs who deserved no quarter and with whom he could not live. It is hard to know whether he was radicalized prior to or during the conflict but the depth of his animosity was striking, and his refusal to even accept that perhaps some of what he had done was wrong was disconcerting. With such an outlook, nearly fifteen years after the end of the war, it is unlikely that Petar will ever come to see his enemies in human terms.

Say a perpetrator not only acknowledges responsibility but undergoes some type of moral transformation and seeks forgiveness, as Tutu (1999) encourages; ought the victim forgive? Again, this depends on the victim. Forgiveness is a moral action and while it may be desirable, it should not be taken for granted. It can be an impressive example of moral agency, as Maria Helena showed, but I believe it should be given only if it strengthens the person's dignity. Regardless, I think there are ways of theorizing perpetrator acceptance into the same political and social (and possibly moral) spheres without relying on a substantive conception of forgiveness. A survivor may forgive his or her tormentor and thus close or at least lessen the moral chasm between them, or instead may offer a diminished or partial pardon; that is, a recognition that accepts the necessity of rejecting vengeance without offering full acceptance of the violator. Such a pardon, oriented toward mutual respect and tolerance, is satisfactory, if only because it would be problematic to expect forgiveness to serve as the only or primary way of reaching reconciliation. Nevertheless, a partial pardon is more robust than the thin coexistence discussed in Chapter 1, because even to consider pardoning there must be some acknowledgment of past wrongs and recognition of victims. The pardon is premised on the belief that any stable and just future must focus on creating a common moral, political, and social space for former enemies.

A partial pardon should also be understood as emerging over time. It is rarely if ever “given” in one moment, like a self-executing speech-act. It does not create a new relationship ex nihilo, for new relations take root only through continued and sustained interactions between former adversaries working together on common enterprises as they slowly learn that they can trust one another. This is a complex endeavor occurring over years or perhaps generations, unlike some understandings of forgiveness that occasionally downplay the importance of time. Indeed, respect among individuals is unlikely to result from a unified, collective will but rather emerges from new personal relations, from changes in attitudes and behavior, and from a willingness to accept others as moral equals, though not necessarily as friends or intimates. One example that comes to mind is the case of Juan Carlos L., a Chilean office worker I met in Santiago whose father was tortured by the security services during the dirty war, and passed away six years after Pinochet stepped down from power. Juan Carlos was adamant that he did not forgive the people who harmed his father. “I don't forgive them, since that would be absurd. But I do recognize that we need to learn to live together, and that not everyone who was a supporter of Pinochet is evil. In fact, I work with some right-wingers, and while we don't agree on many things, we get along. We have some things in common, like sports and even some social issues, and sure I wouldn't call them friends, but we can have conversations and feel OK around each other. We've even gone out for drinks together. They also understand where I'm coming from, and realize that what happened to a lot of us was unjust.”

Juan Carlos's comments are important for several reasons. First, he makes clear that for him and many like him, forgiveness for those who harmed them or their loved ones is out of the question. But second, he acknowledges that many people who hold opposing political views can nevertheless be decent human beings, and through sustained daily interactions he began appreciating this. He has, in other words, begun a process of rehumanization, recognizing that political opponents are like him in some ways. Furthermore, this has been a reciprocal process where he and his coworkers have come to recognize each other as individuals, while trying to understand each other's political perspectives. Juan Carlos may not come to embrace them in any deep sense, but he has accepted that they can live together. Marisela P., an older Chilean businesswoman who is suspicious of “leftists and students” and supported Pinochet, has come to a somewhat similar position from the other end of the political spectrum. She acknowledges that Pinochet “did some bad things, and certainly many innocent people suffered during the dictatorship.” Like Juan Carlos, over the years Marisela has come in close contact with persons holding opposing views, at work and in social gatherings. She realizes that many of the beliefs she once held were grossly reductive and dehumanizing and treated anyone who opposed the junta as traitors who “deserved what they got.” She has gone through a long change, coming to recognize that her old views contributed to terrible crimes, and she has sought to reach out to other Chileans who suffered during military rule. What is interesting is that she couched this essentially in terms of recognition and respect:

Marisela notes the importance of broader events, like the publication of the commission report and the ways in which personal interactions have given her a new perspective on the past. She later mentioned the ways in which general public debates framed for her how she thought about individual experiences she had heard, and also how personal accounts of suffering and fear made sense in the larger historical context that emerged during the transition. Furthermore, she has moved to extend a kind of moral recognition to survivors by acknowledging the wrongness of what was done to them and accepting at least some responsibility.

These are all examples of the ambiguities between acceptance and rejection. The complexity of this process means that a society will not move in tandem or smoothly toward new relations or reconciliation because individuals have myriad ways of responding to suffering and violence. Some, of course, may follow Tutu, Shriver, and others and choose to forgive those who harmed them, while others may remain embittered and feel that only vengeance is satisfactory, as does Mahir. Others like Marisela will change enough to acknowledge the moral standing of victims and extend something like moral acknowledgment and respect to them. With time, hatred and resentment may become dulled, and respect and tolerance may slowly replace the animosity of the past. “In some ways,” says Jasmina I., a Bosnian Muslim whose brother and father were killed outside of Sarajevo during the war, “we need to figure out how to move on. I have finally come to realize that the other side suffered too, that they are people too, who suffered enormously at our hands. It has taken me a longtime to accept this, that they could be our neighbors, that we can eventually work together and live next door to each other again and do things together as Bosnians. I don't forgive the people who killed my family, but I do understand that Bosnian Serbs are Bosnians, like me. We can't keep demonizing each other. We need to see each other as humans, as individuals.” Of course, time is not enough. Victims must feel that the future holds more than a fragile peace or continued impunity, for without some likelihood of improvement—of hope in the future—the sources of violence are not removed but only contained. Juan Carlos was clear that Chile's impunity throughout the 1990s and the ever-present threat of a second coup made it practically impossible to speak of peace in any substantive sense. If hope in a better future is to be secured, there must be a sense that former enemies are willing to work together and address the deepest causes of conflict. Furthermore, political institutions and the rhetoric of politics must change, so as not to emphasize differences but instead a unity that is based on justice and respect. To the extent that these changes resonate among individuals, respect and tolerance may take hold and will be stronger if individuals experience these changes in their everyday lives. Respect and tolerance must be practiced in everyday life.

Perhaps a different way to express this is to say that people must see themselves as contributing to social change where exclusivist ideologies are replaced by values that emphasize inclusiveness and respect. Survivors, in particular, must be brought back into the political and social life of the community, perhaps by creating spaces where their personal experiences can be retold publicly and connected to larger narratives about the past. In Chapter 1 I introduced the notion of phenomenological truth, which concerns personal experiences and suffering as well as their expression. Survivors express these experiences through narration, specifically by tying their personal experiences to collective stories that provide both empirical and normative context. Of course, it is not surprising that the kinds of experiences we are dealing with here (that is, terrible suffering and seemingly meaningless violence) often may not fit comfortably with broader narratives, and so there remains an aporia between public versions of the past that may be shot through with stories of redemption and overcoming, and horrible personal experiences.⁷ We should not expect that personal stories will connect perfectly with general accounts but instead that these stories will bring an immediacy to the present that helps others understand the terribleness of the past, and the need to change for the future.

Linking personal stories and broader social narratives also provides moral recognition to victims. Survivors are rehumanized as moral agents when new, critical histories reframe history and bring the stories of individuals to the fore, thus drawing attention to the importance of human rights and the dignity of victims. Days of commemoration, memory sites, and other public endeavors strengthen this reframing, and draw a powerful connection between individual experiences and social reflection on the past. Certainly, moral reframing does ease the burdens of suffering and the changes that this may engender can assist in combating the impunity and marginalization that often accompanies victimhood. In addition to symbolic moral recognition, we should add that material reparations are equally necessary where victims continue to live in poverty that is a legacy of violence. Individualized reparations provide greater personal autonomy, for they permit individuals to address their own needs as they see fit. This matters only, of course, if the reparations are substantial enough to affect their lives, and not merely token responses with the aim of ultimately neutralizing or silencing them.

This leads us immediately to note that any form of recognition is only partial, since the most terrible experiences cannot be completely communicated to others. This representational gap is a product of the nature of the experiences we are dealing with here. Broad patterns of repression, locations of mass graves, and institutional hierarchies of authority can be understood using traditional research and forensic techniques, but individual experiences are difficult, if not impossible, to represent and communicate, and serve as a terrible burden and source of loneliness for survivors. This gap is evident when a survivor of the Armenian genocide says, “My spirit is blinded. That is the point I have come to. Nothing will come of me, because I have been defeated by life” (Miller and Miller 1999, 172). His experiences lived on long after the violence ended and haunted him for the remainder of his life. Survivors “inhabit a world that has been made strange through the desolating experience of violence and loss” (Das 1997, 23). Such radical separation, and the attendant difficulty of representing personal experiences of suffering and grief to those who were protected from violence, give us a sense of the limited expectations we should hold for interpersonal reconciliation. While some individual survivors may succeed in placing the past behind them and leading meaningful lives, others may not be able to do so, and so we should be sensitive to the limited possibilities for reconciliation that are available in these contexts.⁸ The idea behind the partial pardon is the recognition that a certain distance from the past is necessary, and while any future will carry the weight of the past, it is incumbent to create a space where new relationships can take root. The pardon is skeptical of the radical change at the heart of substantive accounts of forgiveness, and instead emphasizes fostering the values of respect and tolerance, as well as practices that promote cooperation among former enemies. We should seek to lessen resentment and fear, foster respect, and bring adversaries together into the same moral sphere, which is a significant accomplishment on its own.

In the end, it is individuals who must adopt the principle of respect and accept the importance of reconciliation. The nature of interpersonal relations means that here reconciliation will have its own dynamics, far from the publicity of official apologies and truth commission hearings, or the excitement and anger generated by high-profile trials. Citizens must learn to negotiate the complexities of the past in ways that are acceptable but not too disruptive, and to navigate between the temptations of vengeance and the impossibility, for some at least, of forgiveness. As enemies become neighbors and face the prospect of living together, everyday interactions take on a new cast. Certainly, change may occur more slowly here than in civil society or in the law. A report may signal the end of a truth commission's work but it is only the beginning of personal change. Victims may welcome a successful prosecution but it may also have relatively little direct impact on their everyday lives. The variety of personal histories and ways of coping with the past means that in some respects this level is only loosely connected to political, institutional, and social developments.

None of this is to say that interpersonal reconciliation is separate from what happens in the rest of society. The interpersonal is connected to public reconciliatory developments, even if only in a highly mediated fashion; however, individual reconciliation is unlikely where there are no efforts at institutional reform, where elites continue to disparage survivors, and where civil society turns away from the needs of the suffering. Without these broader developments, it is unlikely that reconciliation will develop, for there will be little reason to trust the state or believe that survivors and their loved ones will be safe or treated with respect. Impunity in the law reveals itself as fear among individuals. Without transparency in the workings of the state and robust methods of accountability citizens will continue to feel vulnerable to arbitrary violence, and may, under certain circumstances, demand private vengeance. Cristina H. argued that while Pinochet maintained impunity and power after stepping down, any talk of reconciliation was largely a sham—a way of using moral language to cover up difficult political compromises that in her opinion had sidelined victims. Accountability is important not only as a way to strengthen the rule of law but also because it signals to the population what values should be protected in the new society. Leaders can change the contours of debate and encourage individuals to confront the past, both in their public and private lives. Reparations, apologies, and similar strategies can further respect by showing that the state is concerned with the plight of victims and that the population should reexamine its own responsibility. And to the extent that the rule of law is reinforced institutionally and accepted individually, its role as a regulative normative ideal will thus be strengthened. Consequently, interpersonal changes are sensitive to developments at other social levels.

The success of interpersonal reconciliation requires an understanding of its possibilities and limitations. Too strong a conception of reconciliation may be unachievable, but forgetting and vengeance are so deeply problematic that they should be resisted. The idea of a partial pardon speaks to both of these concerns by seeking to establish the groundwork for a defensible mode of morally satisfactory coexistence while not foreclosing the possibility of deeper instances of forgiveness. Its success depends in part on the achievements made by elites and institutions, and in civil society, but it requires at its most basic a commitment by individuals themselves to live within a shared moral sphere with their former adversaries.