Jan. 25
SOUTH AFRICA:
Justice Is Reconciliation
In South Africa, indeed around the world, we are raised on a strict diet
of justice as retribution. With violent crimes on an upsurge, with the
hideous crimes of child rape and abuse on the increase, there are frequent
calls backed by wide public support to restore capital punishment.
Mercifully, South Africa's constitutional court has ruled that the death
penalty is unconstitutional. Sadly, in many places in the world, it seems
that men and women have not advanced beyond the biblical admonition of "an
eye for an eye" in their yearning for retribution.
Indeed, some Muslim countries amputate the hands of convicted thieves in
public. But that biblical adage was in fact invoked originally to curb
blood feuds from claiming the innocent relatives of the person who
committed the killing.
"An eye for an eye" asks that the culprit should be the sole target, and
not others, whose only crime was to be related to him. So the "eye for an
eye" adage was not intended to mean what it has come to mean, namely that
killing be paid for by another killing.
Given the brutality of the apartheid era, that would have never worked in
my homeland. Some South Africans called for Nuremberg-type trials,
especially for perpetrators of those atrocities that were designed to
maintain the vicious apartheid system.
There were demands that the guilty be brought to book. But we were
fortunate in that Nuremberg was not really an option for us.
Nuremberg happened because the Allies inflicted unconditional surrender on
the Nazis and so could impose a so-called victor's justice. In our case,
neither the apartheid government nor the liberation movements could defeat
each other.
Moreover, in the case of Nuremberg, the prosecutors and judges could pack
up their bags after the trial and leave Germany for their several homes.
We had to make our homes in this, our common motherland, and learn to live
with one another.
Such trials would probably have gone on nearly forever, leaving gaping
wounds open. It would have been difficult to procure the evidence to get
convictions. We all know just how cunning bureaucrats can be in destroying
incriminating evidence.
So it was a mercy that our country chose to go the way of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission granting amnesty in exchange for the truth. This
was ultimately based on the principles of restorative justice and ubuntu.
At the TRC hearings we were exposed to gruesome details about atrocities
that were committed to uphold or to oppose apartheid. "We gave him drugged
coffee and shot him in the head and then we burned his body.
As it takes seven to eight hours for a human body to burn, we had a
braaivleis on the side, drinking beer and eating meat". How low men can
sink in our inhumanity!
Each time such horrible stories were published, we had to remind ourselves
that, yes indeed, the acts were demonic, but the perpetrators remained
each a child of God.
A monster has no moral responsibility and so cannot be held accountable;
but even more seriously, designating someone a monster closes the door to
possible rehabilitation. We cannot give up on anybody.
If it was true that people could not change, then the whole TRC process
would have been impossible. It happened because we believed that even the
worst racist had the capacity to change.
And I think we in South Africa have not done badly. Because an "eye for an
eye" can never work when communities are in conflict; reprisal leads to a
counter-reprisal in the sort of blood spiral we are seeing in the Middle
East.
The type of justice South Africa practised, what I call "restorative
justice" is, unlike retribution, not basically concerned with punishment.
It sets high store by healing.
It regards the offender as a person, as a subject with a sense of
respon-sibility and a sense of shame, who needs to be reintegrated into
the community. There is a wealth of wisdom in the old ways of African
society.
Justice was a communal affair and society set a high store by social
harmony and peace. The belief was that a person is a person only through
other persons, and a broken person needed to be helped to be healed.
What the offence had disturbed should be restored, and the offender and
the victim had to be helped to be reconciled. Justice as retribution often
ignores the victim and the system is usually impersonal and cold.
Restorative justice believes that even the worst offender can become a
better person. This does not mean being soft on crime.
Offenders must realise the seriousness of their offences through the kind
of sentences they get, but there must be hope, hope that the offender can
become a useful member of society, after paying the price they owe to
society.
When we act as if we really believe that someone can be better, is better,
then they will often rise to our expectations.
(source: The Times of India - Desmond Tutu is a winner of the Nobel Prize
for Peace)
