The Agency of Victims to Forgive Their Former Perpetrators Following Violent Conflict

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Situated peace agency

Proposal

Civil war can diminish trust among victims and their former victimizers. Often, the nature of relationships that exists among adversaries following violent conflict is characterized by mistrust, anger, fear (Bloomfield, 2003), including physical and/or social separation. To restore relationships broken by violent conflict, scholars in the field of conflict resolution and peacebuilding has put forth the concept of forgiveness (Assefa, 1999; Lederach, 2003a). Without forgiveness, adversaries will remain detached from one another (Hauss, 2003). To achieve forgiveness, former perpetrator must admit his/her wrongdoings and ask for forgiveness (Borer, 2006). However, what is less clear is what would be the outcome of relationships between victims and former perpetrators in the absence of perpetrators asking for forgiveness? This study provides deeper understanding into the agency of victims to forgive former perpetrators without them asking for forgiveness.
Procedures to Achieve Forgiveness Following Violent Conflict
The popular procedure in scholarly literature on conflict resolution and peacebuilding tend to be the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC normally takes place in a public setting, the perpetrators must admit to the atrocities committed, express remorse, and seek for forgiveness (Borer et al., 2007). In turn, the victims must be willing to accept perpetrator’s apologies and offer forgiveness (Jeong, 2002). This idea of assembling victims and former perpetrators in the same place to rebuild broken relationships is often driven by contact hypothesis (Vasilara & Piaton, 2007).
Contact Theory
Contact theory posits that contact between enemies helps reduce prejudice and/or minimize stereotypes (Allport, 1958). There are several main elements of contact necessary to produce social trust after conflict (Govier & Verwoerd, 2002). These main elements include equal status amongst individuals and/or groups (Pettigrew, 1998). No group(s) is dominant in the contact. One must be willing, not forced to engage in contact.
The literature on contact theory seems to clearly lay foundation that contact is personal and/or physical face-to-face meeting of people (Kostić, 2007), like the TRC process. Once contact is made between the victim and his/her former perpetrator, the former perpetrator is expected to acknowledge violation and ask for forgiveness from his or her victim. The victim must offer forgiveness for their relationships to be restored (Long & Brecke, 2003). This approach is mostly perpetrator - centric. The approach raised questions that deserve further attention.
Research Question
How do individuals, who suffered severe harm and victimization during a violent conflict, grant forgiveness to their former perpetrators in the absence of them asking for forgiveness following violent conflict? This research question focused on understanding: (a) whether forgiveness in some cases or in all cases depends (entirely) on the perpetrator's own initial actions namely acknowledgement of atrocities, take responsibility for violation, apology to victim, express profound remorse, and seek forgiveness; and (b) whether forgiveness can occur in the absence of some or all of these requirements that the perpetrator must undertake?
Methods
I adopted a qualitative case study method. Zainal (2007) points out that through case study method, a researcher can go beyond the quantitative statistical results and understand the behavioral conditions through the actor’s perspective. The qualitative case study method offered me an opportunity to get a detailed account from individuals lived experience.
Data Analysis
I employed a thematic network to code and analyze the data as discussed by Attride-Stirling (2001). The thematic network consists of three main processes. First, the thematic analysis involves the process of text reduction, which consists of coding and constructing the basic themes. Second, the analysis stage involves exploration of the text into the organizing themes. The final stage entails reducing the organizing themes into primary theme.
Limitations of the study
The study is not a representative sample or make generalization. This study involved six relatively homogenous participants, all males, public school teachers, affected by violent conflict and have restored cohesive relationships with former perpetrators. The formal sampling criteria were prescribed by the research design. Under no conditions did these criteria reference gender or religious orientation as components of the selection process.
Findings
Theme One: Victims Acknowledged That War Has Consequences:
To rationalize the egregious abuses committed against them, all the participants in this study acknowledged that war has collateral damages and consequences.
Theme Two: Victims Decided Not to Seek Revenge
Although the war left an indelible scar on the lives of the teachers interviewed for this study, they described having eventually come to a place of acceptance regarding their losses.
Theme Three: Victims Justified the Atrocities Committed Against Them During the Civil War
The teachers interviewed for this study generally justified the actions of their former perpetrators by referring to them with terms such as “uneducated” and “drug addicts”; as such, their behaviors reflected such drug use.
Theme Four: Victims Forgive Their Former Perpetrators
All the teachers in this study reported that forgave their former perpetrators. The teachers often said that they drew upon culture and religious upbringing to forgive.
Scholarly Significance
Proponents of Contact Theory suggest that forgiveness occurs when victims and their former perpetrators directly meet face-to-face (Govier & Verwoerd, 2002). However, the findings of this study suggest that forgiveness is not necessarily a matter of social contact and public expressions of remorse from perpetrators. The findings demonstrate that in at least some contexts, victims may forgive their former perpetrators even before they have made contact with them, and may do so even if former perpetrators have never explicitly said “I am sorry.” For example, one of the participants interviewed for this study stated that, “When they disarmed, it means that they are sorry. . . They don’t have to say, ‘I am sorry.” (Mr. Yorlay). The participants did not wait to make contact before deciding to forgive them.
Overall, the study unearths nuance understanding about the capacity of victims to forgive their former perpetrators without first making contact. Of course, further research must be conducted, in order to ensure that the most effective ‘fact-based’ victims’ agency and appropriate peacebuilding mechanisms are implemented in post-conflict societies.

Author

• Mainlehwon Vonhm, Center for Peace Education