NCJ Number
193001
Journal
Social Justice Research Volume: 14 Issue: 2 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 149-170
Date Published
June 2001
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This paper examines reconciliation in the aftermath of protracted, deadly wide-scale conflict characterized by impunity when crimes against individuals, groups, and humanity go unpunished.
Abstract
In human history there is no lack of malice, revenge, or savagery. The twentieth century has seen 33 million military deaths. Victimization deaths are estimated at 6 times that number, at 205 million people. The past decade has seen people enslaved, tortured, raped, and persecuted as members of political, racial, ethnic, or religious groups in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Yet there has been no meaningful prosecution of crimes that have occurred on a massive scale. Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Ayala Lasso has stated that "A person stands a better chance of being tried and judged for killing one human being than for killing 100,000." This paper describes the relevance of moral exclusion theory to conflict in which dehumanization and violence are normalized, and it argues that impunity is an urgent matter for psychology and social justice research. Impunity is supported by a moral framework that casts as appropriate violence directed at some people or groups. Work on moral exclusion provides a theoretical perspective on injustice, particularly on the social and psychological factors that support and exonerate harm-doing. Moral exclusion is a psychological orientation that views those excluded as psychologically distant from oneself; unworthy of constructive obligations; nonentities, expendable, and undeserving; and eligible for processes and outcomes that would be unacceptable for those inside the scope of justice. This paper discusses reconciliation in the context of impunity as a process which mediates a conflictual past with a desired peaceful future. Reconciliation can foster mutual respect and foster forgiveness, mercy, compassion, a shared vision of society, mutual healing, and harmony among parties formerly in conflict. This paper discusses the choice of a reconciliation process based on the particulars of a conflict. The author concludes with a discussion of social reconstruction and social research, as well as directions for research. 77 references