Transforming destructive ethnic violence: an exploration of the role of forgiveness in political reconciliation in Burundi

Violence, ethnic violence, in particular, dehumanizes its victims and perpetrators. It shatters selves and destroys relationships without which life is impossible. To restore the dignity of the survivors of ethnic violence, what was done to them must be acknowledged as evil and its perpetrators held responsible for it. However, because what was done to the victims of violence cannot be undone, punitive or retributive justice cannot restore survivors' lives to normal. Besides, victims of violence, particularly protracted ethnic violence, are hardly just victims. Many of them are often also guilty in one way or another of the same violence they have suffered and for which they need to have justice. Applying justice abstractly without considering the context and circumstances in which violence occurred thus may lead to a nihilistic dead-end.

While the testimony of the survivors is required to know the truth without which justice cannot be done, given the traumatic experience survivors went through, the truth that emerges from their memories is subjective and therefore objectively contestable as not veridical. When members of conflicting communities are both victims and perpetrators, the situation is more complex, and their narratives are hardly reconcilable.

Using Burundi as a context where Hutus and Tutsis have experienced repetitive ethnic violence of genocidal proportions, the thesis considers how forgiveness meets the demands of justice and ends the cycle of violence by enhancing the process of political reconciliation. Literatures that address memory, narratives, storytelling, and peace making are considered to inform the understanding of narratives by people in Burundi who have experienced ethnic violence. After locating the ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis in its historical context, the thesis considers how survivors remember and analyses the meaning they give to their experience. The narrative stories of participants, which provide the centrepiece of the thesis, are seen in historical and current context. The thesis concludes by demonstrating why and under what conditions forgiveness is necessary to restore the dignity of both the survivors and perpetrators and to promote reconciliation. To place these findings from Burundi in wider context, the similarities and (importantly) the differences from other post-conflict societies are considered to inform what unique contributions are made by this analysis.