Depolarizing the past: the role of historical commissions in conflict mediation and reconciliation.

• Author: Karn, Alexander M.
• Position: THE LEGACY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Building peace in the wake of large-scale historical injustices is difficult and sometimes dispiriting work. Rival groups often conjure vastly different memories of the same events, and these divergences reinforce cycles of violence and deepen feelings of resentment. Whether we look at the conflict in Israel-Palestine, the longstanding feud between China and Japan or the civil wars and genocides that continue to plague sub-Saharan Africa, it is clear that partisans in these contests seek to weaponize the past in order to legitimate their campaigns and support their claims to moral superiority We know that history pervades and animates many of the seemingly intractable conflicts unfolding in the world today, but can the recounting of past events also work to smooth relations between rival groups who find themselves entangled in each other's memories and identities? Is it possible, without denying history's most traumatic episodes, to remove the past as an obstacle to peaceful and productive inter-group relations?

Conflict resolution experts routinely employ storytelling as a first step in their mediation efforts. By giving rivals an opportunity to exchange perspectives on the roots of their conflict and a chance to air their grievances openly, mediators attempt to open a space for dialogue and clear the way to a possible settlement. Yet practitioners routinely under-utilize history as a tool for conflict mediation and reconciliation under the traditional negotiating frameworks. This is due in part to what one theorist has called the "instrumentalist view" of storytelling, which conflict resolution professionals commonly develop as part of their formal training. (1) Mediators learn to see storytelling as a warm-up exercise for the more difficult and technical negotiations that follow. They do not view the recounting of history as a productive mode of negotiation, but rather as an ice-breaker to overcome the initial awkwardness that appears when deeply embittered adversaries sit together to contemplate an end to their feud. At best, these preliminary exchanges suggest appropriate parameters for subsequent negotiations. However, they are not seen as encounters with truth since both sides of the conflict are entitled to their own perceptions, nor are they understood as substantive components of the conflict. Rather, they are merely considered the outward signifiers of a damaged relationship. This relegation of history to the margins of mediation practice is unfortunate. It points to a fundamental misunderstanding of the role that history and historical consciousness play in perpetuating large group conflicts, and, as I will attempt to show here, it takes no account of recent successful efforts to employ history as a tool for reconciliation.

CONTEMPLATING THE POLITICS OF HISTORY

Since the mid-1990s, professional historians have shown increasing interest in engaging the politics of the past and in working to improve inter-group relations where historical injustices generate enduring hostility and tension. Coming off the merry-go-round of postmodern theory and eager account for the trend toward apologies and reparations that gained momentum following the end of the Cold War, scholars began to seriously contemplate the importance of confronting traumatic episodes from the past and accepting the moral obligations attached to historical injustices. (2) No longer content to remain within the discourse of what happened, "activist-historians" developed a different set of questions. The new mode of inquiry, still fundamentally historical but also opening the way to a multi-disciplinary approach, evolved to become: How do groups divided by the past utilize their history, and what can be done to mitigate the interpretive differences and misperceptions which help to generate and sustain conflicts? If enemies could sort through their differences using a shared historical lens, rather than through the partisan narratives that monopolize popular imagination, then history could perhaps provide a new avenue for conflict mediation.

The rising trend toward what might be called "jurisprudential history" (i.e., history that seeks to mediate conflict) culminated in the increasing prevalence of historical commissions beginning in the mid-1990s. (3) Similar to the truth commissions that helped to support democratic transitions in South Africa, El Salvador, Argentina and Chile, the historical commissions have been implemented in a variety of settings to reckon with past injustices, whether proximal, as in the case of the Ugandan Workshop on History and Reconciliation, or more distant, as in the case of the Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. (4) In Europe, several dozen commissions have investigated and re-examined unresolved issues stemming from the Second World War, the Holocaust and the Stalinist era. While most have been national commissions, a number have recruited international experts to provide a voice for victims' groups who are no longer adequately represented. However, the most intriguing experiments, from the point of view of conflict mediation, are the bilateral commissions. By engaging historians from opposite sides of long-standing ethno-national conflicts, these commissions have tried to ensure that past injustices do not overburden contemporary relations. By surveying the work of several recent commissions, both national and bilateral, this essay attempts to highlight the obstacles faced by jurisprudential historians in their attempts to foster reconciliation and to suggest a set of best practices for future commissions.

ACCUSATORY HISTORY VERSUS EXPLANATORY HISTORY: THE CASE OF JEDWABNE

In general, the potential of historical commissions is their ability to move historical discourse away from the accusatory framework used by partisans to support their claims of victimization and instead move toward an explanatory framework that offers a new context for historical facts that have been misconstrued or marshaled differently by rival groups. This principle applies especially well to the Holocaust commissions, which have attempted to clarify the circumstances under which the Nazi genocide was carried out while also providing a new measure of justice for survivors. Though each country has followed a different path, these commissions have generally shown a willingness to contemplate causality and responsibility in a richly elaborated historical context geared toward comprehension rather than accentuating guilt.

Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) provides a good starting point, particularly with regard to their projects on Polish-Jewish relations and their study of the Jedwabne Massacre (1941). (5) The achievements of the IPN in this arena are remarkable given the deep enmity which stems from, on the one hand, Jewish insistence on casting Poles as "congenital" anti-Semites who used Nazi aggression as an excuse to enact their own genocidal fantasies, and on the other, persistent claims by Polish nationalists that they, too, were victims of the Holocaust and that disproportionate sympathy for Jews has prevented them from receiving adequate compensation for their losses. As in other conflicts dating from this period, willful misperception of the facts on both sides has kept the conflict energized even in the absence of overt violence.

The IPN was established by parliamentary decree in 1998 to encourage open engagement with Poland's totalitarian past. Though most of its work has focused on Stalinist repression, the IPN has also sponsored several projects focused on the Holocaust and its effect on Polish-Jewish relations. Because the IPN was established while Poles were reacting strongly to fresh revelations about the massacre of Jews that took place in the town of Jedwabne on I0 July 1941, a great deal of attention has focused on this aspect of their research program. (6)

Following five years of work, the IPN published its findings on Jedwabne as a two-volume set in 2002. Though they do not represent a formal report, these volumes nevertheless reveal the potential of historical commissions as a tool for conflict management. Reading them alongside other accounts of the Jedwabne massacre, it becomes clear that the authors wish to document the massacre while also making a counter-statement against the broad accusations of anti-Semitism which come from Jewish partisans eager to highlight their own suffering. By examining the Jedwabne tragedy as one part of the long and complex history of Polish-Jewish relations in the Biatystok region where the massacre took place, the IPN succeeds in reasserting the historical particularity of this event. Instead of proceeding directly to the murders that took place in Jedwabne as others have, volume one of the IPN history begins with a treatment of pre-war Biatystok. A subsequent chapter extends the region's history back to the 19th century. Though some might interpret this as reluctance to address the massacre directly, the recounting of history provides a nuanced context for the Jedwabne events so that they can be considered outside the framework of reflexive accusation. Rather than attempting to whitewash what happened at Jedwabne, the IPN's historical contextualization helps readers comprehend the complex issues that factored into the massacre. The commission's narrative reasserts the veracity of the most disturbing facts while also seeking new moral categories to give these facts a suitable texture. What happened in Jedwabne is neither denied nor downplayed, but how those events came to pass and who perpetrated them are offered up for reconsideration. Is this a move toward relativism?

Although contextualizing Jedwabne as a local phenomenon that ought to be seen in broader perspective may seem like an attempt to shift responsibility, the IPN does not avoid the issue of homegrown Polish anti-Semitism. Indeed, far from trying to present Jedwabne as an...