Forgiveness and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic

• Date: 01 June 2006
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002706286950
• Author: Susanne Y.P. Choi,Roman David
• Published date: 01 June 2006
• Subject Matter: Articles

339

AUTHORS’NOTE: This article uses the term victims, which, in sources that we quote, is more com-

mon than survivors. Our study only concerns direct victims. It does not cover the immediate families of

victims.

JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, Vol. 50 No. 3, June 2006 339-367

DOI: 10.1177/0022002706286950

© 2006 Sage Publications

Forgiveness and Transitional Justice

in the Czech Republic

ROMAN DAVID

Southeast Asia Research Centre

City University of Hong Kong

SUSANNE Y. P. CHOI

Department of Sociology

Chinese University of Hong Kong

This article examines major theoretical assumptions about forgiveness by victims of human rights

abuses in the context of transitional justice in the Czech Republic. The authors hypothesize that forgive-

ness is facilitated by restoring equality between victims and perpetrators, namely: individual, social and

political empowerment of victims; decreasing the superior position of perpetrators, especially through

their punishment; and a repentant gesture of perpetrators towards victims, especially by apologizing. The

results of path analysis confirm that religious belief, individual, social, and political empowerment, pun-

ishment, and apology directly promote forgiveness. This enables the authors to distinguish four types of

forgiveness: religious, reparatory, retributive, and reconciliatory forgiveness. They suggest that policy

interventions that promote forgiveness may not be mutually exclusive as often proposed in the dilemmas

of transitional justice

Keywords: transitional justice; forgiveness; victims; Czech Republic

Forgiveness has entered the political domain where there is a need to ameliorate

historical injustices, overcome political scandals, and facilitate democratic transition.

On the eve of the twenty-first century, Pope John Paul II asked for forgiveness for his

church’s treatment of Jews, women, and native peoples; President Clinton asked for

forgiveness from his family, Monica Lewinski, and the American people; and the

South African political transition endorsed the principle of “no future without forgive-

ness.” This article focuses on the third context, examining the major theoretical

assumptions behind forgiveness of victims of human rights abuses during the process

of political transition in the Czech Republic.

Forgiveness is defined here as a negation or abandonment of vengeance (Arendt

1958, 240-1; Murphy 2003, 13-6; Shriver 1995, 8; Minow 1998; Worthington 2001,

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162-3).1Forgiveness helps to overcome interhuman alienation and repair fractured

human relations (Shriver 1995; Hampton 1988, 86). In the macropolitical context,

forgiveness is championed as a means to peace and national reconciliation in the

aftermath of political conflicts (Minow 1998; Borain 2000; Tutu 1999, 206-30).

Forgiveness is said to benefit victims, perpetrators, and divided societies. It can end

cycles of violence, help victims reestablish their own dignity, redeem wrongdoers as

persons worthy of forgiveness, renew civic relationships between victims and perpe-

trators, and allow bystanders to realize their own roles in the past (Minow 1998).

Forgiveness helps societies to overcome, though not forget,the past (Biggar 2003) and

thus make possible progress to the future (Tutu 1999, 226). A strong case for forgive-

ness comes from experiments using the prisoner’s dilemma, which showed that gener-

ous strategies (“nice and forgiving”) were more effective in noisy environments than

other strategies (including “tit-for-tat” strategies) (Bendor, Kramer, and Stout 1991,

696-7). By forgiving their opponents, players can often prevent the conflict from esca-

lating (Exline and Baumeister 2000).

However, policy interventions, or even therapies, that promote forgiveness may be

harmful to victims (Herman 1997; Pargament, McCullough, and Thoresen 2000;

Murphy 1988, 15-24; Exline and Baumeister 2000).2This dualism is mirrored in

diverging claims in transitional justice. Victims’ needs are sometimes used to justify

criminal trials (Roht-Arriaza 1995, 19-21; cf. Fletcher and Weinstein 2002, 592-5)

and sometimes serve as an argument against trials and/or for the establishment of

a truth commission (Asmal, Asmal, and Roberts 1997, 19; Tutu 1999, 24-36, 128;

Hayner 2001, 133-53). Some argue for a victim-centered approach to transitional jus-

tice (Biggar 2003; Hamber 2003), while others warn that fulfilling victims’ claims,

however morally justified, threatens the political transition (Malamud-Goti 1996, 13).

We are interested in victims for the following reasons:we believe that victims and, by

their attitudes, the entire society will benefit from ending the cycles of violence and

the reestablishment of order and that the forgiveness that comes from victims of

human rights abuses is crucial to this goal in two respects. First, victims are the only

ones with the natural right to forgive (Sachs 1993; Asmal,Asmal, and Roberts 1997,

49; Villa-Vicencio 2000).3Second, the victims’forgiveness can reduce the desire for

340 JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

1. According to Arendt (1958,240-1), “Forgiveness is the exact opposite of vengeance, which acts in

the form of re-acting against an original trespassing. . . . Forgiving . . . is the only reaction which does not

merely re-act but acts anew.” Murphy (2003, 16) defines forgiveness as “the overcoming” of “the vindic-

tive passions—the passions of anger, resentment, and even hatred that are often occasioned when one has

been deeply wronged by another.”According to Worthington (2001 163), “Forgiveness is a juxtaposition

or superposition of a strong positive emotion over the cold emotions of unforgiveness. . . . Alternatively,

forgiveness is the emotional replacement of hot anger and fear by those positive emotions. The positive

emotions can be empathy for the perpetrator, compassion, agape love, or even romantic love.”

2. Forgiveness may restore relationships but at the expense of victims’dignity and self-respect (Murphy

1988, 17-8). It may result in fear that the transgression will be repeated; feelings of weakness, unfairness, and

injustice; and the loss of the benefits of victim status (Exline and Baumeister 2000, 143-7). We do not under-

estimate these reservations, nor do we suggest sacrificing victims for political objectives; we seek to deter-

mine whether and how forgiveness can be arranged in accordance with achieving viable peace.

3. As Murphy (1988, 21) explains, “I do not have standing to resent or forgive you unless I have

myself been the victim of your wrongdoing. . . . [I]t would be ludicrous for me, for example, to claim that

I had decided to forgive Hitler for what he did to the Jews.”

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