Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence.

• Author: McGee, Colin
• Position: FURTHER READING - Brief article - Book review

BETWEEN VENGEANCE AND FORGIVENESS: FACING HISTORY AFTER GENOCIDE AND MASS VIOLENCE Martha Minow (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 214 pages.

In this 1998 text, Harvard Law School Professor Martha Minow examines the challenges presented by mass violence and explores means of bridging the gap between forgiveness and vengeance. She analyzes prosecutions from Nuremberg and Rwanda, truth commissions in South Africa and reparations paid to Japanese-Americans interned during the Second World War.

Minow determines that methods of restorative justice, as opposed to heavily vengeance-prone retributive approaches, best help "victims move beyond anger and a sense of powerlessness. They also attempt to reintegrate the offenders into community." Indeed, restorative justice aims to rejuvenate human dignity. Additionally, this approach, as emphasized by the example of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, provides a forum for addressing wrongs that can help victims come to terms with their ordeals, offers a chance for perpetrators to seek forgiveness and demonstrates to bystanders what...