Dr. T. Govier (Canada)

Case (1)

Joe is an aboriginal (native) Canadian and is 60 years old. When he was 10, he was taken away from his family to a residential school that was run by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Canadian government. At that time, the Canadian government's policy with regard to native education was racist and colonialist. Its goal was to make native Canadians as much like whites as possible by teaching them European-Canadian customs, the English language, and skills in such areas as farming, mechanics, sewing, and cooking. At the residential school, the food was very poor and children were beaten for speaking their own language and for many other acts regarded as offensives. Many children were also subjected to sexual abuse. The school was far-away from the native reserve where Joe's parents lived, and the nuns made it hard for children to keep in touch with their families. Because of the system of residential schools, Joe's childhood was miserable. Nuns and other teachers told him repeatedly that he was a dirty Indian and would never get to heaven if he did not abandon his Indian ways. When Joe left the school, he was so disturbed and unhappy that he became an alcoholic and a drug user. Only many years later, when he was in his fifties, did Joe begin to recover and build a better life.

Do non-aboriginal Canadians bear any responsibility for the wrongs suffered by Joe and thousands of others like him? Does Joe deserve compensation of any kind because of what was done to him? If so, what form should such compensation take, and from whom should he receive it? The individuals who abused him? The Church? The Canadian government?

(The background for this issue may be found in J.R. Miller, Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools . Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1996.)

Case (2)

Addy was a soldier in a civil war in Sierra Leone. He became a soldier when he was only ten years old. The rebel forces (RUF) came to his village at night and kidnapped a number of children, including Addy. The RUF forces took Addy into the jungle and told him they had a valid cause because they were fighting against a government that was extremely corrupt and denied educational and other opportunities to people who were not members of the elite classes. They were going to take the wealth of Sierra Leone's and direct it toward the poor people. The RUF leaders gave Addy an AK-47 and taught him to fight and use it to kill. They told Addy that he had to do whatever they said; otherwise, they would kill him. They gave him drugs and alcohol so that he would be able to do anything they ordered. Addy and some others were taken on raids into villages, where they were witnesses to rapes, beating, killings, and other serious crimes. When harvest time came, the rebels said that they had to prevent villagers from getting crops. Otherwise, there would be more food in the villages than in the jungle camps, people who had been abducted to be soldiers would return to their villages, and the rebels who were fighting this corrupt government would lose in the struggle. For these reasons, the RUF were going to amputate the hands and arms of villagers to prevent the harvest. Addy and some others were drugged and taken into their own village and forced to perform amputations. One night, Addy was made to cut off the hands of his own aunt. When the civil war ended, Addy was fifteen. He went through a government disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program, and was given some training and a small amount of money. The people running the program urged him to go back to his village again. He did return, but people in the village seem to be afraid of him, and even his own parents do not seem pleased to see him back.

Should these people accept him back as a member of the community? Should they forgive him for what he has done? What could Addy do to make his own reintegration easier? Or should he give up, and not even try?

Case (3)

After the Good Friday Accord of 1998, there was supposed to be a peace in Northern Ireland. The I.R.A. (a para-military group that had engaged in violence between 1969 and 1998 in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom) was supposed to be disarming and pursuing its goals through political means. The political wing of the I.R.A. is called Sinn Fein.

In March, 2005 Robert McCartney was beaten, stabbed, and killed outside a Belfast pub by a group of men that included known members of the Irish Republican Army. After Robert McCartney's murder, no witnesses came forward to offer testimony about the events, even though there were some 70 people in the pub at the time. The fact that people would not come forward as witnesses to a brutal beating and murder was seen by many as evidence of the ongoing power of the I.R.A.. The violent struggle was supposed to be over, but this was a paramilitary group that was intimidating many Catholics living in working class communities in Northern Ireland.

Robert McCartney had a fiancee and five sisters. These six women all survived him, and they wanted his murderers arrested and brought before the courts for criminal trials. When there were no activities by the police and no arrests, the six women organized massive protest demonstrations in Belfast. They gained the attention and sympathy of many observers, including President George W. Bush. President Bush entertained the sisters at the White House on St. Patrick's Day and declared that there should be no recourse to violence in the aftermath of crime. In response to these protests, Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, offered to arrange to have the people who had murdered McCartney killed by some I.R.A. hit men. The women refused this offer, stating firmly that what was needed in the case were legal process and legal justice, not revenge. The offer to murder the murderers deeply shocked many people, to whom it seemed to indicate that, despite occupying 18 seats in the Northern Ireland Parliament, Sinn Fein simply did not understand how democracy and the rule of law were supposed to work.

(John O-Sullivan, “Women Show Pols How to Handle I.R.A. Bullies,” Chicago Sun Times March 15, 2005; see also http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1363053/posts )

Were the women right to oppose the offer by Gerry Adams?

What is the rule of law?

When can it replace informal justice, offered by paramilitaries and other non-state groups?

Case (4)

During the nineteen eighties, Brian Mitchell was the Station Commander at a police station near Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. In 1988, there was a demonstration in a nearby community and Mitchell ordered shootings. As a result of his order, eleven people were killed. This event came to be known as the Trust Feed Massacre. In 1992, Mitchell was charged with murder and sentenced to death ‘eleven times over' because of these shooting. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Later Mitchell asked for amnesty from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the grounds that his order had been issued during the political conflict over apartheid. Brian Mitchell was given amnesty by the SA TRC, and then released from prison. He went to the community and expressed his remorse for the killings. Mitchell apologized for what he had done, asked the community to forgive him, stated that he wanted to help the community rebuild. A community leader, Thabane Nyoka, whose own mother was killed in the massacre, said that he was willing to forgive Mitchell and would welcome his involvement in rebuilding. Mitchell's efforts toward rebuilding have been handicapped, however, because he has been unemployed and has few resources that he can devote to this cause.

(This case is described in Fanie du Toit (editor), Learning to Live Together: Practices of Social Reconciliation . Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation 2003, pp. 36 – 42.)

Case (5)

The Reconciliation Walk began in 1996, when a group of Christians set out to walk through Europe to the Balkans, Istanbul, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Their idea was to trace the route of the Crusaders, pray, and ask Muslims and Jews for forgiveness for the actions taken during the first Crusade, 900 years earlier. During that Crusade, Christians committed atrocities against Arabs and Jews in the name of the Christian religion. The Reconciliation Walk participants carried printed versions of an apology which stated that the Crusades were motivated by racism, greed, and colonialism, and had brought violence and suffering to the Middle East. As they understood them, the Crusades did not express the true Christian gospel. Participants in the Reconciliation Walk wanted to express humility, which they saw as the true spirit of Jesus Christ. Reconciliation Walk participants believed that it was adherents of their religion who were to blame for centuries of misunderstanding and violence in relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

The Reconciliation Walk was mocked by many observers who claimed that it was absurd for this group to try to represent Christianity as a whole and to apologize for deeds committed some 900 years before their walk was undertaken. Obviously, none of these participants would have been alive during the first Crusade -- so they could not possibly bear any responsibility for any atrocities that had been committed at that time. Nevertheless, participants reported that their messages of apology were well received. One imam said, “I was astonished and filled with hope.” A Turkish policeman was moved to tears.

(Information on the Reconciliation Walk may be found at http://www.soon.org.uk/page15.htm , http://www.probe.org/docs/crusades-wrong.html , and http://www.itnet.org/recwalk2.html . )

Case (6)

Ivan and Dmitry are brothers, now in their forties. Their grandfather was sent to a prison camp because he was accused of anti-government sentiments. Because of this, their mother had an extremely difficult childhood. She lived in really poor conditions and was denied educational opportunities because her family background was politically acceptable according to the standards of the time. Their mother never overcame the difficulties of her youth and in their turn Ivan and Dmitry had a rough childhood. Their mother was a quarrelsome and difficult person, and she beat them frequently.

Thinking that oppression and lack of legal process affected their whole lives, Ivan and Dmitry would like to see the post-communist government of their country acknowledge the wrongs done to their grandfather and millions of persons like him. They would like the government to acknowledge the wrongs of the past by establishing memorials and publishing the lists of names of the millions of people who lived and died in these camps. Their friends tell them not to bother, claiming that it was long ago and just about everybody was a victim of abuse by the government in those times. Besides, they argue, the country needs to put its resources into moving forward, not looking backward.

Should these past policies, and their victims, be acknowledged? If so, in what form?

Case (7)

When Simon Wiesenthal was a young man, he was a demoralized and starving prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. One day he was removed from work duty and taken to a hospital where a young Nazi SS man lay dying. The soldier, Kurt, had wanted a Jew to be brought to him. Before dying, he wanted to confess some of the terrible things he had done and ask for forgiveness from a Jewish person. Kurt hoped to receive that forgiveness before he died. As a prisoner in a brutal camp, Simon felt himself to be a defenseless and subhuman creature and found it almost incomprehensible that this dying man, who was a member of what was supposedly a super-race, wanted something from him.

Kurt confessed to Simon that he had killed many Jewish people. In one especially brutal action, Kurt had helped to herd a large crowd of Jews into a house, set the house ablaze, and watched them burn to death. They screamed, and the Nazis shot any who tried to escape. Kurt felt deep remorse after these events, and he was later unable to shoot in battle. Hearing Kurt tell the story on his deathbed, Simon believed that Kurt was remorseful, but he did not believe that he was in a position to forgive Kurt. He did not answer Kurt's plea for forgiveness and left the hospital room without saying a word.

Simon Wiesenthal still wonders about this event, which he has poignantly described in a story called “The Sunflower.” Simon Wiesenthal has asked many people to comment on this story and explain whether they think he should have forgiven Kurt, and whether they themselves would have forgiven him, had they been in Simon's place.

What do you think? Why?

The story and essays in response may be found in Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (New York: Schocken Books 1997).

Case (8)

Mrs Zamela lives in poor conditions in a township in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Her daughter Nosipho was killed during the conflict over apartheid. In the nineteen eighties, there was considerable violence in South African townships, which were largely controlled by gangs of young people who had no respect for law. Laws were based on principles of racial discrimination, and people fighting against apartheid had become accustomed to violence. Sometimes township gangs killed people they suspected of being collaborators with that government. Nosipho was accused of having an affair with a policeman. She was labeled an informer. Nosipho was ‘necklaced,' meaning that a tire was placed over her neck, gasoline was poured into it, and she was forced to set it on fire, so that she burned to death. No one came to mourn Nosipho's death with her mother.

Nearly twenty years later, Mrs Zamela lives in the same community with people who watched her daughter die. Mrs Zamela is fearful and sad. She has received no compensation or assistance from the government.

She did not testify about her loss at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, because she feels shame as the mother of an identified collaborator. What would be the most appropriate attitude for Mrs Zamela to take toward these people in her community? Avoidance? Confrontation? Forgiveness? Reconciliation?

Should the South African government or any other group be taking measures to consider and redress the families of those who were ‘necklaced'?

(Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, “The Rupture of Necklace Murders: A Need for Psychological and Broader Strategies of Reparation,” in Erik Doxtader and Charles Villa-Vicencio, editors, To Repair the Irreparable: Reparation and Reconstruction in South Africa . Claremont, South Africa: David Philip Publishers 2004; pp. 256 – 264.)

Case (9)

Before 1978, Elsa's family had owned a substantial house in Prague. When the communists took over the government in 1948, that house was made the property of the state. Elsa's grandparents, father, and aunt moved to a small village, where they lived in humble surroundings. Then, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, her father and mother fled the country, together with their two daughters. They moved to Canada, where they were accepted as refugees.

Elsa got a good education in Canadian universities and eventually became a dentist. She owns a nice home in Canada and has a good salary. In 1993, Elsa returned to Prague hoping to reclaim the family home. She found that some thirty people had been settled in it and had no other place to live.

As the only living descendant of her grandparents, Elsa has a valid legal title to this property. Her family was wronged when the property was taken away from them by an oppressive government, and they suffered as a result of this loss. However, the people presently living in the house were not responsible for the original confiscation and they would find it difficult to obtain other accommodations if Elsa were to claim the property. What should she do? And for what reasons?

(Based on cases described in John Borneman, Settling Accounts: Violence, Justice, and Accountability in Postsocialist Europe . Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997)

Case (10)

Erik was a border guard serving at the Berlin Wall in 1989. Following orders, he shot and killed a man who was trying to escape the German Democratic Republic and flee into West Berlin. After the reunification of Germany, such shootings were regarded as illegal. Erik was one of forty people indicted for crimes committed on the border. He was convicted of manslaughter and served two years in prison.

After his release, should Erik be regarded as a criminal? Should people accept him back into the community and regard him as a citizen in good standing in the new Germany?

(Based on cases in Borneman, Settling Accounts , pp. 67 – 68.)