Truth commissions and trials have been applauded as the way to move on from a violent past. Yet, some post-conflict societies managed to move toward reconciliation without the presence, or the effective presence of such formal institutions. This article discusses a number of lessons learned from Maluku, where reconciliation took the interdependence path. Taking on an interpretive, emic approach, it elaborates on the sites and mechanisms of interdependence. It argues that interdependence can be as viable as truth and justice procedures in bringing about reconciliation.Keywords:interdependence; reconciliation; Maluku conflict.
Abstrak
The collaborative “Sites of Violence, Sites of Peace” project seeks to transform the relational landscape of Yogyakarta by enabling new intergenerational conversations about the 1965 politicide in Indonesia and further injustices with other marginalized communities. This community-engaged project developed walking tours of (largely unacknowledged) sites of historic violence: a colonial fort turned national museum, a derelict office building, a refurbished bank. Through these tours, sites of past suffering are activated by unheard survivor testimonies, making visible historical injustice and its contemporary and enduring significance. Unsettling the dominant spatial arrangement of Yogyakarta, the tours rewrite the city as a space where injustice and persecution are experienced. Crucially, the tour is also a relational encounter, facilitating intergenerational conversations that challenge social and political exclusionary norms. It, thereby, enables a form of relational justice, which requires active involvement from fellow citizens, not solely redress from the state.
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