‘Order Out of Chaos’: The Politics of Transitional Justice

Abstract

This article critically assesses the application of the ‘transitional justice’ model of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. The model addresses a number of important issues for societies emerging from violent conflict, including victims' rights and dealing with the past. This article claims that the model is founded upon highly contentious political assumptions that give rise to a problematic framing of the issues involved. The underlying implication is that by eschewing basic political analysis in favour of unexamined ideals concerning conflict transformation, the TJ approach belies its commitment to truth recovery, victims' rights and democratic accountability.

Spectres of History: Nationalist Party Politics and Truth Recovery in Northern Ireland

“…The Provisional republican approach to truth recovery is not simply reflected in fellow travellers such as the Forgiveness Project, it draws sustenance and inspiration from research into the Northern Irish transition from violence to peace. In particular, it coincides with the dominant ways in which transitional justice is framed in Northern Ireland (McGrattan, 2009; Simpson, 2009b). Often, this is a result of academics directly advising community groups.…”

“…This idea underpins the policy position that ‘independence and credibility’ are ‘critical issues’ for dealing with the past and that truth recovery therefore necessitates ‘maximum involvement from the United Nations or a similar reputable organisation in the process [of truth recovery]’ (Sinn Féin, 2009, p. 8). Although the British state accounted for around 10 per cent of the total number of conflict‐related fatalities in comparison with the 58.8 per cent attributable to the PIRA and other republican terrorist groups (McKittrick et al ., 1999, p. 1482), in Sinn Féin's view ‘The British state was the major protagonist in the conflict’ (McGrattan, 2009, pp. 166–7).…”

“…This is in fact a common nationalist trope in which a community that repudiated violence and espoused democratic means of resolving the conflict is coupled with terrorists – a trope that, it should be said, is also mirrored in the Protestant community vis‐à‐vis nationalists/Catholics and the Provisional IRA (O'Connor, 1993, p. 144). Loyalist terrorist spokespersons have actually adopted the same self‐serving, self‐exculpatory approach of Provisional republicans (McGrattan, 2009). Lundy and McGovern's obliviousness to this dynamic reveals not only the limitations of the progressivist paradigm but also its potential for coinciding with ethnicised viewpoints.…”

“…By creating a discursive space in which ideas about the past and the future become contested, the truth recovery paradigm is, in fact, a disruptive presence within settlement processes: it conjures into existence ideas about communal identities, visions of the future and narratives that describe how alternative presents could have been reached or remain lost in the past (Derrida, 1994; Gordon, 2008). In other words, the very debate about truth recovery and reconciliation alters how we experience time and how we articulate our identities simply because to do so introduces fluid and erstwhile ungraspable elements into political discourse (McGrattan, 2009). As Marysia Zalewski points out, the Derridean examination of ‘haunting’ speaks to this uncertainty as it reveals or ‘captures’ aspects of social life that typically evade ‘mainstream social scientific devices’ (Zalewski, 2005, p. 204).…”

Materialising Power Struggles of Political Imprisonment at Long Kesh/Maze Prison, Northern Ireland

“…This question of how we deal with the past, which was one of the contentious issues bypassed by the Belfast Agreement (1998;McGrattan 2009), has affected not only how the site has been discussed by the government but the level of access that has been allowed to researchers. As a result, since 2004 I have gained access to the site only four times, always accompanied by guides and taken on tours following their itineraries.…”