The Truth Will Set You Free? The Promises and Pitfalls of Truth‐Telling for Indigenous Emancipation

Abstract

First Nations in Australia are beginning to grapple with processes of treaty‐making with state governments and territories. As these processes gain momentum, truth‐telling has become a central tenet of imagining Indigenous emancipation and the possibility of transforming relationships between Indigenous and settler peoples. Truth, it is suggested, will enable changed ways of knowing what and who “Australia” is. These dynamics assume that truth‐telling will benefit all people, but will truth be enough to compel change and provide an emancipated future for Indigenous people? This article reports on Australian truth‐telling processes in Victoria, and draws on two sets of extant literature to understand the lessons and outcomes of international experience that provide crucial insights for these processes—that on truth‐telling commissions broadly, and that focusing specifically on a comparable settler colonial state process, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The article presents a circumspect assessment of the possibilities for Indigenous emancipation that might emerge through truth‐telling from our perspective as a team of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous critical scholars. We first consider the normative approach that sees truth‐telling as a potentially flawed but worthwhile process imbued with possibility, able to contribute to rethinking and changing Indigenous–settler relations. We then consider the more critical views that see truth‐telling as rehabilitative of the settler colonial state and obscuring ongoing colonial injustices. Bringing this analysis into conversation with contemporary debate on truth‐telling in Australia, we advocate for the simultaneous adoption of both normative and critical perspectives to truth‐telling as a possible way forward for understanding the contradictions, opportunities, and tensions that truth‐telling implies.

Truth commissions in the established democracies of the Global North: Theoretical and practical perspectives

“…Moreover, the perception that such commissions enable putting the past in the past and consequently "resolve" the issue-an idea rooted in the transitional justice lens-ultimately serves to justify the status quo, obscure the reality that legacies of harm are ongoing, and ultimately, legitimize the state in the absence of material or structural change (see Coulthard, 2014;Maddison et al, 2023).…”

“…Still, affected communities are increasingly demanding truth commissions (or similar truth‐telling measures) for addressing racial and/or settler colonial injustices, with clear preference for a more transformative justice approach (e.g., brown, 2000; James, 2012; Maddison et al., 2023; Racial Equity Tools, n.d.). In other words, an open‐ended process that takes stock of past injustices to address root causes, redress legacies, and ultimately, advance justice by radically and sustainably transforming the structures and cultures that generate (or enable) systemic violence and racial inequalities.…”

“…Consequently, Nagy (2012) and others have accused commissions-and other transitional justice measures-of forcing closure on victims and legitimizing the continuation of structural violence and inequality by implying that the important injustices of the past have been addressed (see also van der Merwe & Lykes, 2020). Maddison et al (2023) argue that for commissions occurring in settler colonial contexts, such a framing also serves to justify the continuation of the settler colonial status quo notwithstanding the active and contested sovereignty claims. They explain, "Through truth-telling, the state seeks a moment of colonial completion, a moment in which it can place the harms of colonisation in the past and move forward as a notionally postcolonial, newly legitimate political order" (p.4).…”

“…Perhaps the most established of the critiques refers to the often neglected structural violence and inequality (Miller, 2008; Nagy, 2012; Sarkin, 2019) including group inequalities (i.e., horizontal inequalities) that are commonly a legacy of historical bias, colonialism, slavery, and/or dispossession (Achiume, 2019; Gready & Robins, 2014). Moreover, as a result of truth commissions' tendency to narrowly focus on the most recent conflict period, they obscure the historical injustices responsible for fostering such inequalities (Maddison et al., 2023; Yusuf, 2021). For instance, critics argue the South African TRC's narrow focus on gross violations of human rights (e.g., killings and torture) during select years of apartheid, ultimately, reduced apartheid to “a story of specific human right violations” (Maddison et al., 2023, p. 7) rather than recognizing it, more contextually and comprehensively, as “long‐term, systemic abuses born of a colonial project with economic objectives” (Miller, 2008, p. 280).…”

“…Maddison et al. (2023) argue that for commissions occurring in settler colonial contexts, such a framing also serves to justify the continuation of the settler colonial status quo notwithstanding the active and contested sovereignty claims. They explain, “Through truth‐telling, the state seeks a moment of colonial completion, a moment in which it can place the harms of colonisation in the past and move forward as a notionally postcolonial, newly legitimate political order” (p.4).…”