article d'après chapitre de thèse «Chili»

RECONCILING THE NATION1JUSTICE, TRUTH AND INSTITUTIONALIZED POLITICAL TRANSITION © 2001, Stéphane Leman-Langlois9 522 wordsAbstract: 109 wordspublished on website onlyAbstractThis paper analyses the construction of a discourse of “reconciliation” and “justice” in post-apartheid South Africa. Reconciliation not only meant different things to different people, but thearticulation of this meaning was fundamentally important in the invention of many institutions andpolicies, and especially in the effort to deal with the violence and inequities of the past. Yetapparent consensus was reached in South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC) eventually emerged as the best solution to the problem of transitional justice. Evidencesuggests that this consensus was made possible, and heavily structured, by the metaphorical powerof stories such as that of the “Chilean national reconciliation.”1. INTRODUCTIONWhat more laudable goal than that of reconciling the nation after destructive policies andinstitutionalized injustice, of restoring peace, order and the rule of law, of establishing andguaranteeing the equality of each and every citizen? Such goals, and such language, are thefundamental building blocks of the reassuring, optimistic, stimulating form of public speechthat Edelman (1964) has called “hortatory speech.” The South African Truth andReconciliation Commission (TRC) was instituted as part of a social project articulated in thisform ...