Ruth Jamieson1
Denial, Acknowledgement and Reconciliation
Introduction
Much of the discussion of truth and reconciliation has been framed in terms of the
recovery of `the truth' about past events as a means of restoring the trust relationship
which have been broken by war and civil conflict. The assumption is that once the truth is
retrieved from the various competing narratives about the conflict, then the healing of
communal wounds will surely follow. The foundation for building reconciliation,
according to this model is for each party to the conflict to tell its story and for the other to
acknowledge its truth. I order for this to happen all parties must overcome the tendency
for the truth about atrocities to be believed or disbelieved solely on the basis of group
loyalty. As George Orwell observed,
Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his
own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence. […] But unfortunately
the truth about atrocities is far worse than that they are lied about and made into
propaganda. The [worse] truth is that they happen.2
What necessarily follows from this is the deceptively simple realisation that the aim of
any truth and reconciliation process cannot only be about retrieving and acknowledging
the truth about the past; it must also be about understanding how such things happened in
order to prevent the repetition of atrocities in the future. Acknowledgement of past
atrocities is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for bringing about reconciliation.
The aim of my comments today will be to explore the relationship between denial,
acknowledgement and reconciliation. I will be drawing extensively on Stanley Cohen's
recent work on the psychology of denial and the various ways in which `states of denial'
operate in public discourses on atrocities and gross human rights violations.3 I will start
by briefly outlining Cohen's work on denial and then I will go on to suggest some of the
ways in which his conceptual framework might help to inform our discussion of what
form of reconciliation process might be appropriate for the former Yugoslavia.
1
Department of Criminology, Keele University, UK, Email: r.jamieson@qub.ac.uk
Orwell, George (1984) `Looking Back on the Spanish War, a footnote on atrocities', in Orwell, Sonia
and Ian Angus (eds.) The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 2, My
Country Right or Left, 1940-1943, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 289-90.
3
The time available does not permit anything other than a very general précis of Cohen's ideas here.
Those interested in his detailed arguments should see Cohen, Stanley (2001) States of Denial: Knowing
about Atrocities and Suffering Cambridge: Polity Press.
2
My paper is in three parts. Firstly, I will examine Cohen's concept of denial as it applies
to the operation of denial at the level of both the individual and whole societies.
Secondly, I will outline his conception of the possible forms acknowledgement may take
and how these discourses of denial/ acknowledgement play out at the personal,
community and political levels. Corollary to this are the questions of whether it is
possible to have too much acknowledgement of past suffering and what effects this might
have for the prospects of reconciliation. Finally, I will conclude by offering some
remarks on what constitutes reconciliation, how over-acknowledgement militates against
it, and how one might begin to think about reconciliation in the context of the former
Yugoslavia. I must emphasize that my comments are primarily concerned with the ways
in which debates and processes of truth and reconciliation are framed in discourse. I am
not advancing an argument advocating any particular model or process for the Former
Yugoslavia.
Denial
The are two main points that need to be made about denial. The first is that denial
operates at two levels - at the level of the individual psyche and at the level of rhetoric in
public discourse. At the level of the individual psyche, `denial is an unconscious defence
mechanism for coping with guilt, anxiety or other disturbing emotions aroused by
external reality'. The unconscious mind sets up a barrier that prevents threatening external
realities from reaching the conscious mind, for example, the cancer patient who does not
accept that she is terminally ill. Denial serves to keep out `unthinkable, unbearable,
unacceptable [external] realities' whereas repression is about suppressing disturbing inner
emotional states or memories.4 The second point that Cohen makes is that there are
echoes of these states of denial operating at the level of the social group. Here denial
serves the group's `need to be free of a troubling recognition' of wrongdoing on its part.5
Thus at the social level denial refers to ` the maintenance of social worlds in which
undesirable situation (event, condition or phenomenon such as domestic violence, racism,
homophobia) is unrecognised, ignored or made to seem normal. What binds us to the
group is not only a shared cultural repertoire of understandings, but also emotional and
moral ties.6 These work together to allow the group as a whole to block out unwelcome
truths about itself. In this way, Cohen argues, the suffering of others can be `normalised,
contained and covered up'.7 He suggests that denial works through four dynamic
elements: the cognitive (denying or not acknowledging the facts), the emotional (not
feeling), moral (not recognising harm or responsibility) and action dimension (not
recognising the need to act or change).8 In its rhetorical form - as distinct from its
working at the level of the individual psyche - denial (e.g., official statements about past
atrocities) may take three forms.
4
5
6
7
8
Ibid. p. 118
Ibid. p. 33.
Ibid. p. 19.
Ibid. p. 51.
Ibid. p. 9.
2
Literal denial:
The fact or knowledge of the fact is denied.
"Nothing happened at My Lai. There was no massacre of civilians."
Interpretive denial:
The fact is accepted, but its meaning or conventional interpretation is contested.
"What happened at My Lai wasn't what you say it was."
Cohen emphases that, while interpretive denials are not outright lies, their effect
nonetheless is to blur the boundary between rhetoric and reality.9
Implicatory denial:
The fact is accepted and the conventional interpretation of the facts is accepted,
but the psychological or moral significance is disputed.
"Yes, civilians were massacred at My Lai, but they invited it by sheltering Viet
Cong forces in the past."
In this last form of denial what is in dispute is not the facts or the truth about the atrocity,
but its moral significance, the moral imperative to do something about it, to accept
responsibility for it. Blame is deflected to the victims. Members of the enemy group are
treated as though they exist outside the moral boundaries of one's own group and thereby
excluded from any claims to empathy or moral responsibility. Because they are outside
the moral boundaries of the group it is easier both rhetorically and psychologically to
dismiss their claims to our sympathy or care. The difference between knowing about the
suffering of those close to you and the suffering of distant others, as Cohen points out, is
`too primeval to need to be spelt out'. Ties of culture, history and loyalty bind us all and
these ties make it harder to acknowledge wrongdoing by our own people.10 None of
these forms of denial - literal, interpretive or implicatory - permit the acknowledgment of
the suffering of the victim. As long as there is denial, there cannot be acknowledgement.
Without acknowledgement, there can be no reconciliation.
Acknowledgement
Cohen argues that there are different gradations of acknowledgement ranging from a
more or less complete acknowledgement of the facts, their meaning and consequences to
an only partial acknowledgement of them.
Complete acknowledgement is a form of acknowledgement in which the fact, its
meaning and its consequences are all accepted. "Yes it happened. We did do it. It
was wrong, harmful, a crime."
Complete acknowledgement is unusual for perpetrator governments (for example,
by the American government about its actions in Vietnam). It is usually outside
observers who are most willing to make complete acknowledgement of gross
human rights violations or war crimes.
9
10
Ibid. p.108.
Ibid. pp.18-19.
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Partial acknowledgement is a form of acknowledgement in which the fact, its
meaning and its consequences are only partly accepted. Partial acknowledgement
is more typical of perpetrator governments (for example, Israel about its treatment
of the Palestinians or the British about the treatment of political prisoners in
Northern Ireland). There are three main rhetorical devices for making only a
partial acknowledgement of atrocities, all of which draw upon shared cultural
understandings or explanations of these forms of noxious behaviour. These
rhetorical devices are:
Spatial isolation -
The systematic, routine, repeated or ongoing nature of the
harmful action is denied.
"Yes it happened, but it was only an isolated incident (these
things were done by a few rogues who are not really like
the rest of us, or done by the big fish, not by us, etc.)."
Temporal isolation - "Yes it used to happen in the past, but it doesn't happen
now."
Self-correction -
"Yes, we are aware of the problem, and we are trying to
deal with it."11
Of course, another possible permutation of partial acknowledgement is that two messages
can be communicated and received at the same time. One is the message that is contained
in official pronouncements (e.g., "Women civilians are entitled to protection from attack
by the Geneva Conventions."). The other is the `gut level' message ("It's OK to rape their
women.") which is the opposite of the official policy. The Japanese call this level of
intuitive communication `haragei' or `stomach talk'. So another potential obstacle to
reconciliation is that there may be a `stomach talk' conversation excusing and justifying
atrocities going on underneath formal statements of acknowledgement, particularly if the
formal statements of acknowledgement come from the top down.
In a recent article about the reluctance of Americans to acknowledge their war crimes in
Vietnam (or indeed the recent NATO bombings) Jonathan Schell points out that few
things are harder to do than an honest voluntary accounting by a nation of its own
crimes.12 He argues that when others commit the crimes, we seem to look at events
through a `moral telescope' which brings far away events nearer and into sharp focus, but
when our own people commit the crimes,
… we seem to look through the telescope's other end. The figures are small and
indistinct. A kind of mental and emotional fog rolls in. Memories dim. The very
acts that before inspired prompt anger now become fascinating philosophical
11
Ibid. p. 109-113.
Schell, Jonathan (2001) `War and Accountability', The Nation (May 21 2001) printed from
http://www.thenation.com.
12
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puzzles. The psychological torments of the perpetrators move into the foreground,
those of the victims into the background. The man firing the gun becomes more of
an object of pity than the child at whom the gun was fired.
It is all too easy to acknowledge our own group's suffering and at the same time deny,
dismiss or avoid dealing with the harm we inflicted on our enemies. The more difficult
challenge is to apply the same standard of judgement regardless of social or national ties,
and to view our own and others' actions through the same moral lens.
Over-acknowledgement
I want to conclude this discussion of acknowledgement with some remarks about the
possibility of over-acknowledgement. We tend to think that all acknowledgement must
somehow promote a catharsis or healing of past injustices. We also tend to assume that
the more acknowledgment there is, the better. However, it is arguable that it is possible to
have too much acknowledgment of past victimisation, especially when it becomes a
central theme of a chauvinistic narratives of national martyrdom and past victimhood. At
the level of the individual, the danger posed by over-acknowledgment is that the
traumatised person becomes engulfed in his or her own victimhood. When this happens
there is no closure, catharsis or healing of the past, but only a pathological and permanent
immersion in it. At the level of the national group, over-acknowledgement of past
injustices may provide the justification for self-righteous, pre-emptive vicitimisation of
the past perpetrator, thereby perpetuating the vicious cycle of victimisation, fear and
terrible [righteous] revenge. Rwanda, Northern Ireland and the Balkans are telling
examples of this. The list of such cyclical conflicts is depressingly long. Bauman astutely
observes that the problem with claims to righteousness by either victims or victors,
whether the claims are made by others, or ourselves is that
Victors, triumphant or frustrated, do not emerge ennobled … but neither do (at
least not necessarily) their victims. Victims are not always ethically superior to
their oppressors; what makes them look morally better, and makes credible their
claim to this effect, is the fact that - being weaker - they have had less opportunity
to be cruel.13
George Orwell cogently expresses the destructive potential of over-acknowledgement:
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of
facts .… The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by
his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about
them…. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, not
and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed
aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may
enter into ever calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one's own
mind.… Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered .…
Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their
13
Bauman, Zymunt (1995) Life in Fragments Oxford: Blackwell, p.183.
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context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events, which is felt, ought
not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied.… Indifference
to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing off of one part of the world from
the other, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually
happening.… If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or
hatred, certain facts although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.14
Larry Ray who advances an important argument about nationalist narratives and
remembrance also takes up this theme. He argues that one of the preconditions for violent
and potentially genocidal nationalism may lie in the apparently routine rituals thorough
which national pasts are remembered and constructed, particularly when the
commemoration is of past defeat or victimisation. It is precisely because of their
emotional and sacrificial power that memories of collective injustice or defeat may be
more central in the promotion of violent nationalism than the `faked up glories and
imagined pasts' of standard nationalist rhetoric.15 Clearly, what follows from this is that,
when we speak of `healing through remembering' as is currently being mooted as a
means of reconciliation in Northern Ireland, we need to be aware that the content and
emotional salience of what is remembered may be far more important in determining
future relations between the previously warring communities than the act of remembering
itself. Whatever form the commemoration of the Irish Troubles takes, victimhood must
not be thematised along sectarian lines. Leaving it to sectarian or nationalist groups to
construct their own pasts and fill their own museums is offering the proverbial hostage to
fortune. Remembrance can just as easily enable the evasion of acknowledgment as it can
promote the process of healing. Remembrance and acknowledgement are not
synonymous.
Cohen suggests that when nationalism revolves around over-acknowledgement of past
injuries, it is `not merely narcissistic, but autistic'.16 He cites Ignatieff's observation that
… the pathology of groups so enclosed in their own circle of self-righteous
victimhood, or so locked in their own myths or rituals of violence, [is] that they
can't listen, can't hear, can't learn from anybody outside themselves.17
Cohen stresses the importance of preventing these more virulent forms of overacknowledgement becoming the driving force of political cultures because collective
memories of injustice can lend a veneer of righteousness to agendas for revenge and
hatred.18 What we learn form this is that acknowledgement of the truth about the past whether complete, partial or excessive - does not automatically lead to reconciliation.
People who have been victims of war quite rightly desire acknowledgement of their
suffering and loss, but at the same time, they may find it difficult to acknowledge the
14
George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism quoted in Cohen (2001) frontispiece.
Ray, Larry (1999) `Memory, Trauma, and Genocidal Nationalism', Sociological Research Online 4(2)
para. 2.6. http://www.socresearchonline.org.uk/socresearchonline/4/2/ray.html
16
`Autism' is a form of mental introversion in which the attention of the person is fixed on their own ego.
The austic inhabits a self-centred state that cuts him off from external relations and reality.
17
Michael Ignatieff (1998: 59) quoted in Cohen, op. cit. p. 97.
18
Ibid. p. 245.
15
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victims who suffered at the hands of their own group. It is at the level of group loyalty
that the challenge of acknowledgement is greatest. To be restorative, acknowledgement
must involve listening `against the grain' of accepted cultural narratives about victimhood
and responsibility.19
To be restorative, acknowledgement must be reciprocal and dialogic. For
acknowledgement of the suffering of the other to occur, you have to be able to find a way
of transcending the `frontier of your own suffering'20 and of including former enemies
inside the boundaries of your own moral community. So there are two problems to
overcome: the problems of speaking and listening against the grain and the problem of
over-acknowledgement.
I want to conclude by suggesting one way of beginning to speak about and listen to
people's accounts of their experiences of violence, trauma and loss. Rather than starting
with accounts of victimisation and loss which are framed in terms of national or ethnic
identity, these war stories could be thematised according to common social identities, for
example, how the conflict affected all mothers, wives, refugees, orphans, fathers, sons
and daughters across all of the former Yugoslavia (or Ireland, or Rwanda, or any other
fratricidal war). This would displace ethnic difference as the most salient element of the
stories of victimisation. Then the terrible nature of war for all involved would come into
sharpest focus, rather than only the iniquities of the enemy.
19
Livesey, Louise (2002) `Telling it like it is: Understanding Adult Women's Life Long Disclosures of
Childhood Sexual Abuse', in C. Horrocks, K. Miles, B. Roberts and D. Robinson (eds.) Memory, Narrative
and Life Transitions, Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield.
20
Adam Michnik (1994) quoted in Cohen, op. cit. p. 248.
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