Memory History Violence Reconciliation Intro

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Memory/History, Violence, and Reconciliation: Introduction

Maureen N. Eke

Marie Kruger

Mildred Mortimer

Research in African Literatures, Volume 43, Number 1, Spring 2012,

pp. 65-69 (Article)

Published by Indiana University Press

DOI: 10.1353/ral.2012.0020

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RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Spring 2012). 2012

MEMORY/HISTORY,

VIOLENCE, AND

RECONCILIATION

IntroductionMAUREEN N. EKE, MARIE KRUGER, AND MILDRED MORTIMER,GUEST EDITORS

Anumber of African nations have been born out of, or nd themselves emerg-ing from, a history of violent conict. In their attempt to redene the inter-actions of national, regional, and local communities, these nationsSouth

Africa, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone are outstanding examples in this regardhaveworked towards achieving signicant cultural and political self-transformationsthrough institutional mediations that range from nationally televised Truth andReconciliation Commissions to local negotiations of restorative justice (as inRwandas gacaca tribunals).

Yet the reconciliation of highly stratied societies appears impossible without

examining fundamental questions of identity, history, and power and the institu-tional contexts in which they are enacted. All too often, colonial ctions of race andethnicity left Africanswith troubling and problematic categories of identicationthat have proven opportune vehicles for political manipulation. And if the Africanpostcolonial era ushers in intranational struggles over access to and allocation ofresources, we see these struggles acquiring a new intensity and ferocity in not afew places on the continent as new corporate or privatized forms of sovereigntyand violence have emerged. These new developmentsas the agents behindthem have fostered a reinvention of African identities by deft manipulation ofindigenousness and ancestral descent (Mbembe 86)have been responsible

for the dissolution of existing territorial, institutional, and moral frameworks. Inthis complex cultural and historical landscape, we ask how African writers have


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66 RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES VOLUME 43 NUMBER 1

engaged with processes of restorative justice, imagined new discourses on rightsand responsibilities and, in general, acknowledged the humanity of the other.

This collection of essays for Research in African Literatures emerged from a

panel organized and chaired by Maureen N. Eke at the African Studies Associa-tion Meeting in Chicago in 2008. We three editors of this cluster of papers rst pre-sented papers at the panel and subsequently decided to propose them to RAL asa study of the themes of memory, history, violence, and reconciliation. We invitedsubmissions that explore African writers engagement with the historical, political,and institutional contexts that enable and/or disable attempts at reconciliation. Wecalled for articles that address the following questions: To what extent do institu-tions of national and colonial modernity, and in particular discourses of race andethnicity, impact contemporary political relations? How are public spaces andlegal institutions, such as TRCs and local tribunals, involved in the investigation ofindividual and collective responsibilities? As territorial borders and institutionalstructures shift towards new congurations, what are the new relations of servi-tude and coercion, but also of collaboration and support, in postcolonial Africansocieties? What is the role of memory and history, individual and collective, in theconstruction of new national communities? To what extent does the discoveryof the truth about the past reveal hidden and forgotten histories? How do thedynamics of gender intersect with efforts at social restoration and collaboration?

In spite of national, cultural, and geopolitical differences among the nations(real and ctitious) portrayed in the works our essays address, the experiences ofgenocidal violence have a commonalitythe obliteration of human life and dig-nity. If, as Martha Minow suggests, [a] most appalling goal of the genocides, themassacres, systematic rapes, and tortures has been the destruction of the remem-brance of individuals as well as of their lives and dignity . . . (1), the works ouressays explore resist such annihilation by giving voice to memory, thus, recuper-ating the dignity of those who have been wounded. The articles that follow focuson the search for and negotiation of truth through the process of reconciliation ina variety of African nationsfrom Algeria and Liberia in northern and westernAfrica to South Africa and the eastern African countries of Kenya and Tanzania.These articles include studies of prominent African writers and directors such as

Assia Djebar, Euphrase Kezilahabi, and Ramadan Suleman, as well as those ofemerging voices: Leonora Miano, Gilbert Gatore, Boima Fahnbulleh.The works we examine in this collection of essays suggest that the process

of reconciliation serves as a conduit for gaining access to experiences of trauma,past wounds, (un)recovered histories, memories, and truths. The essays in thisvolume, therefore, interrogate the ways in which the writers, individuals, andnations (real or ctitious) that have experienced genocidal violence arrive at someway of making sense of their experiences. In examining these texts, the essays alsoproblematize the nature of justice and truth, as well as the relationship betweenmemory and history.

Three articles focus on francophone works. Within this group, ElizabethApplegate examines a narrative that centers on the Rwandan genocide. Applegatesarticle, a study of Gilbert Gatores novel Le pass devant soi [The Past before Us],discusses the issues of identity and reconciliation posed by a text that questionsthe power of writing as a means to reect reality and as a practice that allowsRwandan survivors to reconcile with their traumatic pasts. What are the different


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MAUREENN.EKE,MARIEKRUGER,ANDMILDREDMORTIMER,GUESTEDITORS 67

ways of recuperating the reality of a horric event? Le pass devant soi, as thecritic notes, uses several different iterations of a folktale depicting a swallow anda toad to suggest that identity and personal history can be reinvented. In keeping

with the themes of this issue, her essay explores the ways in which literary textsnegotiate the issues of violence and of remembering as a reconciliatory process.

In contrast to studies of texts specic to Rwanda, Janice Spleths article takesus to a ctitious community in an unspecied African country. Although LonoraMianos LIntrieur de la nuit (Dark Heart of the Night) is set in an African country notclearly associated with any real nation and carries a completely ctitious name, thenature of the civil war depicted there shares military and political characteristicswith insurrections resembling those in Liberia or Sierra Leone. There are detailsthat might recall conicts throughout Central Africa as well. Spleths analysis ofMianos novel focuses on her depiction of womens place in this imaginary com-munity: how it is dened at the beginning of the novel, how it is appropriated bythe insurgents to force the cooperation of the villagers, and how its traditionaldimensions are eventually challenged by the trauma engendered by the experi-ences. In other words, the concept of home, normally a place of tranquility andsecurity, is redened by terrorism, with womens spaces and womens minds

becoming battleelds in Africas civil conicts. In Spleths view, Mianos ctionalexploration of war and its consequences suggests that as divided nations strivefor reconciliation, solutions will not be limited to a mere return to previous socialstructures, but that processes of reconstruction can also provide opportunitiesfor new visions.

Mildred Mortimer puts the focus on the Algerian War, examining the historicrole of women within the North African nations liberation struggle. Mortimerdraws upon three sourcesAssia Djebars ction, Louisette Ighilarizs memoir, andDanile Djamila Amrane-Minnes historical studiesto address two interrelatedquestions posed by the theme of this volume: To what extent does the search forthe truth about the past reveal hidden and forgotten histories? How do thedynamics of gender intersect with efforts at social restoration and collaboration?The three texts are forms of testimonial literature that attest to the extreme physi-cal and psychological demands of intense political engagement: the activist risks

losing her life at any time.In their discussions of individual and collective memories of violence inKenya and Tanzania, South Africa and Liberia, the articles by Aaron Rosen-berg, Marie Kruger, and David Mastey as well as the review essay by CatherineMuhoma further expand the geographical purview of this special issue.AaronRosenberg translates the search for new discourses on rights and responsibilitiesinto the Tanzanian context when he discusses how artists such as Euphrase Kezila-habi and Saida Karoli challenge ofcial narratives of power. Kezilahabis well-known Swahili novel, Rosa Mistika, and Karolis multilingual song performancesin Swahili, Luhya, and English are intended to expose patriarchal institutions that

shape gender identities within ethnic and national communities. Rosenberg main-tains that even if ofcial cultural scripts subject women to violent and traumaticexperiences, the creative interventions of both artists demonstrate that culturalmemory is always open to social revision and change. His arguments thus engagewith two central questions examined in this volume: How have African artistsimagined new ethnic and national societies in their creative works, and how do


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the dynamics of gender intersect with their efforts to envision alternative com-munities? His essay also allows this volume to transition beyond Anglophone andFrancophone texts and to consider creative media and languages often sidelined

in postcolonial scholarship.Marie Krugers article on the South African lm Zulu Love Letter extends

the focus of this volume by considering cinematic representations of politicallymotivated violence and the profoundly disabling ramications of such violencefor individual and social bodies. Specically, Kruger examines the devastatingeffects of traumatic memory on the lms protagonist, Thandeka Khumalo, apolitical activist, mother, and journalist who risked her life in the ght againstthe apartheid regime. Kruger argues that the main characters painful journeyrecognizes the moral ambivalence of a victim who has to learn to forgive herselffor a past for which she holds herself responsible. With its frequent temporal shifts,highly subjective point of view, and self-conscious narration, the lm employs arepresentational style that intends to represent the trauma of the past and its post-traumatic resonance in the present. Thus, the lm not only reects the limitationsof the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an ofcial space of reconciliationand forgiveness, but also demonstrates the aesthetic and ethical challenges ofrendering personal pain accessible to an audience often far removed from theexperience of the victim.

While the South African TRC provides a prominent institutional model forrestorative justice and the transition to democracy, David Masteys examination ofcontemporary Liberian literature reminds us that various other truth and recon-ciliation commissions have taken place on the African continent in the twentiethand twenty-rst centuries. His comparative analysis of two Liberian authorsshows the extent to which their coming-of-age narratives reect the mandate ofLiberias Truth and Reconciliation Commission to identify the complex originsof the fourteen-year civil war that devastated the West African state from 1989to 2003, [to] determine its perpetrators, and [to] recommend measures to preventfuture conicts. He argues that, even though the narratives feature protagonistswho advocate for an inclusive national identity, it is ultimately the Liberian reader,situated in the contemporary present, who has to engage with the ctional events

and accept fellow citizens of different ethnic afliations if the objectives of theTRCnational reconciliation and unityare to be successfully implemented.Indeed, the role of the audience as an active witness to the traumatic memory ofpolitically motivated violence, the revelation of forgotten and hidden histories, andthe challenges of translating such memories into different artistic media emergeas recurrent themes in the articles collected in this special issue.

Catherine Muhomas focus in her review essay is the work of memorial-izing done in the pages of Kwani? 5, an innovative and internationally successfulKenyan journal of creative and noncreative writing. Select testimonials about the2007 postelection violence in Kenya have been reproduced in the journal; and,

in Muhomas assessment, Kwani? 5 courageously stands out in having broughtto light the hidden and forgotten memories of the politically motivated troubles.The eyewitness accounts of the Kenyan violence offer the reader rare insights intoits causes, revealing truths long ignored or even deliberately denied in ofcialgovernment reports. The common themes reappearing in these testimonials (eco-nomic deprivation, struggles over land ownership and ethnic marginalization)


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subvert the governments politically opportune amnesia and instead demonstratethe manipulation of ethnic identity in the struggle for access to essential resources.Muhoma concludes that for institutions such as the Kenyan Truth, Justice and Rec-

onciliation Commission to succeed in establishing a democratic and accountableform of governance, it will be necessary that the narratives of pain, loss, suspicion,hatred and anger nd their place in the congregation of remembrance.

In conclusion, we would like to note that the logistics of bringing this volumeto fruition were somewhat complicated. We three editors, the three Ms, werein different geographical locations: Maureen in Michigan, Marie in Iowa, Mimigoing back and forth between Colorado and France. Yet, with the cooperation ofour contributors, we managed to adhere to the deadlines imposed for abstracts,papers, and the nal revised copy. We offer these essays as works that are engagedin a conversation with one another on the themes of the collection. We hope thatour readers will nd this group of essays informative and cause for reectionas they explore the themes of memory, history, violence, and reconciliation. Weare very pleased that the essays represented in this collection bring togetherscholars from academic institutions in Mexico, the United States, and Kenya inan effort to contribute to current debates that are agitating both African studiesand postcolonial studies.

WORKS CITED

Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: U of California P, 2001. Print.

Minow, Martha. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Boston: Beacon, 1998. Print.

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