Volume 3 Number 4 December 2004

DMITRI SHALIN examines the difficulties that fledgling democracies encounter on the way to civil society as they struggle to put behind their historical legacy. Its main thesis is that civic discourse is inseparable from the civic body which has been misshapen by past abuses and which takes a long time to heal. Drawing on Norbert Elias's work on the civilizing process, the author analyzes the emotion, demeanor, and the body language of democracy, and explores from this angle the prospects for democratic transformation in countries that are struggling to shake their totalitarian past.

ANDREW WOOLFORD draws an analytical distinction between `reparations as justicemaking' and `reparations as certainty-making' to provide a model for locating the British Columbia treaty process in the broader field of reparative politics. The BC treaty process was initiated in the early 1990s as a vehicle for addressing unresolved Aboriginal land claims. It was billed as a means to balance the goals of justice and certainty within the province; however, since its inception, the governments of Canada and British Columbia have been able to use their power advantage to privilege the goal of certainty at the negotiation tables. The result is a treaty process directed towards creating market-friendly economic, legal and political relations in BC, while largely bereft of any sense of historical reckoning. This ,certainty-making' project is described in this paper as a form of `affirmative repair.'

HAKAN SICAKKAN presents an argument against using singular notions of refugee in research. By mapping the historical and contemporary relationships between refugeehood and citizenship and by outlining the norms and ontologies underpinning the mainstream academic notions of refugee, it aims to demonstrate the deficiencies of singular refugee notions. Its overall argument is that the singular notions of refugee fail to identify and to recognize certain (new) human sufferings which constitute of the refugee condition and they detach the refugee notion from human rights. As an alternative, the article proposes conceptualizing the refugee based on multiple norms.

RIDWAN LAHER NYTAGODIEN and ARTHUR G. NEAL examine the political and social implications of trauma and memory in what is described as the age of apology. It presents a framework for reviewing the implications of state-crafted apologies and the effects of trauma. It argues that the past cannot be ignored. Confrontation is necessary as South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggests. However; formal apologies, legislation, or economic restitution cannot simply remedy traumas. The past must be reworked more holistically to include recognition that collective memory is mostly derived from ongoing structural inequities. This is necessary for a viable national identity and sense of moral community.

ARTISTOTELIS STAMOULAS examines the current case of the denial of religious freedom forJehovah's witnesses in Greece. Greece is frequently accused of obstructingJehovah's Witnesses rights to religious freedom, receiving in return a lengthy list of condemnatory rulings by the European Court of Human Rights for its conduct. Anti-religious freedom attitudes found fertile ground to flourish in the holistic model of the Orthodox church, its close association with the state in the course of history, and its strong influence on the lives of the people, all of which allow a nevertheless problematic sovereignty against all other religions. A view of Greek society as a traditionally collective structure that lacks the birthgiving elements of the human rights tradition - liberal individualism and social pluralism - is brought up by conservative forces at the same time to justify biased perceptions against the nonOrthodox. After considering the basic dimensions of cultural democracies - participation and expressiveness - this article argues that the historic-cultural model utilized by the Greek state to explain restrictions on Jehovah's Witnesses religious freedom comprises a typical version of false relativism, for it fails to take into account socio-political aspects of the late European modernity and its strong impact on the reformation of Greek culture as one that upholds individual liberties and disregards religious fundamentalism.