Volume 5 Number 1 March 2006

Nietzsche's devastating analysis of so-called "slave morality" has made resentment a non-starter in matters moral. Beginning with a critique of Nietzsche's negative account, ARNE JOHAN VETLESEN attempts to develop a case for the justifiability of resentment by examining the contrasting positions taken by Holocaust survivors Primo Levi and Jean Amery. He argues that Amery's self-consciously confrontational stance, exemplifying the provocative thrust of resentment toward one's tormentors, represents a valid if highly selective point of view. Victims' experience-based resentment, and the stubborn denial to forget past misdeeds that goes with it, provides an invaluable corrective to the perspectives of perpetrators and bystanders alike. Especially in a society such as the winner-takes-all one of today, the time is ripe to rehabilitate the moral resources peculiar to the plight suffered by people deemed - and disliking themselves as - victims and so as "losers".

SHARON LAMB examines the forgiveness advocacy movement in the field of psychology in the context of wrongs done to individuals that represent a wrong to a social, cultural, or ethnic group to which that individual belongs. Is forgiving only an individual act or should a victim consider ramifications to any group to which she belongs? Lamb examines this question in terms of victims of violence and women’s responsibility to other women before forgiving acts of gendered violence.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) can be considered as one of the most significant phenomena in post-apartheid South Africa. ANNELIES VERDOOLAEGE demonstrates that the everyday practices of this institution gave rise to a specific kind of discourse, a so-called 'reconciliation discourse'. On the one hand, this discourse offered the victims of apartheid many new opportunities regarding linguistic expression. On the other hand, though, this language was also constrained and limited to a certain extent. Based on fragments from TRC testimonies, this paper deals with one specific kind of linguistic control, namely the introduction of the concept of reconciliation. The first part of the article explains what sort of linguistic methods were used during the TRC victim hearings in order to emphasize the idea of reconciliation in the narratives of the testifiers. In the next part Verdoolaege explains why the construction of a specific reconciliation discourse was necessary within the South African context and seeks motivations for it, while also dealing with the implications of such emotional framing. Verdoolaege concludes that the TRC granted a large amount of discursive freedom to the apartheid victims, without losing sight of the unequal power relations that were established at these victim hearings. The theoretical frameworks employed here are taken from the domain of Critical Discourse Analysis; reference is also made to Althusser's concept of Ideological State Apparatus.

MARGARET WALKER explores the “cycle of violence”, a powerful image invoked repeatedly in talking about serious wrongdoing, especially violence. Cycles of retaliatory violence are a reality in some cases and a threat in others, yet the image of retaliatory response as a natural or predictable outcome can be misleading. Research in several fields suggests injured individuals seek vindication that may be retributive without being vengeful, and that is not always or only retributive in nature. The moral psychology of injury, grief, humiliation, and resentment illuminates why vindication is important and why the desire for vindication can and does take various forms. The idea of a spontaneous or inevitable retaliatory response, which can actually serve to naturalize, rationalize, or justify retaliatory violence. It is instead the social reception and political management of negative emotions and needs for vindication that urgently needs our attention.

RAQUEL ALDANA undertakes a victim-centered examination of truth commissions and prosecutions, focusing on how each addresses the rights and needs of victims arising from the mass atrocities committed against them. She reassess the claim that truth commissions are more victim-friendly than prosecutions. Specifically, Aldana challenges the underlying assumption about forgiveness as a moral virtue, and its role in the healing process for victims. Conversely, Aldana expounds on the morality and healing components of retributive feelings for victims. She also reassess the claim that procedurally truth commissions are more responsive to victims’ emotional needs and explores how a criminal trial could become more victim-friendly. In the end, Aldana does acknowledge the superiority of truth commissions over prosecutions in certain aspects of the truth-seeking/truth-telling function, which could be instrumental to victims’ healing. Aldana also does not discard that truth commissions’ promotion of reconciliation between perpetrator and victim could be healing for perpetrators and victims alike, although she question the moral superiority of such reconciliation in the absence of traditional notions of justice.

As tension mounts during the build-up to the Orange marching season, which occurs each summer in Northern Ireland, the streets of many cities and towns are festooned with flags. The proliferation of Union Jacks, Irish Tricolors, Ulster flags and paramilitary banners adorning the streets symbolize loyalty and serve as sectarian markers of territory. In July 2002, however, something unusual happened: republicans started hoisting the Palestinian flag alongside their Irish Tricolors while, in neighboring loyalist areas, the Israeli flag fluttered alongside the Union Jack and paramilitary banners. BRANDON HAMBER suggests some reasons for this by focusing upon the concept of ‘fear’ in the context of the peace processes in Northern Ireland and South Africa. Hamber begins by offering some thoughts on the phenomenon of Israeli flags flying in Belfast, before moving on to consider briefly how the psychological and sociological literature generally treat the concept of fear (and risk). This leads to the argument that fear and the use of fear are unrecognized variables in popular discourses surrounding political negotiations and processes such as truth commissions. Hamber analyzes the role of fear in the political transition process, a subject seldom dealt with in the academic literature, and examines the way that the concept of fear - like the suffering of victims of political violence - is politicized and depoliticized. Hamber then concludes by trying to apply some of the ideas that he has presented to the South Africa and Northern Ireland contexts and, particularly, to approaches to political risk-taking.