Forgive and forget??? NO WAY

 According to Nir Eisikovits “tensions between peace and justice (are) typical of transitional settings” This is the typical state of affairs after periods of unrest or war in regions of the world. My intuition is that postcolonial philosophy would consider this “tension” as a result of the iterations of slavery and racial hierarchy.  The invention of race, a colonial event, was a process that worked its way into our parlance and consideration over time.  Colonizers label people as barbaric, uncivilized, and primitive, who differ from them.     

 

Nir Eisikovits speaks of this recipe  “In consolidated democracies, such tensions can be alleviated by legal institutions and traditions that embody conclusions about how to manage the requisite tradeoffs between justice and social utility (these include a constitution, a body of accepted constitutional jurisprudence, a respected high court with powers of judicial review, etc.) AND “the very point of the transitional period is to set up the institutions and methods responsible for having that debate”  This type of policy making will not fly on the streets.  Even Nir Eisikovits admits that “the need to attract foreign investors and maintain peace in the streets may require some compromises on the extent and length of criminal proceedings against past perpetrators, and so forth” The whole idea of the tension is that it is there and is not going away, as long a certain people see their past as indicative of their present and future, then the cycle of violence and retribution will continue.

 

As bazaar as it may seem there are some consideration in justice and peace; there is the act of “forgetting as a response to mass atrocity” and the “importance of forgiveness in politics. AND Forgiveness is said to be the only disposition that allows us to break free of the endless cycle of blow and counter blow characteristic of ethnic conflict”  “We have seen this inability to forgive, much less forget AND “political forgiveness concerns its potential to release victims and wrongdoers from the effects of vindictiveness. A desire for revenge can generate a never-ending violent cycle”  The problem with all of this is that sides of a discourse are not going to forgive atrocities, much less forget them. Nir Eisikovits can speculate about these political strategies, the Words on the Street, see book by that same name by jd ripper, are not going to let go of heinous and atrocious behaviors and happenings.