The Preventative Potential of Instrumentalising History? The 'Right to Truth' in Northern Ireland and Cambodia

• Date: 01 January 2018

43

e Preventative Potential of Instrumentalising

History? e ‘Right to Truth’ in Northern

Ireland and Cambodia

CATRÍONA GRACE MAGGS CAMPBELL*

Introduction

e United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution on the ‘Right to Truth’,

states:

It is important for States to provide appropriate and eective mechanisms

for society as a whole to know the truth regarding gross violations of human

rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law … to the

fullest extent practicable, in particular, the identity of the perpetrators, the

causes and facts of such violations, and the circumstances under which they

occurred.1

History can be dened as ‘the bodies of knowledge about the past produced

by historians, together with everything that is involved in the production,

communication of, and teaching about that knowledge’.2 It has been contended

that history education – both formally using school texts and informally through

documentaries and museums – is an ‘appropriate and eective mechanism’ for states

to provide access to this ‘right to truth’, as a ‘powerful tool for non-recurrence’ of

conict.3 Yet to date, the potential of history education has been le unexamined

in much of the literature dealing with transitional justice.4 is article aims to

contribute to this under-explored area.

* LL.B. (Liverpool), Intern at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

1 United Nations Human Rights Council, ‘Right to the Truth’ (RES 21/7 A/HRC/ 21/L.16).

2 Arthur Marwick, ‘e Fundamentals of History’ (e Open University) .history.ac.uk/ihr/

Focus/Whatishistory/marwick1.html> accessed 15 March 2018.

3 United Nations Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of

Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence: Mission to Spain’ (A/HRC/27/56//

Add.1) paras 34–38.

4 Exceptions include: Elizabeth A. Cole, ‘ Transitional justice and the reform of history education’

(2007) 1 IJTJ 115; Cécile Aptel and Virginie Ladisch, rough a New Lens: A Child-Sensitive

Approach to Transitional Justice (International Center for Transitional Justice 2011); Clara Ramírez-

Barat and Roger Duthie (eds), Education and Transitional Justice: Opportunities and Challenges for

Peacebuilding (International Center for Transitional Justice 2015); Clara Ramírez-Barat and Roger

Duthie (eds), Transitional Justice and Education: Learning Peace (Columbia University Press 2017).

44    

is paper relies on the term ‘instrumentalisation of history’ to mean using the

past to support a certain point of view or to play a particular role.5 While it is not

always the case that history is instrumentalised, history education is discussed here

in relation to its potential to form part of a strategy of conict prevention. e

potential benets of, and issues with, instrumentalising history for the purposes of

preventing violence are discussed. e article will examine the issues associated with

truth and remembrance in transitional justice, as these are essential components in

the instrumentalisation of history for transitional justice purposes. One of these

issues is that while the benet of ‘truth’ is proclaimed, there is little recognition

that in fact multiple ‘truths’ exist within this ‘truth’.6 Further, there is a tendency

in transitional justice to simply critique existing processes and mechanisms, rather

than to develop evidence-based theories.7 It is easy to criticise when something goes

wrong, but when something goes right (or nothing happens) it is dicult to assess

the origins of this change (or lack of it). Moreover, no longitudinal transitional

justice studies have examined the eect of truth on reconciliation or prevention

of conict.8 Social psychology is more advanced in terms of studies and empirical

data, so the analysis presented here will use evidence from this eld, but there is also

a case for presenting what has not worked to inform what could work to prevent

violence.

Oen, reconciliation is considered in transitional justice structures to be the

forerunner to the prevention of violence, hence an examination of reconciliation

processes is relevant. e form of reconciliation that will be examined here is

‘agonistic reconciliation’. is theory recognises that reconciliation is not always

about harmonisation and restoration of national unity, but about engaging – and

sometimes clashing – with adversaries, in ‘agonistic encounters’.9 e article takes

account of the reality that these encounters can have either negative or positive

results and argues that the theory of ‘agonistic encounters’ with ‘the other’ aligns

well with Dewey’s educational theory of ‘experiential learning’. In both, tension

between viewpoints is accepted and encouraged. For reconciliation, the result

5 Irene Herrmann, ‘Democratization and the instrumentalization of the past’ in Tuija Pulkkinen

and José M. Rosales (eds), e Ashgate Research Companion to the Politics of Democratization in

Europe:Concepts and Histories (Ashgate 2008) 167–184; Jens Sejrup, ‘Instrumentalized History

and the Motif of Repetition in News Coverage of Japan–Taiwan Relations’ (2012) 85(4) Pacic

Aairs 745. See also Arie H.J. Wilschut, ‘History at the mercy of politicians and ideologies:

Germany, England, and the Netherlands in the 19th and 20th centuries’ (2010) 42(5) J. Curriculum

Studies 693. is paper discusses how history teaching has been used in Germany, England and the

Netherlands to reect national politics, rather than to encourage critical thinking.

6 is article will discuss ocial, archival, lega l and personal truths.

7 Janine Natalya Clark, ‘Transitional justice, truth and reconciliation: An Under-Explored

Relationship’ (2011) 11(2) International Criminal Law Review 241.

8 Iosif Kovras, Truth Recovery and Transitional Justice: Deferring Human Rights Issues (Routledge

2014) 8.

9 Andrew Schaap, Political Reconciliation (Routledge 2005) 2, 19; Darren Bohle, ‘e Public Space

of Agonistic Reconciliation: Witnessing and Prefacing in the TRC of Canada’ (2017) 24(2)

Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic eory 257.