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The Theatre of Violence: Narratives of Protagonists in the South African Conflict

Don Foster, Paul Haupt, Marésa De Beer

Capetwon; Oxford: Institute of Justice and Reconciliation; HSRC Press; James Currey (2005), xii, 364 pp.

"If the dominant media stereotype portrays perpetrators as monsters, as ‘Prime Evil’, then the dominant academic image is the opposite. It paints them as ordinary people (gender ignored, but assumed as male) diligently under sway of modern bureaucratic compartmentalisation (the banality of evil ... thesis), or as obedient to authority and conforming to social pressures (the situationist thesis). No monsters here, just ordinary people under rather extraordinary circumstances. The moral message: we co uld all potentially become perpetrators, depending on the situation. There is a competing view: the perpetrator as a willing, even eager, executioner driven by strong negative emotions against the ‘other’. The scholarly world presents us with antagonistic perspectives. What picture do we get from narrative approaches, from stories told by those actually responsible for politically-related violence? First, there are only a few narrative studies. Second, they also paint competing pictures. On the one hand, is a picture of the perpetrator as a victim – of organisational routines, hierarchies, pressures and secrecy, and of dominant ideologies, as well as brutal initiation rites which instil the practice of obedience to authority. These narrative studies support the situationist and ordinary person line of explanation. They also correct the erstwhile neglect of gender issues by placing emphasis on masculinity as an important ingredient. On the other hand, the South African storytelling studies by Marks (2001), Straker (1992) and Campbell (1992) throw up a different picture. While victims in one sense – of Bantu education, poverty and violence at the hands of both state security agents and older vigilante groups – they are also action-oriented moral crusaders in defence of their communities and in politically-minded offensive against the apartheid state and its allies. Once again, we have contrasting and competing pictures of those responsible for political violence. In these particular storytelling perspectives, differences are partly due to the different positions of protagonists across the dividing line of power: state security personnel on the one hand and resistance activists on the other. Apart from the conflicting images from varying epistemological perspectives and different theoretical angles, the very label or category of a ‘perpetrator’ is more muddied, contested and problematic than a first glance would suggest. We described seven grey areas which challenge or disrupt the dominant binaries of victim-perpetrator and the triangular view of dramatis personae: perpetrator – ‘victim’ – bystander/observer. Moreover, in Chapter 4, we raise a number of moral quandaries or dilemmas in the study of those responsible for violence, which again dislodge the simple and tidy categories. Therefore a central component of the present study aims to problematise and disrupt the complacency of the very label and category of ‘perpetrator’. What should be done? In the face of these competing images and explanations we carve out a ‘third space’ beyond, or perhaps better, between the theoretical antagonisms of situationism versus agency (willing killers); among the grey areas between category labels of victim/perpetrator/bystander. Rather than this being seen as an alternative position, it should be read as an attempt at synthesis. Instead of the oppositional pairing of ‘either-or’, it should be seen in terms of the inclusive pairing ‘both-and’ (Foster, 1999).We argue that those responsible for violence should be regarded as potentially both victim and perpetrator, as well as both subject to circumstances/influences and active initiators." (Conclusion, page 321-322) more

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Gedächtnis und Erinnerung: Ein interdisziplinäres Lexikon

Nicolas Pethes, Jens Ruchatz (eds.)

Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag (2001), 700 pp.

"Um die Ansätze und Erkenntnisse der unterschiedlichen Forschungsrichtungen zusammenzuführen, präsentiert dieses interdisziplinäre Lexikon das weite Feld der Gedächtnicforschung in seiner historischen und theoretischen Vielfalt. Mit über 450 Artikeln deckt es die Disziplinen ab, in denen die P ... more

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War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century

Emmanuel Sivan, Jay Winter (eds.)

Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press (1999), vii, 260 pp.

"No scholarly consensus exists about how the terms 'memory' and 'collective memory' may most fruitfully inform historical study. Hence there is still much room for reflection and clarification in this branch of cultural history. How war has been remembered collectively is the central question in thi ... more

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Video, War, and the Diasporic Imagination

Dona Kolar-Panov

London; New York: Routledge (1997), xvi, 252 pp.

"Video, War and the Diasporic Imagination is an incisive study of the loss and (re) construction of collective and personal identities in ethnic migrant communities. Focusing on the Croatian and Macedonian communities in Western Australia, Dona Kolar-Panov documents the social and cultural changes t ... more