Truth recovery in Northern Ireland: Critically interpreting the past

By Kirk Simpson

Northern Ireland has entered what is arguably the key phase in its troubled political history – truth recovery and dealing with the legacy of the past – yet the void in knowledge and the lack of academic literature with regard to victims’ rights is particularly striking. This book, newly available in paperback, analyses truth recovery as a fundamental aspect of the transition from political violence to peace, democracy and stability in post-conflict Northern Ireland.

Kirk Simpson argues that it is essential for any process of truth recovery in Northern Ireland to provide the victims of political violence with the opportunity to express and articulate their narratives of suffering within the context of public dialogic processes. He outlines a unique and original model: that victims of political violence should be enabled to engage in meaningful truth recovery through a Habermasian process of public democratic deliberation and communication involving direct dialogue with the perpetrators of such violence.

This process of ‘communicative justice’ is framed within Habermas’s theory of communicative action and can help to ensure that legitimate truth recovery publicly acknowledges the trauma of victims and subjects perpetrator narratives of political violence to critical scrutiny and rational deconstruction. Crucially, the book aims to contribute to the empowerment of victims in Northern Ireland by stimulating constructive discussion and awareness of hitherto silenced narratives of the conflict. This difficult and unsettling interrogation and interpretation of the conflict from a comparatively ‘unknown perspective’ is central to the prospects for critically examining and mastering the past in Northern Ireland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781847797285

Kirk Simpson

Dr Kirk Simpson is RCUK Post Doctoral Fellow at the Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster

Book preview

Introduction

The central premise of this book is an attempt to move towards a greater historical understanding (Verstehen) of the condition of ‘the forgotten’ citizens in Northern Ireland – the victims of political violence – and to make recommendations as to what can be done to empower them as part of the transition from conflict to peace. I make no apology for focusing on victims’ rights in Northern Ireland as a matter of political, social, cultural and legal priority. For those whose lives were destroyed or irrevocably changed for the worse by the long-lasting, deleterious effects of political violence, clichés and platitude-led expedient policymaking is insufficient reparation. I want to make clear that although the primary concern of this book is Northern Ireland, the theoretical framework for historical critical interpretation that I am seeking to create is one that I envisage as having transferable value for other post-conflict societies that are struggling to come to terms with their past; and it is this theory that is in many ways of fundamental importance. My empirical credentials are beyond reproach – I have conducted extensive ethnographic and qualitative empirical research work in the last seven years in Northern Ireland, which has included the semi-structured and unstructured interviewing of over one hundred victims of the conflict. In addition, I have been involved in extensive and ongoing participant and non-participant observation with victims’ groups. Acknowledging this, and as this book is largely a theoretical examination of truth recovery in Northern Ireland, the reader should note that it is not intended to be a direct ‘forum’ for these voices. In other published work, which I reference throughout, I have given considerable space for these voices to be heard, and their repetition as empirical extracts here would not match the objectives of the main thesis of this book (though this is in no way to cast doubt on their value, or the ways in which they have informed this analysis).

Indeed, this phenomenological approach is one in which I still have much faith. In this period of research, however, I have also regrettably come across what I have labelled naïve and rootless empiricism, which is masquerading as methodologically robust social inquiry. This is a philosophy of knowing and meaning that seems to dictate that the fine grain of atomised experience – in whatever spatial or temporal context – should be and can best be codified and distilled into reductive, partisan typologies and vacuous, collective and essentialised paradigms. Digestible chunks of knowledge are offered in almost ‘beginner guide’ fashion, in the expectation that ‘exemplars’ of victims’ experiences will be sufficient to ameliorate the widespread and damaging legacy of violence. It is also, in my view, entirely wrong to suggest that only certain scholars from particular disciplinary backgrounds working in the area of transitional justice, and truth recovery in particular, can be regarded as capable of protecting, fostering and developing its theoretical parameters, for many are unwilling to move beyond the boundaries of concretised, non-reflexive philosophies and ideologies of research. Whilst legal scholars moved early to catch, create or even foster the buzz around notions of transitional justice, it is now indisputably an issue of interdisciplinary academic salience. In this book, I therefore make extensive reference to my own experiences of transitional justice research, which have been focused on truth recovery in post-conflict Northern Ireland, and in so doing I make a sustained effort to synthesise competing perspectives and formulate a unique, critical theoretical framework.

The political climate in Northern Ireland is beginning to change, and this book is hopefully illustrative of this shifting phenomenon. Despite having spent many years working in this area, and published widely on some of the issues, this book – and its theoretical nuance – allows me to concentrate my energies exclusively on rigorous conceptual analysis of the importance of individual perspectives, agency and subjectivity in transitional contexts. Those zealots who address truth recovery debates only as political tokens to be used for instrumental gain – thus disbarring other researchers from trying new ways of examining what are indisputably crucial social and legal phenomena – must not be allowed to commandeer the field. Scholars should instead be encouraged to expand and challenge the boundaries of debate and understanding. Political scientists, sociologists and social anthropologists, amongst others, have now begun to ‘grab’ the conceptual strands of truth recovery very firmly, and some are even seeking to refashion the epistemological parameters that have hitherto been used to ‘frame’ this zeitgeist. Transitional justice is no longer small enough to be described merely as a theme, or to be confined to being a sub-genre of Law or other social science disciplines. There is now an argument to be made that given the currency of the issues involved, and the interpenetrating and interdisciplinary nature of the enterprise, transitional justice is has become a discipline in its own right.

It is therefore imperative that critical perspectives are ‘factored’ into the remoulding of the fluid and evolving issues of post-conflict truth recovery in Northern Ireland and beyond. It is no longer enough for such a crucial issue to be analysed using only one particular reductive framework, or one particular philosophy or ideology of research. The value of first-hand empirical and ethnographic fieldwork should not and cannot be ignored, and it is extremely encouraging to find that scholars from different backgrounds working in transitional justice are beginning to embrace it. In this book I attempt a theoretical examination that is constructed upon solid epistemological and philosophical foundations, and which could allow for ‘transferability’. I do this with a critical focus and the utilisation of a three-strand approach to truth recovery in Northern Ireland – language reclamation; the outlining of a Habermsian model of communicatively rational justice; and the examination of memorialisation processes and the politicised manufacture of history.

This book is therefore proposed as one that can contribute toward a fuller historical and contemporary understanding of the complexity surrounding narratives of political violence and truth recovery in Northern Ireland. It seeks to expose what is arguably a crucial gap in the current literature on truth recovery in Northern Ireland – namely, the human rights of victims of political violence. In particular, the research focuses on those who were (and still are) considered peripheral by governments, political actors and the majority of ‘unaffected’ citizens in Northern Ireland. At a crucial end-point in the peace process at which unprecedented political agreement between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein has occurred, this book seeks to reflect a sense of increased ‘balance’ by addressing questions of truth recovery that have become more prominent in the post-conflict context.

I have also set out to demonstrate that the construction of a universal, morally normative paradigm for dealing with the past in Northern Ireland is possible. Having spent a number of years investigating issues pertinent to truth recovery in Northern Ireland, often via the use of ethnographic qualitative research, I am very aware of the problems inherent in research in a deeply divided society. Findings are invariably contested and disputed. There is no simple route out of this, but it is no reason to indulge in expedient forms of cultural or political relativism that support the notion of moral equivalence between victims and perpetrators of violence. Crucially, those who hold that particular versions of what they term ‘empirical research’ are the only ways to resolve controversial issues in transitional justice contexts use this as a fatuous dismissal of the enormously valuable work of transitional justice and truth recovery theoreticians. The false separation of theoretical and empirical research serves the interests of those who oppose or who feel threatened by the widening of the truth recovery debate. Ignoring the importance of a theoretical and methodological ‘scaffold’ is detrimental to research on truth recovery, as is proceeding straight to interventionist research in social and political milieux without first planning and identifying a feasible philosophical rationale. The result can be unusual concoctions of data that make polemical arguments within theoretical vacuums, and which often rely on spurious notions of partisan truths, provided by respondents who have particularist political agendas.

In my research experience, respondents in the field have had no difficulty in moving seamlessly between many disciplines (political science, sociology and law, to name but a few) in their own analyses of truth recovery. They do not erect false barriers in their examinations because they are free of the burden of having to categorise or taxonomise their narratives (unless directed to do so by the researchers). Analyses of truth recovery’s philosophical basis and its ideological (and methodological) adaptation in transitional justice contexts such as Northern Ireland are somewhat different from more traditional analyses of its mechanical, practical and technocratic outworkings in post-conflict societies; but the two are not necessarily incompatible. Those who argue for any form of qualitative research as a panacea for the lack of subjectivist nuance in historical or documentary research miss the point entirely. A theoretical framework and methodological philosophy must be firmly in place before any meaningful attempt at critically interpreting the past can take place. It is often those who are proselytising most loudly about the value of empirical research who have the least to offer in terms of providing an interdisciplinary framework, and who are also leading scholars away from the theoretical fortitude of their own traditional methods.

Political scientists, lawyers, sociologists, social anthropologists and historians have now begun to get involved in research on truth recovery in Northern Ireland, and many are at the forefront of an exciting and challenging movement seeking to redefine the epistemological contours of the debate. I hope that this book appeals to such scholars, not least because of the way in which it makes use of the communicative rationality theory of Jurgen Habermas. The unnecessary separation of theoretical and empirical research does not serve the interests of the victims of political violence. It exacerbates their marginalisation. Theoretical frameworks for conflict resolution, whilst sometimes regarded as deliberately esoteric and the preserve of academics, are actually fundamental to the effectiveness of truth recovery processes.

This book therefore aims to contribute to a change in the predominant culture of socio-legal understanding, and focus on suggestions for truth recovery processes which can aid continued peace in Northern Ireland and protect the social memory of victims of violence in the post-conflict context. I argue that the creation of any model of truth recovery theory and practice that allows the manufacture and distortion or politicisation of historiography or which could be used in some sort of distasteful utilitarian fashion by governments, policymakers or politicians as part of a ‘settlement’, would be ‘false authenticity’ and an undoubted abrogation of academic responsibility. I utilise a social scientific and theoretical approach in my analysis of truth recovery in Northern Ireland, and whilst I resist facile categorisation or taxonomy that would allow critics to dismiss the work as being outside ‘their realm’, I am unabashedly and patently influenced by political sociology, social anthropology, political science, law, history, and perhaps most crucially of all critical theory.

Much academic work on truth recovery often seeks vehemently to defend in advance criticism that its authors suspect or fear might be offered by ‘rivals’ in the field. This is not a priority in this book. Critics of the morally normative framework that I have outlined here would not, in any case, be mollified by any attempts to pre-emptively defuse their dissatisfaction. Furthermore, in my estimation, to set about defending a scholarly work because of trepidation that it might be attacked by critics is actually to invite searching questions about how dedicated to the thesis and confident in its findings an author actually is. I believe firmly and totally in the Habermasian model and the related critical theory-led analysis that is outlined in this book. I acknowledge that it is idealised, and I accept that inevitably some might unfairly scoff at its attempts to construct and fortify a vibrant public sphere founded upon consensual truth, but it is important to note that I reject utterly their rationale for doing so. Indeed, my recognition that there are counterarguments does not mean that I share – in any way – the view that idealised moral imperatives are practically or politically unworkable in transitional societies. Indeed, my confidence in the Habermasian framework is fully supported by the complex, multidimensional argument that I provide throughout this book. I have not made Habermasian arguments in isolation. Rather, I have attempted to ensure that this book underscores the perils of allowing social memory to be co-opted and appropriated by governments or political actors in the Northern Irish context. Both the British and Irish governments, and republicans and unionists in Northern Ireland, have relied upon collective memory paradigms that can force victims into pre-determined, shrunken categories where they are of most politically strategic value. To view all victims as passive in this process of political mobilisation is naïve, but it is definitely the case that the ostensible interest in victims’ issues by predominant political parties in Northern Ireland is actually a complex method of communal and social control, which attempts to preclude the implementation of a process of morally normative dialogical truth recovery, and also inhibits the formation of consensus between unionist and nationalist victims regarding the intolerable breaches of moral and legal norms by paramilitaries (and some state actors) during the conflict. It is tempting to dismiss all of those victims who do become involved in overt, partisan political activity as completely passive dupes or proxies of dominant political groups who are suffering from some form of political false consciousness. Whilst there is arguably an element of this in post-conflict situations where victims can be overwhelmed by the systematic and sophisticated discourse of those macro political actors who fashion master narratives that promise victims a voice (and thus are appealing, at least the surface level), this explanation has unfortunate Marxian overtones. Reliance on this mode of analysis is essentialist and can mimic self-perpetuating modes of dogmatic argument that negate individual agency at the expense of functionalist and structural explanations, and are ultimately without sufficient credibility when examining the complexity and nuance of truth recovery. Nonetheless, there is an important relationship between the political activity of victims and individual subjectivity. It is true that some, but by no means a majority, of those victimised in the Northern Irish context have been persuaded by the seductive and tendentious rhetoric of prominent political actors to allow their stories to be used for instrumental political gain. However, there is a much larger majority – many of who remain silent and in the shadows – who find the notion of politicising (or permitting the politicisation of) their tragedy abhorrent. Many of them remain hidden from the post-conflict glare. They are liminal figures who want desperately to break the silences that have shackled them emotionally and which have hidden their deep-rooted and wordless grief. Many are still trapped on the cusp of expression, unable to articulate their suffering. This book makes no apology for concentrating on a critical theory approach aimed at empowering those victims who have been relegated to a marginal position of inexpressibility, whilst acknowledging that those who have become involved in explicitly party political activity have in no way surrendered their entitlement to similar compassion and sympathy (though perhaps have made uncovering their trauma more difficult and protracted). Public storytelling and truth recovery for victims of political violence in Northern Ireland must be uncoupled from the cynical and strategic objectives of manipulative political groups, who can use victims in a calculated fashion to promote particularist and divisive agendas. The silence of victims has undoubtedly been reflective of the dark and hopeless condition of those struggling to come to terms with the legacy of the past. It has also in many ways continued to prohibit full excavation of the truth and constructive confrontation with trauma. Whilst it is possible to argue that such silence has often indicated, very powerfully and pointedly, the disempowerment and marginalisation of victims and has thus in itself been an emotional expression of despair, violence has also rendered the stories of many victims incommunicable (Donnan and Simpson, 2007). The psycho-social ‘stains’ and violent residue of the past reach across time and space in conflict zones, rendering many transitional societies, in effect, post-traumatic environments in which victims are simply unable to give voice to their experiences (cf. Ní Aoláin and Turner, 2007). In such contexts, as argued in this book, governments and policymakers must establish processes that can ameliorate this problem. To leave victims locked in a permanent state of silence is completely unacceptable in a society that is struggling to deal with the past and which seeks the establishment of equitable, stable and functional democracy.

The Habermasian model that I propose in the book, whilst intrinsic to my ideas, is only one tangible manifestation of my attempt to reshape perceptions of truth recovery as being an exercise that must rely on a new and bold synthesis of social and political theory if it is to have any longevity and rigour. As such, this book makes use of, but does not rely exclusively on, empirical material. I repudiate the notion, advanced by both naïve empiricists and disciplinary protectionists, that social scientific work on truth recovery must be based solely on one form of research. Theory and empiricism are symbiotic. Years’ worth of detailed research in Northern Ireland (not to mention the unconscious and subliminal information gleaned as a citizen of the country during the conflict) has brought me to this point, but this book is much more than a straightforward analysis of a policy problem that has emerged at the end of a complex and protracted peace process in one particular context. I do not seek to cheapen this exercise by recommending that the model that I propose for truth recovery in Northern Ireland be ‘exported’ to other transitional societies. Rather, I aim to make a genuine contribution to the theoretical foundations of transitional justice and truth recovery that I believe are vital not only in Northern Ireland, but also in each and every society in which innocent people have suffered greatly as a consequence of political violence. It is this theoretical, critical interpretation and analysis of the past which I hope and believe can make at the very least a modest contribution to the debates on truth recovery issues that are still very much in flux in Northern Ireland; and it is this synthesis that I believe can offer transferable lessons for other post-conflict societies.

1 The conflict in Northern Ireland

A contextual and thematic analysis

Introduction

Searching for a ‘centre ground’ in Northern Irish politics has never been easy, least of all in terms of truth recovery and dealing with the past. The most problematic question often becomes: ‘Whose centre?’ Yet more often than not, this is a question posed by moral and cultural relativists, or political partisans who use tendentious rhetoric to argue that consensual agreement in which all past wrongdoing is acknowledged and documented is impossible. This, however, is political dissemblance and deceit – a weak disguise for such groups’ desires to possess, adapt and impose their manufactured versions and ‘truth’ of the past. The quest to ‘own’ history is something that can potentially destabilise transitional society in Northern Ireland. This book does not seek to chronicle the Northern Irish conflict. Neither does it attempt to present an exhaustive and detailed history of the ‘patchwork’ of initiatives that have been taken by both governmental and non-governmental actors in relation to truth recovery in Northern Ireland in the last thirty years, and within the last decade in particular, although it is important to note that where appropriate, significant political and legal developments in the dealing with the past debate are referenced appropriately and in a relevant fashion. This is not to suggest that this is – in any way – an analysis that lacks suitable historical context. The stark empirical ‘facts’ that are presented in this chapter should provide even the most unfamiliar of readers with an indication of the scale of the violence and the nadir that social, political and cultural relations reached in Northern Ireland, and there is no suggestion that attempts to uncover or reclaim the truth of those events began only after the conflict had ceased. However, there is already much detailed and expert research that sets out to detail ‘the Troubles’ in all of their violent and political minutiae (and does so extremely well). Thus, presenting some type of ‘authentic’ or ‘authoritative’ version of an objective past – and concomitantly offering intricate and extensive detail of the panoply of initiatives that could reasonably be described as representing some form of truth recovery taken at various points throughout the last forty years – is not the intention here. Such an approach would make this book – which attempts to critically interpret the past in Northern Ireland, and which seeks to transcend temporally and spatially bound analyses of episodic violence in search of a theoretical framework that nullifies the mendacity of much of the political argument that has characterised the transitional phase – extremely difficult. Instead, following Croce’s statement that ‘all history is contemporary history’ (and nowhere is this perhaps more the case that Northern Ireland), this chapter deliberately locates the current problems of managing, dealing and mastering the past within the most recent post-conflict ‘endgame’ debates about truth recovery. It is hoped that this will provide a suitable contextual – and more importantly thematic – background