AFTER VIOLENCE: 3R, RECONSTRUCTION, RECONCILIATION ...

punished; or can "get equal" with the perpetrator through revenge.
Material and non-material gratification may derive from this, but
hardly reconciliation, release from the trauma.
The perpetrator may seek release from his guilt: from the
Third Party through submission, penitence or punishment; from the
victim through apology and forgiveness; and from himself by hard
inner work. Reconciliation has essentially to take place between
perpetrator and victim. But that also means that either of them
can withhold reconciliation, putting the trauma/guilt in the world
trauma/guilt bank and use them as weapons./67/
[1] The exculpatory nature-structure-culture approach
Drawing on chapters 5 and 6 above the cases of the Nanking
genocide and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
let us start with the underlying assumptions. We are dealing with
the relation perpetrator-victim, individual or collective and
(very) violent act. How that act is understood conditions the
relation between the two. Hypotheses:
An actor-oriented perspective with free will unfettered by
extenuating circumstances makes the relation particularly bitter
and both closure and healing difficult to obtain. There is the
possibility of a "trauma for guilt" exchange.
An actor-oriented perspective with free will reduced by
extenuating circumstances may make the trauma more easy to bear,
but as the guilt is reduced by the circumstances the "trauma for
guilt" exchange is difficult to obtain.
A structure-oriented perspective converts the relation from
inter-personal, or inter-state/nation, to a relation between two
65