If reconciliation is a grassroots process, as Linton (2004) and Lederach (1997) argue, it follows that reconciliation will occur through local idioms that are salient and meaningful to the people who must reconcile. Reconciliation will operate through local cultural models. It will flow through local values, beliefs systems, and cosmologies.[i]What does reconciliation mean? The etymology of the words for "reconcile" in English and Khmer is particularly important to pay attention to. The Latin root of the English word reconcile is conciliare, meaning "to bring together." In Latin, the prefix "re" was used as it is in English to mean "back," but it often expressed intensive force. Thus the Latin word reconciliare would have meant "to bring back together through force." The noun form of conciliare is concilium (from con-'together' + calare 'call'), which meant "assembly." Concilium gives English the word council. We thus have an etymological cluster around the word reconcile that suggests that restoring relations between people requires bringing people back together in dialogue through the advisory, deliberative, or legislative bodies that preside over social life. It is little surprise that many of the Western reconciliation models begin with a speech act held under the auspices of a deliberative body: a confession in a truth confession. Nor is it surprising that truth and reconciliation commissions from South Africa to Argentina have emphasized the public admission of guilt. The first speech act is then to be followed by a second speech act: the verbal acknowledgement of forgiveness.The notion that reconciliation begins with the confession of guilt does not necessarily translate into the Cambodian context. The way of expressing reconciliation is kar phsas phsa, which means "the act of healing" and a "change of heart" that reunites people divided by conflict (Linton, 2004; Rodicio, 2001: 126).[ii] Literally, kar phsas phsa means "reconnecting broken pieces" (Ciorciari and Ly, 2009). This notion of "changing of the heart" and "reconnecting broken pieces" differs from the connotations of the English word "reconciliation." As the former monk Heng Monychenda, founder of the group Buddhists for Development, put it: "Forgiveness is not the only step in reconciliation — the first step is that you want to start doing good acts" (quoted in Linton, 2004: 76). In Cambodia, reconciliation begins with living life in a good way, peacefully and compassionately, then demonstrating the acknowledgement of guilt and forgiveness through deeds and actions.The social value of midwives in the reconstruction of Cambodian society can be fully appreciated when one understands how important notions of reincarnation and rebirth are to the way Cambodians think about the order of society. As Max Weber pointed out nearly a century ago in The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the norms established by a culture's cosmological beliefs can transform themselves into so-called "secular" patterns of social organization and human behaviors. The argument can be extended to Cambodian notions of reconciliation, where Buddhist (and Hindu) cosmology transferred into Cambodian notions of social order (Hansen 1988; Sam, 1985).Much of Cambodian society is ordered around notions of reincarnation, where the birth of a new baby is seen as potentially the rebirth of previous family members. The people who were victims or perpetrators during the Khmer Rouge period are destined, eventually, to be reborn into the world through a calculation of merit and demerit that is beyond the scope of any one person to completely identify. In daily conversations and interactions, Cambodians will often speculate about the soul of a newborn infant — a particular aunt or uncle reborn into the family, perhaps?[iii] Buddhist social and political thought conceptualizes the cosmos (society and the universe) as operating in constant concentric decay-then-rebirth cycles, where individuals die and are reborn into a human society and a world that are themselves going through decay-rebirth cycles. This directly impacts the way Cambodians think about reconciliation. Rather than expressing social reconciliation in linear terms through tropes of "progress," Cambodians will speak of reconciliation in circular terms, emphasizing the notions of decay and reformation. The logic is often that Cambodian society crumbled during the Khmer Rouge regime, during which time many died tragically; but now is the period of rebirth.[iv]In English, the word generation embodies the concept of begetting, procreating, or "generating" new life and new families. The cluster of words — generation, generate, genuine, genesis — connote "beginnings" or origins. Each generation of a family or society is a continuation of the one that came before it; but, nevertheless, each generation is distinct and consists of newly generated individuals. In Khmer, generation is translated as chum nann and denotes the same thing as the English word generation. Etymologically, chum nann encompasses the concepts of "---" and "—." Unlike the English word "generation," however, chum nann connotes a sense of "re-birth" or "re-generation." Social reconciliation — where social harmony is restored — ties into Cambodian cosmological beliefs of decay and rebirth cycles. The post-conflict generation is seen not as a new beginning, but as a reemergence of the society that decayed.
[i]Studies on how societies commemorate the past are particularly valuable for demonstrating this point. For instance, as Heonik Kwon demonstrates, Vietnam came to terms with the absolute destructiveness of the "American War" through a collectively held eschatology that actively determined the actions of Vietnamese people. In Vietnamese cosmology, Kwon writes, a grievous or unjust death entraps the soul, preventing it from moving on to the other world without external intervention, and forcing it to remain in a state of perpetual violent agony reliving its violent death perpetually. The right of the dead to be liberated from the violent history of death is inalienable, Kwon argues, and the protection of this right depends on the secular institutions of commemoration taken up by the living. The dead become vital political actors, in so far as they (or the belief in them) compelled the living towards specific actions (Kwon 2009 – get permission!).[ii] The "change of heart" isn't as strong as changing from hate to love. Rather, kar phsas phsa usually denotes the ability to live peacefully side-by-side again, without strong anger or strong hate.
[iii] In June, after only one month of Khmer lessons, the co-author of this article Douglas Irvin walked into a small shop in Phnom Penh. The owner began a conversation and quickly began to ask questions about his lineage and birth. Although Doug is an American of European heritage, he looked like her daughter, (who we'll call) Tola, she said. Both Tola and Doug were born only a few days apart, in October 1982 — three years after two of her cousins (a brother and sister) died at the end of the Khmer Rouge regime. The mother believed it was a suitable amount of time for the reincarnation of the two souls, and decided that the Tola and Doug were likely brother and sister in our past lives, that they were her cousins. She has suspected Tola's soul was that of her cousins, but she had no proof. That we both were university graduates who studied art and literature — and that she was beginning to learn English and he Khmer — was the proof she had needed. Her belief was confirmed when she learned that Doug was studying the Khmer Rouge history. She called Tola, now married with her first baby recently born, to come downstairs and meet Doug. Fate had brought him to the shop, she said. And she told him to tell his mother that she would pray for her and bless her, to thank her for bringing the soul of her older cousin into the world.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Reconciliation in Camboodia
My dear friend and college in the Division of Global Affairs Doug Irvin's most recent project on reconciliation, forgiveness, and change of heart in Cambodia:
Monday, July 5, 2010
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