| Shared narrative in which each side accepts the other's story Opinion1 #54530 The importance of developing a shared story in which each side's narrative account of its own experience is heard and accepted as valid by the other. |
From Christiane Amanpour's interview wtth Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Reverend Mpho Tutu: "AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you -- let me ask you about South Africa. Your father chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That was a moment which could have been a revenge moment. It wasn't. It was a moment where both sides spoke their own narrative. Has the promise of that good forum been met today in South Africa?
M. TUTU: Yes, no. Or no, yes.
The "yes" is that -- what the -- the gift that the TRC, that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, gave us was a common history. Up until the time of the Truth and Reconciliation, each ethnic group, each population group had their own narrative of what it was to be South African, what it was to have lived in apartheid South Africa, what the impact of apartheid was.
With the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, each population group told the story as they knew it, and each other population group got to hear and to share in and to be able to say, OK, yes, I can see how it was different for you, so now we have a single South African story.
AMANPOUR: So the narrative became each side accepted the other's narrative, the other's story?
M. TUTU: Yes, very largely, at least, I would say that...
AMANPOUR: Would you say that is key to overcoming conflict, whether it be between the Israelis and the Palestinians, whether it was in Northern Ireland, anywhere else you've -- you've looked at?
M. TUTU: One of the first places -- you don't have to agree that your story is right, only that your story is right for you. This is -- this is how you experience it. Your experience is valid because it's your experience. And I am willing to hear what your experience was. And I think in the Middle East, we haven't got there yet." |