We invite you to join us at the Capstone Panel Event of the 2024 Participedia Partners Conference! This is a hybrid event, and you can register for either in-person or virtual (via Zoom) attendance.
This event features the recent book Truth Commissions and State Building which emerged from a series of conferences organized by the Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice (CHRRJ) at McMaster University. Panelists Bonny Ibhawoh, Serges Kamga and Jasper Ayelazuno will discuss Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) through the lens of democratic innovations. Panelist contributions are described below, and talks will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Dr Fiona Anciano of the University of the Western Cape, host institution of the 2024 Participedia Partners Conference.
Registration is automatic for those attending the 2024 Participedia Partners Conference, and we have also opened up a limited number of seats to a public audience. Dinner and one drink will be provided to registered attendees, and a bar is available for further drink purchases. Speakers and Q&A will begin the event, followed by dinner, drinks and mingling to wrap up the evening.
Panelist Contributions:
Bonny Ibhawoh — The global rise of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) has been linked to the post-Cold War wave of democratization that prioritized the adoption of neo-liberal economic policy over meaningful accountability for human rights violations. Some critics regard TRCs as instruments of statist and regime legitimization rather than mechanisms for democratization. Bonny Ibhawoh challenges this totalizing view of the role of TRCs in state building. While acknowledging the statist instrumentality of truth-seeking processes, he frames TRCs as deliberative democratic innovations and mechanisms for public participation in specific post-conflict and post-autocratic state-building processes.
Serges Kamga — Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) are often established after a gross and massive violation of human rights in a country. Relying on extensive public participation, they often seek to repair the wrong of the past, seek nation building and national unity. However, there is no “one size fits all” and each case should be considered on its merits. Analyzing the TRCs in South Africa and Rwanda, Serges demonstrates that the success of any TRC depends on the specificities of its context. In this exercise Serges uncovers the merits of relying on local realities and highlights the consequences of ignoring such realities.
Jasper Ayelazuno — Jasper Ayelazuno’s contribution focuses on his experience working with Ghana’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, named the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC). He is concerned mainly to interrogate the legacy of the NRC as a process of building a democratic Ghanaian state with contemporary political situation in the country; a situation which evokes the spectre of autocratization or backsliding of democracy across the world. Ayelazuno recalls with nostalgia the euphoria that imbued the work of the NCR as a democratic state building process in 2002. But two decades down the line, Ghana seems to be backsliding in the central tenets of democracy, with similar egregious human rights violations; such as politically-motivated killings and suppression of freedom of expression, with the arrest, detention, and intimidation of journalists. He argues that this situation calls to question the legacy of the NRC as a process that built a strong democratic Ghanaian state, foregrounding the question of sustainability of the legacy of TRCs as democratic state-building processes.
