Virtues from Hell: Survivors of Conflicts and the Reconstruction-Reconciliation Processes - Hardcover

by Fidèle Ingiyimbere (Author)

This book offers a critical examination of certain ideas and values--such as remembering, forgiveness, story-telling through Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, etc.--that under-gird the transitional practices and mechanisms of societies emerging from conflicts. It does so by making the survivors' experience the supreme and ultimate judge of the legitimacy of such practices. While many scholars have dealt with these topics, this book provides a unique perspective on them by using personal stories, narratives and memoirs of the survivors as a checking point of the theoretical elaboration of these ideas and values. By means of an existential phenomenological analysis of the situation of survivors of gross human rights violations, the book assesses how many resources are still available to them, so that they can contribute to the processes of reconstruction and reconciliation of their societies. This analysis constitutes the background for reading the rest of the book, which challenges some assumptions and presumptions of transitional practices such as healing through truth-telling, or providing justice through reparations. It does so by presenting nuanced suggestions on the ways survivors can participate in the reconstruction-reconciliation processes, without jeopardizing their own well-being.

Back Jacket

This book offers a critical examination of certain ideas and values--such as remembering, forgiveness, story-telling through Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, etc.--that undergird the transitional practices and mechanisms of societies emerging from conflicts. It does so by making the survivors' experience the supreme and ultimate judge of the legitimacy of such practices. While many scholars have dealt with these topics, this book provides a unique perspective on them by using personal stories, narratives and memoirs of the survivors as a checking point of the theoretical elaboration of these ideas and values. By means of an existential phenomenological analysis of the situation of survivors of gross human rights violations, the book assesses how many resources are still available to them, so that they can contribute to the processes of reconstruction and reconciliation of their societies. This analysis constitutes the background for reading the rest of the book, which challenges some assumptions and presumptions of transitional practices such as healing through truth-telling, or providing justice through reparations. It does so by presenting nuanced suggestions on the ways survivors can participate in the reconstruction-reconciliation processes, without jeopardizing their own well-being.

Author Biography

Fidèle Ingiyimbere is a Jesuit from Burundi. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Boston College, with special interest in political-social philosophy, although he also works on continental philosophy, especially in phenomenology focused on the French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In theology, he earned an STL from Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, with special interest in social ethics. His areas of research are human rights, transitional justice and peace building for societies emerging from social-political crises. He has published in both areas books and articles, and some of his publications are, Etre et Expression, an essay on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, Human Rights as Means for Peace: The Catholic Understanding of Human Rights and the Catholic Church in Burundi, and Domesticating Human Rights: A Reappraisal of their Cultural-Political Critiques and their Imperialistic use. After working at Arrupe College-University of Zimbabwe and Arrupe Jesuit University in Harare-Zimbabwe, he was a visiting lecturer at different universities in Bujumbura and an independent researcher based in Bujumbura-Burundi. Now he has been appointed Senior Lecturer at CERAP/Université Jésuite, Abidjan-Ivory Cost.