Abstract
The creation and transfer of cultural history and truths through the arts (including oral, written, visual and performative practices) pre-dates the development of transitional justice as a field. However, the connection between cultural expression and transitional justice is inherent given that a central tenet of transitional justice is to give voice to the victims of trauma and human rights violations. But what of contexts in which transitional justice processes are not forthcoming, conflict is ongoing and cultural practice and transmission of any kind has broken down because of decades of violations? This chapter seeks to examine the role of artists in transitioning contexts where there is still conflict and will focus specifically on the case of Afghanistan where over three decades of conflict have eroded infrastructure, civic trust, and normal cultural production. The chapter will provide specific examples of how arts have been used to deal with themes of conflict and justice in the Afghan context, including the participatory theatre work of the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO), in an effort to shed light on the cultural implications of transitional justice and the role artists and arts practices play in helping shift societies towards human rights and accountability.
In Afghanistan we live in the streets of the dead, and we die in the streets of life.
Poet, Afghanistan.
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- 1.
Shanee Stepakoff, “Telling and Showing: Witnesses Represent Sierra Leone’s War Atrocities in Court and Onstage”, The Drama Review 52, no. 1 (2008): 26.
- 2.
Beatrice Pouligny, “Understanding Situations of Post-Mass Crime by Mobilizing Different Forms of Cultural Endeavors” (panel contribution, 19th IPSA World Congress, Durban, South Africa, July 1, 2003).
- 3.
Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), xviii.
- 4.
This chapter builds in part on Kouvo’s previous publications including Sari Kouvo and Dallas Mazoori, “Reconciliation, Justice and Mobilization of War Victims in Afghanistan”, International Journal of Transitional Justice 5, no. 3 (2011): 492–503; Sari Kouvo, “Transitional Justice in the Context of Ongoing Conflict: the Case of Afghanistan”, ICTJ Briefing Report (New York: ICTJ, 2009); Fatima Ayub, Sar Kouvo, and Rachel Wareham, Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan, Initiative for Peacebuilding Report (Brussels: IfP, 2009); and Fatima Ayub, Sari Kouvo, and Yasmin Sooka, Addressing Gender-Specific Violations in Afghanistan (New York: ICTJ, 2009).
- 5.
This chapter also builds in part on Siddiqui’s previous publications including Nadia Siddiqui, “Theatre and Transitional Justice in Afghanistan”, ICTJ Briefing Report (New York: ICTJ, 2010); and Nadia Siddiqui and Hjalmar Joffre-Eichhorn, “From Tears to Energy: Early Uses of Participatory Theatre in Afghanistan”, in Transitional Justice, Culture, and Society, ed. Clara Ramirez-Barat (New York: Social Science Research Council, forthcoming).
- 6.
Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 3.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Shoshana Feldman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crisis of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (New York: Routledge, 1992), 62.
- 9.
Cynthia E. Cohen, Roberto Gutierrez Varea, and Polly O. Walker, eds., Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict, vol. 1, Resistance and Reconciliation in Regions of Violence (Oakland, CA: New Village Press, 2011), 11.
- 10.
Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire, 2.
- 11.
Jonothan Neelands, “Acting Together: Ensemble as Democratic Process in Art and Life”, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 2 (2009); 180.
- 12.
Cohen et al., Acting Together, 11−12.
- 13.
John McGrath, “Theatre and Democracy”, New Theatre Quarterly 18 (2002): 137–138.
- 14.
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 101.
- 15.
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), “Tears into Energy: Community-based Theatre and Transitional Justice”, unpublished report, April 2008.
- 16.
Boal developed the Theatre of the Oppressed based on his own experiences with dramatic performance and was heavily influenced in the pedagogical and political principles espoused by Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, namely that the situation lived by participants should be understood, including its root causes, and that changing the situation should follow the precepts of social justice. The Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of popular, participatory and democratic theatre of, by, and for people engaged in a struggle for liberation. For more details see, Arvind Singhal, “Empowering the Oppressed through Participatory Theatre”, Investigación y Desarrollo 12, no. 1 (2004): 138–163.
- 17.
UNAMA, “Tears into Energy”.
- 18.
Singhal, “Empowering the Oppressed”, 146.
- 19.
Ibid., 148.
- 20.
Bev Hosking and Christian Penny, “Playback Theatre as a Methodology for Social Change” (paper presented at the DevNet Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, December 2000).
- 21.
Search for Common Ground, “Burundi Update”, June 2008 http://www.sfcg.org/programmes/burundi/burundi_update.html.
- 22.
Search for Common Ground, “Centre Lokole/Search for Common Ground’s Participatory Theatre for Conflict Transformation”, http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/themes/re-imaginingpeace/va/base/Congo_1173192498.pdf; and Search for Common Ground, Participatory Theatre for Conflict Transformation: Training Manual (Kinshasa: Search for Common Ground, n.d.).
- 23.
Jonathan Chadwick, “Working in Kosovo on a Participatory Theatre Project on Missing Persons”, AZ Theatre, http://www.aztheatre.org.uk/index.php?page=war-stories-kosovo.
- 24.
Catherine M. Cole, “Performance, Transitional Justice, and the Law: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, Theater Journal no. 2 (2007): 179.
- 25.
Ksenija Bilbija and others, eds., The Art of Truth Telling About Authoritarian Rule (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 3.
- 26.
See Marcela Briceño-Donn and others, eds., Recordar en conflicto: Iniciativas no oficiales de memoria en Colombia (Bogotá: ICTJ, 2009).
- 27.
Bilbija and others, eds., The Art of Truth Telling About Authoritarian Rule, 3.
- 28.
Rustom Bharucha, “Between Truth and Reconciliation: Experiments in Theatre and Public Culture”, Economic and Political Weekly 36, no. 39 (2001): 3767.
- 29.
William Ury, The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 7.
- 30.
Ibid., 14.
- 31.
Bilbija and others, eds., The Art of Truth Telling About Authoritarian Rule, 3.
- 32.
Judy Barsalou, Trauma and Transitional Justice in Divided Societies, Special Report (Washington, D.C.: USIP, 2005), 1.
- 33.
Cynthia E. Cohen, “Creative Approaches to Reconciliation,’’ in The Psychology of Resolving Global Conflicts: From War to Peace, ed. Mari Fitzduff and Christopher E. Stout (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005), 3: 72.
- 34.
Cole, “Performance, Transitional Justice, and Law”, 186.
- 35.
Francine A’ness, “Resisting Amnesia: Yuyachkani, Performance, and the Postwar Reconstruction of Peru”, Theatre Journal 56, no. 3 (2004): 400.
- 36.
Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire, 192; A’ness, 399.
- 37.
A’ness, 399.
- 38.
For a more in depth analysis of transitional justice in Afghanistan, see Ahmad Nader Nadery, "Peace or Justice? Transitional Justice in Afghanistan", International Journal of Transitional Justice 1, no. 1 (2007): 173–179; and Patricia Gossman, Gossman Patricia, "Disarmament and Transitional Justice in Afghanistan", ICTJ Case Study (New York: ICTJ, 2009).
- 39.
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), A Call for Justice: A National Consultation on Past Human Rights Violations in Afghanistan (Kabul: AIHRC, 2004).
- 40.
See, Angélique Mounier-Kuhn, “Le «mapping report» sur l’Afghanistan: histoire d’un dossier escamoté”, Le Temps, October 2, 2010, http://m.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/aadd4d4e-cd9b-11df-a30b-a70320d5cebf/Le_mapping_report_sur_lAfghanistan_histoire_dun_dossier_escamotė; and Sari Kouvo, “Facts for Reconciliation: Human Rights Documentation Needed”, Afghanistan Analysts Network, October 10, 2010, http://aan-afghanistan.com/index.asp?id=1217.
- 41.
See, Patricia Gossman, “Kabul’s Stealth Attack on Human Rights”, New York Times/International Herald Tribune, December 26, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/opinion/kabuls-stealth-attack-on-human-rights.html.
- 42.
Similar sentiments were expressed in the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit’s field research on Afghan opinions about justice and reconciliation, see: http://www.areu.org.af/ResearchProjectDetails.aspx?contentid=2&ParentId=2&ResearchProjectId=27&Lang=en-US.
- 43.
For further analysis see, Kouvo and Mazoori, “Justice, Reconciliation and Mobilization”.
- 44.
Afghan Civil Society Forum Organization, A First Step on a Long Journey: How People Define Violence and Justice in Afghanistan (1958–2008), (Kabul: ACSFO, 2011).
- 45.
Partaw Naderi, “Poetry and Politics” (lecture, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City, IA, October 27, 2006).
- 46.
Ibid.
- 47.
George H. Quimby, “Theatre in Iran and Afghanistan”, Educational Theatre Journal 12, no. 3 (1960): 203.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
Naderi, “Poetry and Politics”.
- 50.
Wahid Omar, “From Storytelling to Community Development”, in Telling Stories to Change the World: Global Voices on the Power of Narrative to Build Community and Make Social Justice Claims, eds. Rickie Solinger, Madeline Fox, and Kayhan Irani (New York: Routledge, 2008), 194.
- 51.
Naderi, “Poetry and Politics”.
- 52.
Omar, “From Storytelling to Community Development”, 194.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
Nicole Estvanik, “Global Spotlight”, American Theatre Magazine, February 2012.
- 55.
AHRDO, Afghan Women After the Taliban: Will History Repeat Itself? (Kabul: AHRDO, 2012).
- 56.
This is in some ways inevitable as Afghanistan remains a very poor country and like others who are able to work, local activists need to make money (in some cases by capitalizing on donor ideas) to support large extended families.
- 57.
Jason Burke, “Kabul’s Graffiti Guerrillas Put the Writing on the Walls”, The Guardian, June 12, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/12/kabul-grafitti-guerrillas-walls.
- 58.
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (New York: Random House, 2012), 237.
- 59.
Diana Taylor, Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’ (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 72.
- 60.
ICTJ Assessment, “Transitional Justice Theatre Training of Trainers Project”, unpublished report, August 2009.
- 61.
Pouligny, “Understanding Situations of Post-Mass Crime”. See note 3.
- 62.
Cambodia is one place where the arts served as the main vehicle for victims of the genocide to communicate their experiences, because the tribunal was slow to start. See Stepakoff, “Telling and Showing”, 23–24. Colombia is another context where the arts are used as a main vehicle for truth and memory, see note 24.
- 63.
A’ness, “Resisting Amnesia”, 400.
- 64.
Ly Daravuth, “Notes on Pchum Ben” (working paper, Recasting Reconciliation through Culture and the Arts, Coexistence International, Waltham/Boston: Brandeis University, 2005), 4.
- 65.
Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire, 193.
- 66.
Carne Ross, The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2011), xviii.
- 67.
Ibid., xxvi.
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Siddiqui, N., Marifat, H., Kouvo, S. (2014). Culture, Theatre and Justice: Examples from Afghanistan. In: Rush, P., Simić, O. (eds) The Arts of Transitional Justice. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 6. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8385-4_7
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