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History Education, Transitional Justice and Politics of Reconciliation: Multi- and Univocality Around Violent Pasts in South African and Rwandan Textbooks

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Historical Justice and History Education

Abstract

This chapter’s review of post-1994 history textbooks and curricula in Rwanda and South Africa compares the impact and implications of distinct types of reconciliation and transitional justice (TJ) policies on parallel post-conflict history education reform and textbook revision processes. In Rwanda, whose TJ process followed unilateral victory and centred on justice and accountability, a model predicated on univocal discourse around historical (in)justice predominates through the application of a pedagogy of truth. A contrasting model presents itself in South Africa’s dialogic, multivocal discourses, arising from a TJ based on truth and forgiveness and emanating from negotiated settlement. The study reflects on the divergent transformative and conciliatory value and potential of these disparate approaches in relation to their mediation of redress and accountability for historical abuses.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to one textbook, this restricted victim group included ‘members of [the] political opposition […] and other dissents [sic] mostly who were Hutu journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and civil servants’ (n.a. 2017, p. 52).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Denise Bentrovato

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  1. Denise Bentrovato
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Correspondence to Denise Bentrovato .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Matilda Keynes

  2. Department of Education, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Henrik Åström Elmersjö  & Björn Norlin  & 

  3. Department of Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Daniel Lindmark

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Bentrovato, D. (2021). History Education, Transitional Justice and Politics of Reconciliation: Multi- and Univocality Around Violent Pasts in South African and Rwandan Textbooks. In: Keynes, M., Åström Elmersjö, H., Lindmark, D., Norlin, B. (eds) Historical Justice and History Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70412-4_14

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