Podcasts

In May 2022, Ferdinand ‘Bong Bong’ Marcos, the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos won the presidential elections in the Philippines. The vice-presidential elections were won by Sara Duterte, daughter of the former authoritarian president Rodrigo Duterte.

What does the election of the son of a former dictator tell us about the Philippines’ transitional justice process? What to make of the historical revisionism that facilitated this electoral outcome, in light of transitional justice’s concern with truth and memorialization?

The episode highlights that, while many activists and justice actors were initially focusing on the recovering the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, and later on fighting the extra-judicial killings happening as part of Duterte’s violent war-on-drugs, an entire campaign aimed at erasing the violence and crimes perpetrated by the Marcos family from the public discourse was shaping up under the surface.

“Recovering ill-gotten wealth was what we were doing, but the Marcoses were recovering power”

– Ruben Carranza-

The interviews underline the impact of this of historical revisionism and the difficulty in combatting it in a context where there was never a widely shared and state-sanctioned historical narrative about the violence and economic crimes perpetrated by the Marcos regime. In the absence of a formal truth commission or institutionalized memorialization efforts, developing a shared understanding of the violence that transpired has been difficult. At the same time, the current campaign of historical revisionism, while commonly being traced to the Marcos family, is mostly being waged on social media platforms in a highly decentralized manner, making it difficult to develop an encompassing strategy to counter it.

Carmelo ‘Chuck’ Crisanto is the director of the Human Rights Violations Victims Memorial Commission of the Philippines, a state agency mandated to memorialize the human rights victims of the Martial Law.

Ruben Carranza was a commissioner on the Presidential Commission for Good Governance from 2001-2004, and is currently a senior policy expert on reparations at the International Center for Transitional Justice

The new episode of the Justice Visions podcast is last episode of the miniseries on historical truth-seeking initiatives in the (post-)colonial state. Recently, Europe has experienced a boom of state-led and informal initiatives to address the legacies of the colonial past and its enduring harms in the present. In this episode we zoom out from the particular truth initiatives in European countries, to discuss some of the overarching topics and themes crossing across the episodes of this series.  

Our guest is Dr Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa, an assistant Professor in Human Rights and Politics at the London School of Economics. We talk about the capacities of historical truth-seeking initiatives to contribute to the decolonisation project, accountability, and ultimately contribute to social change. As Olivia highlights, despite the formal decolonisation processes, “there is a continuity in colonial violence that’s embedded in many of our institutions”. The change that we should be aspire for is one that tackles the colonial status quo and dismantles colonial power dynamics.  

One of the central questions of our conversation is how historical truth can contribute to the decolonial project? Olivia stresses the need to framing historical truth initiatives within a decolonising strategy or approach. This would mean questioning the points of origin assigned to the history we are transmitting; questions of silencing and desilencing. Who gets to speak and who is systematically silenced? The decolonial approach is very much about the explicit in Olivia’s perspective, “about the extent to which you see your project either contributing to the status quo or actively be against it”.  

With the increased use of the transitional justice framework to think about historical injustice, Olivia argues that the question is not whether transitional justice “is the right thing or not”, but rather is about “the meaning that we give to it and how vigilant we are in how the language and the practises of it contribute to the status quo or not”.

The new episode of the Justice Visions podcast expands on historical truth-seeking initiatives in the (post-)colonial state. In this miniseries co-hosted by postdoctoral research fellow Dr. Cira Pallí-Asperó, we look into formal and informal truth initiatives in European countries dealing with settler and overseas colonial legacies. In this episode, we zoom in on Portugal to discuss decolonisation in a context of explicit glorification of the imperial and colonial past. What kind of initiatives have been taken place? Led by who and for which purpose?

Our guest is Dr. Bruno Sena Martins, researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra. First and foremost, he stresses, the anti-colonial struggle is not something of the past: “it is a mission for this generation to (…) decolonize the present and to decolonize Europe”. In Portugal, critical consciousness about the colonial past has only recently been shaping up in the public debate with the establishment of different initiatives led by civil society organisations and by minority groups of people of African descent, with a significant role of academia.

Dr. Bruno Sena Martins talks about what kind of openings and opportunities have been created to address the legacies of the Portuguese colonial past; and how civil society organisations have been advocating to redress issues of inequality, recognition, social, racial, and historical justice. “This is a movement where different people, different actors claim that it is important to look at the past in a critical perspective. It is important to acknowledge that the colonial violence is still with us”.

A new Justice Visions miniseries on historical truth-seeking initiatives in the (post-)colonial state, will look into formal and informal truth initiatives in European countries dealing with settler and overseas colonial legacies. In this miniseries co-hosted by Dr. Cira Pallí-Asperó, we pick up on some of these debates to explore how different actors are engaging in truth-seeking initiatives and what this means for the domain of transitional justice.

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Malin Arvidsson, a commissioner at the Swedish Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset, about a number of state-sanctioned historical truth-seeking initiatives that have taken place in the Scandinavian context. The goal of these commissions was to examine the impact that assimilation policies of the Scandinavian welfare states had on indigenous peoples in those countries.

The colonial past is a corrosive component in the relations between the former colonizing powers and their colonial subjects, particularly over issues of historical responsibility of recognition and redress of colonial injustices. Although the demands to redress historical injustices linked to colonialism are not new; since the Black Lives Matters movement took over the streets in 2020, they have taken a renewed spotlight in the public and political debate.

Within this framework, the transitional justice paradigm is increasingly being used to think about historical injustices, as historical truth-seeking initiatives within the post-colonial context (both formal and informal) are increasingly using the logic and rhetoric of transitional justice; for instance, by systematically referring to its core objectives in their mandates (i.e., truth, accountability, reparation, non-recurrence). But how are these transferred to the post-colonial context? and what are the implications thereof?

As Malin points out, this raises key questions: “(…) if you talk about historical injustices in this long-time perspective, what are even the actors that we are looking at, because for example, the state and the Church of Sweden has an intertwined history.” Awaiting the results of this ongoing process, one of the main contributions foreseen is building a strong archive that is essential for follow up by policy makers, civil society: “what will remain is an archive of interviews, research reports (…) that have been commissioned by the commission that can serve as a basis for further advocacy and claims-making.”

Reparations are a key mechanism to redress violations of international law. They are mostly conceived within state-like frameworks and related to measures administered by states. Yet, violence has increasingly shifted away from states to non-state actors such as armed groups. In a new Justice Visions podcast episode, we talk with Katharine Fortin (Netherlands Institute of Human Rights) and Luke Moffett (Queen’s University) about the need to broaden the conversation about engaging armed groups and encouraging them to remedy the harm they have caused.

Currently, around 60 to 80 million people are living under the control of armed groups. In their  practices, armed groups are increasingly taking on public ‘semi-government’ functions, using the law and employing judicial processes. These practices pose new challenges and questions for the International Criminal Court, as Katharine argues: “Is armed group law, law? Are armed group courts, courts?” and if they are, “should the international community be asking armed groups to investigate if a particular violation has taken place?” Yet, within the human rights framework it is still controversial to engage with armed groups. Can we somehow hold them accountable through the mechanisms they employ, and broaden the conversation about how to deal with the violence and harm they cause?

These are crucial questions, as the existence of armed groups is part of the reality in many post-conflict societies. Using the example of Northern-Ireland, Luke points to the ongoing existence of armed groups, even 25 years after the peace process. In Northern Ireland about 13.000 people, amounting to one out of a hundred adults, are currently members of armed groups. Yet, Luke posits that armed actors could also be approached as potential community leaders and peace-builders, with a view to protecting civilians. “It comes down to how do people act and interact as victims, civil society and armed groups in these situations. Where in transitional justice we are often are looking at post-conflict cases and post-authoritarian governments, in these situations it’s protracted conflict, it’s re-emerging conflicts, fragile societies where there is real insecurity for victims to come out and speak out. How do we better protect and allow people to access some sort of remedy without causing disadvantages for them?”