International studies, Vol. XV No. 2, 2015.
Review article
Dealing with the Past
Dijana Delaye
; Ministarstvo vanjskih i europskih poslova Republike Hrvatske
Abstract
The article analyses the process of dealing with the past by trying to answer three questions: what it means to deal with the past, how and why to do it. After the explanation of the term itself, there follows the analysis of the process of dealing with the past in Germany as an example of a country that faced the past most thoroughly and successfully. In order to answer the question why to deal with the past, the author interviewed Vesna Teršelič, the director of Documenta – Centre for dealing with the past, the lawyer Vesna Alaburić and Teresa Forcades, a Benedictine nun actively involved with dealing with the past in her own country, Spain, which at the end of the seventies chose not to deal with Franco’s era. The experiences of Germany and Spain show that dealing with the past is an integral part of a country’s healing process after conflict. However, the article also shows that dealing with the past is a process that cannot be applied to all countries in the same way but that for each country a specific, tailor made approach is required. The success of the process depends on whether the need to deal with the past comes from the inside (the people themselves), whether the instruments of transitional justice integrate the country’s culture, and whether the whole process is supported by the political elite, the church, the media, the scientific circles and the civil society.
Keywords
dealing with the past; courts; truth commissions; guilty consciousness; political elite; church; media; scientific circles and civil society
Hrčak ID:
153069
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2015.
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