"Allowing
such people power is like letting the lunatics run
the asylum."
David
Lidington, the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland, quoted a spokesman for the rape crisis
and sexual abuse centre in Northern Ireland, who
claimed that members of community restorative justice
schemes have "threatened women and attempted
to cover up crimes committed by those with IRA,
Sinn Fein or CRJ connections". (see: House
of Com-mons: Hansard edition; 23 November 2005;
Column 1498 & 1499). The opponents of restora-tive
justice range right across the board of the Northern
Irish political spectrum. The SDLP view it as a
form of "vigilant policing"; the party's
criticism culminated in Mark Durkan's words: "We
can't have local warlords being turned into local
law lords." Anthony
McIntyre expressed the widespread thesis, that
CRJ is just a new name for the IRA.
By
and large the supporters and critics of restorative
justice make their points quite well, thus the arguments
for and against are fairly balanced. The aim of
this article, therefore, is not to develop
a colourful political defense of the restorative
justice projects in Northern Ireland. By contrast,
my main thesis is that the potential for restorative
justice does indeed exist in Northern Ireland that
could satisfy all of us; however, it has not been
fulfilled yet. Yes, people might question the restorative
justice projects that are in place. But it is the
application of restorative justice that might
be flawed, the philosophy itself remains
unchallenged!
Restorative
justice is a vision or philosophy that has to be
applied in practice; and yes, again, there are shortcomings
in today's restorative justice projects Northern
Ireland. But these shortcomings are not solely the
fault of Jim Auld (or Tom Winston from Alternatives),
but the fault lines can be identified in various
problems that are typically arising in all "post-war
so-cieties": South Africa, Namibia, El Salvador,
Macedonia and countless others. Conflict trans-formation
processes are typically accompanied by high levels
of crime: political violence is replaced
by criminal violence.
Northern
Ireland is no exception from that. These problems,
however, have to be handled in an appropriate way.
So
let's try and explore where the potential for common
ground in the restorative justice debate lies. I
am suggesting that the idea of restorative justice
can be restored in the Northern Ireland context
along the lines of the Gandhian way of thought.
Ok, that's the point where people may call me naïve
or romantic and this article might be binned immediately.
Lights out. Full stop!
However,
what may be hard to believe for the "unromantic",
rational academic elite is the fact that Gandhi
has never been a moralist. His philosophy was always
applied pragmatism: "I am not a visionary.
I claim to be a practical idealist." Restorative
justice is applied philosophy. Gandhi once said
that if there was only the choice between cowardice
and violence, he would recommend violence. Gandhi,
for himself, didn't see things in a solely dualistic
perspective, which may seem hard to understand for
us Westerners: For him, mankind was on a constant
journey of evolution: cowardice, the lowest end
of the ladder, will be replaced by violence until
the human conscience reaches the highest point,
i.e. nonviolence.
Restorative
justice as a philosophy has enshrined the principle
of nonviolence. So, if some of the allegations against
CRJ may be proven true the use of any form of violence
(physical or psychological) is incompatible with
the core principles of restorative justice! By contrast,
the theory of restorative justice can be summarised
by two simple negations: no enemies
and no demands! The focus has to be shifted
towards an emphasis on needs. It is very
much about Gandhi's term he used for "nonviolence":
"Satyagraha" - "to offer dignity".
Dignity to the victims of crime, the community AND
the perpetrators.
Nonviolence,
which is grounded in the worth and dignity of every
human being, really arises from the struggle within
a person to overcome potentially destructive drives
like anger and fear. The results of that struggle
are moral architecture for social justice and world
peace. And those who keep repeating the popular
notion that violence is something like a natural
response or a natural phenomenon should keep in
mind that that's an old myth. Twenty top behaviour-ists
gathered under U.N. auspices to produce a document
in 1983, the Declaration of Seville, which exploded
the false science that had been used to suggest
or state that there's a biologi-cal and therefore
inevitable basis of violence. Behaviourist Frans
de Waal describes a very poignant moment of seeing
chimpanzees in the Arnheim Zoo in Holland reconciling
after a quarrel. He wondered what the literature
had to say about this. And of course he found nothing.
There were reams and reams about how chimps get
into fights, but nothing about how they get out
of them. It's just not something that is studied.
In 1909, Gandhi wrote that what we call "history"
is designed not to recognize or document
nonviolence. In fact, what history documents are
breakdowns in the social system. Gandhi was trying
to make nothing more nor less than a breakthrough
in the history of consciousness, to show that nonviolent
force has kept humanity alive for countless generations.
The
communities in Northern Ireland are deeply concerned
with rising crime and extremely worried about there
own safety and security - breakdowns in the social
system! In the communities' view, violence is the
only way to respond to these breakdowns. Violence,
however, does not bring security; if history teaches
anything, it teaches us that.
In
order for restorative justice to work in reducing
crime in the community it has to be linked with
community policing. Community policing is in itself
a process and not a product:
