Truth commissions and the politics of history: A critical appraisal

Abstract

This chapter discusses the nexus between the endeavor of truth commissions to establish the truth about past criminal political violence on a mass scale and their function as an instrument of a state-sponsored “politics of history.” Analyzing the commissions’ truth production, it contradicts the prevailing belief in an epistemological divide between scholarship and politics in common understandings of the notion of “politics of history” and argues that the truthfulness of historical knowledge is a crucial resource in the public use of history for political ends. The author also asserts that scholarly discussions should not neglect the question of the commissions’ capacity for truth in the name of an ultimately undemanding relativism, inasmuch as this carries the risk of losing sight of the fundamental rationale prompting the creation of these official bodies.