Accountability and Social Reconstruction

Abstract

Armed conflict affects children (and adults) psychologically and emotionally, with long-term consequences at both the individual and community levels. The effects of trauma are a particular hazard of conflict that can affect victims, witnesses, and perpetrators. Chapter 5 argued that effective accountability is critical for successful social reconstruction. It explored a pair of political and cultural criticisms voiced against the pursuit of accountability in post-atrocity contexts and found neither of them to be sufficiently robust to be reasons for which accountability should not be pursued. This chapter addresses another factor on which social reconstruction is reliant — the psychological wellbeing of the society’s citizens. It particularly addresses the intersection of trauma and accountability by taking up another manner of challenge. It explores the major objections raised against accountability based on the notion that the psychological wellbeing of individuals and the community can be further threatened in the aftermath of mass atrocity by engaging in truth-telling and reviving past traumatic experiences. This chapter argues, however, that remembering and truth-telling, rather than causing re-traumatization, should be viewed as significant components of projects of individual and social healing.