Political Atrocities, Moral Indignation, and Forgiveness in African Religious Ethics

Scholarship on transitional justice has oscillated between the pedagogical value of moral magnanimity, shown by victims of past atrocities who choose to forgive their wrongdoers, and the deterrent effect of imposing punishment on the offenders, which includes making restitution to the victims of their wrongful actions. This article examines the views of two African thinkers on this issue, Archbishop Desmond Tutu who argues for forgiveness, and Wole Soyinka who defends restitution as a better way to express respect for the dignity of both the victims and the rule of law. The article contends that while traditional African values play important roles in the perspectives of these thinkers, they do not, in themselves, justify either of the two positions they advance. The article further contrasts the positive role Tutu and Soyinka assign to historical memory and truth-telling with the strategies of social forgetting and public silence embraced in Sierra Leone and Mozambique in their quest for political reconciliation.