Oct 21
Whether she knew it or not, Nadia Bishop’s call to the Grenadian people for unconditional forgiveness and reconciliation appealed to deeply-entrenched values in at least two of our ancestral cultures. Traditional, and to some extent modern, societies in Africa and India accord(ed) great importance to such values, which are regarded as absolutely essential for maintaining social harmony and promoting solidarity in their multicultural societies. We in the Caribbean arguably still retain such values in our cultural genes, values that can be resuscitated when the need arises, as it apparently has in present-day Grenada…
Mervyn,
Thank you so much for reminding us of some of the most important principles and ideals grounded in our African ancestral heritage. And yes, I do agree that if more CARICOM citizens would embrace this dominant heritage, (instead of denying it), they would gain so much more from the empowerment and nurturing of our spiritual self, which I believe helps us considerably to deal with all the madness – the corruption, the greed, abuse of a democratic governance process, gender and other social inequalities – going on around us.
I find your article re-assuring, and encouraging – definitely to be read more than once.
Mervyn, I was just scrolling to the bottom of the page of the homepage of this website, and ironically I saw the theme for the Caribbean Studies Assosciation conference. I think the ideas you articulated in this piece will be wonderful for that conference on understanding violence in the caribbean. I think it would be great if you could present a paper or participate in a panel to expoud on these ideas at that conference in Barbados.
Gautam,
I appreciate your suggestion that the ideas expounded in my extended comment on Nadia Bishop’s views on forgiveness and reconciliation would be helpful to next year’s Caribbean Studies Association conference in Barbados. However, I note that the theme of the conference is “Understanding the Everyday Occurrence of Violence in the Cultural Life of the Caribbean.” Given that theme, the pertinence of any paper I might present on the subject would depend on my having detailed, up-to-date knowledge of the situation in the Caribbean. Having lived outside of the Caribbean for a rather long period, I do not possess up-to-date knowledge of the situation, particularly in respect of the conference theme. Furthermore, the wave of violence that has seemingly engulfed our Caricom societies began after I had left the Caribbean following my last period of residence there.
Only such knowledge would permit me to illustrate my ideas on forgiveness and reconciliation by specific reference to real-life situations in the Caribbean, and also enable me to suggest practical, feasible ways in which they might be applied. More particularly, I consider such close knowledge of the Caribbean scene absolutely essential If I am to provide the type of insights that would contribute to an understanding of the everyday occurrence of violence in the cultural life of the Caribbean.
Moreover, I have little interest in merely discussing ideas for the sake of ideas. Consequently, all my ideas, my research, and my writing in the area of socio-cultural development are directed solely towards identifying and proposing pragmatic, feasible, applicable solutions for the range of problems that confront our societies in the South, in that most important area of development. Such an approach would thus exclude my presenting a conference paper that merely discusses ideas in a theoretical manner.
If I were in the Caribbean, I would not have minded participating in a panel discussion if the subject of the discussion provided me with an opportunity to share the knowledge, acquired from my research, of how the Japanese have, in a stunningly successful manner, integrated their cultural values of forgiveness, reconciliation/conciliation, compromise, and apology (offered by the guilty party to the victim, with the consent of the latter, in lieu of punishment) into the Western legal and judicial systems they had borrowed from the West. From the very beginning, Japan attempted to make Western legal concepts comprehensible in terms of indigenous culture and traditional juridical thought, and to reconcile, and promote interaction between, customary or indigenous law and official law. However, I live in Paris which makes it quite impractical fpr me to travel to Barbados merely to participate in an afternoon or morning panel session, even if I do receive an invitation from the conference organizers to do so, which is not a given.
There is an astonishing similarity between indigenous African and Japanese cultural, political, social, and legal values. As in traditional Africa, Japanese tend to settle disputes on the basis of a compromise agreement, which is achieved through the mediation of friends, relations, or influential persons rather than through litigation. Like Africa, also, that Japanese tendency has been greatly influenced by the traditional Japanese cultural preference for maintaining harmonious relations. As in traditional Africa, the Japanese feel that harmonious relations would be jeopardized by clear-cut court decisions on which party is in the right and which in the wrong – decisions based on the assertion of individual legal rights. The mere intervention of a judge in a dispute betwen Japanese would be evidence of the disruption of harmonious relations, the prospect of which generally impels parties to a dispute to explore all possible forms of mediation in order to reach an amicable settlement. Such attempts at conciliation are further encouraged by the traditional Japanese aversion to litigation.
As in the case of traditional Africa, for the Japanese, the ideal outcome to a dispute is a solution that involves compromise and mutual apology. Again, like Africa, such attitudes have had a determining influence on the functioning of Japanese tribunals which consider their essential task, in disputes between individuals, as one of conciliation rather than judgement. But UNLIKE Africa, several kinds of conciliation are provided for in modern Japanese law, one of which takes place before the matter is brought to judicial notice, in accordance with Japanese tradition. Modern Japanese conciliation practices include informal conciliation (jidan), compromise (wakai) and formal conciliation (chotei). Japan’s embracing of its traditional culture rather than rejection of it and, the integration of its indigenous values of forgiveness, reconciliation, compromise, confession, and formal apology, in its modern legal and judicial systems, have had a spectacular effect on both the efficiency of its law enforcement systems (over 95% of crimes in Japan are solved) and the level of violence in the country. The incidence of violence in Japan is possibly the lowest in the world and Japanese streets are the world’s safest.
Noting that the study of Japanese traditions of conciliation demonstrates the importance and relevance of tradition in the modernization and democratization of Japan, Dan Fenno Henderson (” Conciliation and Japanese Law, Tokugawa and Modern”, 1965) has suggested that, although Japan”™s uniqueness does not permit the replication elsewhere of its singular experience, the country”™s experience may nonetheless yield useful insights for other countries that face similar problems of assimilating Western law and Western political values. The Caribbean, like Africa and other countries in the South, could most certainly draw very useful lessons from the successful experience of the Japanese, which could help the region develop effective strategies to combat and roll back the rapidly increasing incidence of violence which, if left unchecked, might well undermine the basic structures of our societies.
Mervyn