Dear Readers,
As part of our effort to keep you informed about current analysis of the ICC Kenya proceedings and their impact, we note this commentary just published on African Arguments, the blog of the Royal African Society in London. Do our readers agree with the idea that the process is leading to what the author calls a “decommunalisation” of responsibility for the post-election violence, by focusing on the question of individual responsibility for its initiation? Please comment!
Daniel has thought (and argued) much more about the issue behind that word. It is the argument about collective guilt vs. collective responsibility. There is definitely no collective guilt of an entire ethnic grouo in Kenya. But there may exist collective responsibilities that ought to be addressed; not by the opponents of such groups, but by them themselves.
Will the ICC trials be a furthering agent, a lever actually contributing to move this heavy boulder? or will it – contrarily – motivate the deniers on either side to concentrate on individual responsibilities of some top brass only? The question is the same that was posed in Germany after 1945.