Revisiting responsibilities and violence through religious agents, in South Africa and the Basque Country.

Abstract

This text deals with new and uncomfortable aspects that stress processes of internal violence management and national reconstruction. Specifically, I analyze activities mobilized by religious agents who interpellate these efforts to show other figures of responsibility and suffering that are normally minimized by placing all eyes and devices on the essentialized victim-victimizer pair. I discuss this from examples from two different contexts: the South African post apartheid and the Basque peace process (Spain). The ethnographic material addresses the diverse effects and facets involved in the demands for "restitution" mobilized by the South African entity Restitution Center, which, without abandoning the category of reconciliation that dominated the TRC, aims to raise awareness among the white community about their debt, their responsibility during apartheid. The second is an ethnographic record of an event mobilized by the diocese of Bilbao (Basque Country) "Bake topaketa, Encounter for Peace", which aims to raise awareness among the population in general about cases of lesser-known victims, who in turn have relationship with ETA victimizers (ETA organization). It is interesting to think about the complexity of dimensions that encompass processes of internal violence, which as the years go by show new facets and new protagonists. The religious dimension here operates as a driving force for other movements, through religious activist specialists, with their specific rhetoric and resources.