Conflict Resolution through Reconciliation

Forty years after the first free elections in South Africa in 1994 it is worth revisiting the TRC-process that was at the time a shining example for conflict resolution through reconciliation. After the fall of the Wall, in Germany the less symbolically pregnant notion of “working through the past” (“Aufarbeitung von Vergangenheit”) was preferred. Comparative key questions are worth to revisit: What options for actions (amnesty, applying the rule of law, truth commission etc. ) were chosen in both countries and why. What rituals, rites or symbolic forms of expression accompany the processes of dealing with the past. How can the results of the processes be evaluated.