Denaturalizing cruelty: Maixabel Lasa, victim and peacemaker, in Zubiak (Jon Sistiaga and Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas 2019) and Maixabel (Iciar Bollaín 2021)

Abstract

Within Basque society there exists a special subset of human beings, painful I–You binomials, forever linked through blood, by the lethal terrorist gun. Fortunately, today victims face a much more hospitable society, but it is still a moment rife with contradiction. One part of Basque society finds it difficult to imagine a shared collective memory that will faithfully reflect the excesses committed by Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) and the Spanish state regarding human rights abuses. These misgivings are easily understood when some still debate the humanity of the victims themselves. Another part of Basque (and Spanish) society questions the political intent of restorative practices, of those experiences that bring victims and victimizers together within the framework of restorative justice, a political stance that, like in the first case, highlights the need to humanize the Other in the name of peace. The creative world of the arts, more specifically, the films studied in this article, move in a different direction and beg the question: if the processes of restorative justice are uniquely designed to be experienced in a triangulated scenario – one shared by victim, victimizer, and the dead – what might these conversations offer a society in need of better models of co-existence when put on the screen? Can art mediate?