Politics, violence and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and South Africa

Abstract

Abstract Northern Ireland and South Africa have both suffered from prolonged, endemic, violent political conflict, but the respective patterns and dynamics of violence have been rather different. Violence in Northern Ireland has been much more articulate in its political logic; agency and victimhood have been much more openly acknowledged and widely diffused; community‐based paramilitaries have played a much more prominent role in killings than counterparts in South Africa. Moreover, no foreseeable political settlement in Northern Ireland is likely to produce a dominant political force intent on vindicating its role in the struggle ‐ as has happened in South Africa. These things mean that the needs and possibilities of ‘truth and reconciliation’ are likely to be understood differently from the way they have been expressed in South Africa.