When is a justice campaign over? Transitional justice, ‘overing’ and Bloody Sunday

Tom Bentley

doi:10.1177/0010836721989365

Abstract

This article explores the political, strategic and emotional issue of victim groups deciding to continue or discontinue central components of a justice campaign in the aftermath of receiving ‘truth’. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the article focuses on relatives and other stakeholders’ varying positions on (dis)continuing the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration march after the publication of the Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and the UK Prime Minister’s apology for the massacre. I demonstrate that there has emerged an, at times, acrimonious schism between those who feel the apology and report were sufficient to stop the march and those who believe them to be insufficient. Thus, while much of the literature on political apology evaluates its effects on the dyadic relationship between victim and perpetrator, this article develops Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘overing’ to demonstrate that the ostensible moment of truth can create unanticipated and deleterious intra-victim tensions. The article concludes by suggesting practical measures emerging from the findings that other justice campaigns may consider.

Highlights

On 15 June 2010, immediately following the publication of the Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, UK Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for the British army’s 1972 massacre of civilians at a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland
For Rotberg (2006: 33), like many academics working on the politics of remorse, ‘apology can usefully create the possibility of closure in post-conflict transitions’
Such a claim elicits difficult questions: what does closure mean? Is it desirable? What are the entailing power relations? On the more critical side of the spectrum, there are scholars who contend that state apology tends to be imbued with hegemonic power relations (Bentley, 2016; Corntassel and Holder, 2008; Gibney, 2002; Somani, 2011)

Summary

Introduction

On 15 June 2010, immediately following the publication of the Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, UK Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for the British army’s 1972 massacre of civilians at a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland. Following detailed coding of the interview transcripts, there emerge three core themes expressed by those continuing to march: (1) That the Report and apology were unsatisfactory in bringing justice; (2) That the apology and the march’s discontinuation were part of a nefarious ‘deal’; (3) That the inquiry’s findings regarding Gerald Donaghey were unjust. These themes are each explored in turn

The continuing pursuit of justice

Deal making

The Gerald Donaghey injustice

Sufficient ‘truth’

Continuing life

The ‘deterioration’ of the march