TRUTH, TRIBES AND RECONCILIATION

The phrase 'Truth and Reconciliation' is associated most strongly with so-called Truth Commissions or Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (etc) which have been established historically in countries from Canada and Congo to Peru and Yugoslavia - and famously in South Africa post-apartheid.  Such commissions have often had the job of uncovering the truth about past wrongdoing in situations of serious conflict, in particular violations of human rights, violence, disappearances, and so on.  


So the phrase should perhaps not be used lightly.  Yet truth has been at a premium in both the USA and the UK in recent years, as we have previously debated at Wychwood Circle, and a potential UK prime minister is at this moment being taken to court for lying in the EU referendum - with some critics arguing that this is no place for the judiciary to get involved since 'politicians always lie' while continental diplomats cannot foresee doing any deals with a future prime minister who is known for his 'mendacity and duplicity'. 

When Peter Silva's talk was planned the expectation was that the Brexit debate would have led to some sort of constitutional conclusion, however messy, leaving the UK (in or out of the EU) riven and polarised. We still await an outcome - if indeed one is possible given the degree of polarisation - and there are suggestions that we may just have to stay in semi-permanent limbo. Meanwhile, there might or might not have been wrongdoing or violations of human rights - and only one public and political death - but a crucial task of any future government will be to try and effect a reconciliation in our divided society. It's hard to see how. 

So, with or without a commission, both truth and reconciliation must be high on the agenda in our political and moral climate for years to come. Peter Silva, who now lives in Chipping Norton, knows at first hand what life in South Africa was like before and since their TRC and he has also just visited the USA, where the political and social divisions are also great. He comes with both academic and life experiences to provoke our thoughts and many who have heard Peter before will know that his engaging style of public speaking will both inform and challenge us. 

Join us at the Village Hall on June 9th at 7pm, or earlier for refreshments.  Retiring collection (£3-5 suggested). 

PEOPLE LIKE US: WHY WE ARE NOW TWO TRIBES

FLUNG TO TWO OPPOSING POLES

It hardly needs stating that we live in turbulent times.  As yet another deadline comes and goes and the UK increasingly becomes the focus of incredulity, hilarity or pity across the world, it is opportune that Wychwood Circle has two speakers in the next couple of months to help us think through a moral (and inevitably political) stance on the Brexit divisions.

The Times journalist Janice Turner wrote recently that

Brexit has flung 65 per cent of the population, according to research by BritainThinks, to two opposing poles. ... So the minority in the centre, what I call "Brexit non-binary", ... have endured three years of roiling, upset guts.

It has been hard hearing our communities caricatured as duped and bigoted. ("I'm glad my constituents aren't as stupid as yours," said a Remain area Labour MP to another with a Leave seat.) 

I don’t believe that non-binary minority are alone in having had their digestion or even their psychological stability upset by the madness of this recent period.  Commentators (including our next guest speaker) have written about underlying anxieties, families divided, mental health damaged (64% reported this in the same survey), vital decisions postponed, non-British EU nationals struggling to confirm their ‘settled status’, etc.  And all this on the basis that 37% of the electorate voted one way in a Yes/No referendum three years ago!

TRIBES, TRUTH ... AND RECONCILIATION?

Broadcaster and columnist (and former Canon of Christ Church, Oxford) Angela Tilby was one of the first to speak out about the division of the country into ‘two tribes’ – and that was a year ago.  It seemed slightly exaggerated at that time to ask our second speaker, South African academic and priest Peter Silva, to speak under the title ‘Truth and Reconciliation’.  One year on, it seems anything but extreme to imagine we might have to hold some sort of similar process to try and bring the country together again.  The Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested that church people invite those of opposite views to tea on a Sunday afternoon;  it may take more than that.

Angela Tilby will join us on May 12^th in Milton Village Hall to speak about ‘People like us’: are we now two tribes?

Peter Silva will speak at Wychwood Library on June 9^th on the topic Truth and Reconciliation, including a survey of the South African experience and its relevance to the UK and US today.