Fresh insight into the neglected state of victims and victimhood

For East Africa, a region with its fair share of ‘politicides,’ this book offers an exciting look at the subject, shedding light on political, moral and policy issues. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • For communities across eastern Africa — a region with its fair share of victims of genocidal “politicides” (politically-motivated mass killings), Professor Govier’s book is a breath of fresh air. Recent United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees figures state that nearly 60 million people have been driven from their homes by war and persecution.

What makes something good or bad, right or wrong? This philosophical question has been discussed for years. Many people have come up with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of different and conflicting answers.

Dr W.E.B Du Bois, the first Black American to earn a PhD from Harvard University in 1895, added his voice to this sociological matrix by asking, “how does it feel to be a victim?”

As if in response, Canadian philosopher Trudy Govier has written a book Victims and Victimhood that offers a new and exciting look at the subject. It brings to light the definition, moral, and public policy issues that arise from the discourse on victims and victimhood. 

For communities across eastern Africa — a region with its fair share of victims of genocidal “politicides” (politically-motivated mass killings), Professor Govier’s book is a breath of fresh air. Recent United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees figures state that nearly 60 million people have been driven from their homes by war and persecution.

Compared with Britain and France, the UN report also notes that countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, despite their meagre resources, take on very many refugees. That said, Kenya has nearly half a million of its citizens internally displaced — mostly victims of the disputed 2007 polls.

Recent turmoil in Burundi and South Sudan, and the ongoing terror threats in Somalia, continue to displace thousands. But drawing from the same UN report, these numbers are comparatively less than the 2.5 million victims in Darfur, or the staggering 7.5 million displaced by the ongoing Syrian conflict.      

Victims and Victimhood is not a book about East Africa. It is a philosophic vocation about humanisation. It brings neatly into the philosophical foreground ideas about the victim, who is often forgotten when statics are being compiled. In Kenya’s postcolonial socio-economic system, for instance, the only way of learning about victims’ stories and struggles was in novels such as Son of Woman (1971) by Charles Mangua, After 4.30 (1974) by David Maillu, and Never Forgive Father (1972) by George Muruah.

In all these novels, the female subject appears most often as the victim, the loser, or the underprivileged.

Away from hard statistics, the works of East African writers such as Charles Mangua, David Maillu, Meja Mwangi, Okot p’ Bitek, and Grace Ogot are much more acute in their examination and representation of the social reality in postcolonial East Africa than are predictions by economists, development experts, sociologists, policy planners, and regional states. These writers highlight the “lived experiences” of ordinary citizens.

SAME MWANANCHI APPROACH

Govier’s book uses the same mwananchi approach, and is full of telling examples and astute points. Chapters in the book are eclectically arranged, from the problems of allowing victims their voices and properly hearing what they have to say (Chapters 4-7), to the hazards of cultivating “victim-identities,” to the determination of what we owe to victims by way of respect, restitution, restorative justice, vindication of their dignity, and the need for “closure” (Chapters 8-10).

Although, certain cognate notions such as those of wrong-doer, responsibility, and forgiveness, are subjects of vast literatures, Govier’s use of simple language makes the book an attractive read.

Govier‘s expansive use of normative and conceptual apparatus of victimhood extends the net of those affected.

Virtually every Kenyan, except for Al-Shabaab terrorists, was a victim of the Westgate Mall attacks of September 2013 or more the Garissa University College massacre in April 2015 that left 148 people, mostly students, dead. Govier is at the same time restrictive, especially on the subject of compensation, as in the current controversy surrounding the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi, for instance.

But she takes a good stub at what she calls: “four common attitudes to victims” — Silence, Blame, Deference and Agency.

Crucially, Govier poses the question: Are some crimes unforgivable? She argues that forgiving does not require condoning, excusing or forgetting, using the political forgiveness example of Nelson Mandela. She also defends the idea that revenge and forgiveness can be applied to groups of people, not just individuals, and looks at the repercussions of this on the politics of peace and reconciliation.

In summary, Gover makes a good job in generating anxiety about the future of humanity and victims, using restorative concepts useful in Eastern Africa where there are consistent efforts to rethink the term ‘victim’. 

Communities are shifting to a holistic and ecological vision of reality by closely re-examining their indigenous life philosophies. This is in light of the contradictory phenomena of globalisation, the information society and economic growth on the one hand, and the clearly intensifying poverty, widening inequalities and demand for social justice on the other.

Most of the women (and men) on the periphery of the socio-economic structures and resource distribution networks are busy reinventing means and strategies of survival.