As we look back on 15 years of ICTJ's work, we recognize that our greatest asset is the people whose knowledge, experience, and dedication made our contribution possible. To celebrate all who have been part of ICTJ’s story over the years, we asked some of our former colleagues to share their reflections and memories of moments that stand out: moments that throw the stakes of our work into sharp relief. In the weeks and months to come we will bring you their stories in Reflections on the Struggle for Justice.
Pablo de Greiff, ICTJ's former Director of Research (2001–2014) and current UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, shares a story of political theory come to life in a small Spanish town.
| It is 2005 and I am en route to visit my family in Seville, Spain. I have a one-hour stopover in the Madrid train station, and use the opportunity to meet with the founder of an important organization working on historical memory related to the Spanish Civil War and the Franco era. I spot my friend in the crowd and as we warmly embrace, I look forward to learning more about how Spanish citizens are dealing with their troubled past.
We sat down and ordered a coffee, the train station buzzing around us. I told him about a research project I had just begun about the links between transitional justice and economic development. |
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He seemed to find the project interesting and he asked me what I hoped to achieve with it. “I believe that transitional justice is about shoring up a person’s understanding of themselves as a bearer of rights,” I ventured, worried that my academic style might put him off. “I think that this is important for economic development as well."
His eyes lit up as I spoke, and he leaned forward. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said, taking me by surprise. “Let me tell you a story.”
Several years before, he visited a small town in Andalusia, in the south of Spain. He organized a public gathering about historical memory, which attracted a good crowd. In the crowd he noticed an elderly woman, quite frail and visibly nervous. She was there with her daughter, who was staying close by, reassuring her. She seemed to want to speak, but she also seemed afraid. Finally, at the very end of the meeting, she worked up the courage to raise her hand and ask a question.
My friend later discovered that this woman was the daughter of a man with Republican sympathies who had been killed by Francoist forces in 1936. She had grown up during the Franco regime under a cloak of fear, which had prevented her from leading a normal life. Even something so small as leaving her house caused her anxiety—attending the gathering had taken all of her psychological strength. Even now, seeing a man hold the Republican flag at the meeting, she worried that something bad would happen to them, such as being arrested—even though Spain had been a democracy for more than twenty years.
“You may be wondering what this has to do with citizens and rights,” my friend said, which indeed I was. “Well, that woman is now the leader of the historical memory association in her town. After years of living in fear of being an active citizen, she not only is doing it, but she has organized others also to speak up for their rights.”
I had to catch my train, so I thanked my friend profusely for the story before walking briskly through the crowd. I thought of that humble heroine—she could have been any one of the women I passed—who gave my philosophical abstractions some real-world meaning and flesh.
PHOTO: Protesters gather at a march in solidarity with Franco's victims (Carlotta Tofani/Flickr).
