Tribunals Legitimate Both History and Memory

Tribunals are important because the people that are responsible for crimes against humanity must realize that they will be held accountable in some way at some point in their future. They are also important because as in any trial, both sides of a story are heard—most importantly the witnesses’ testimony because the accused's actions speak for them. Tribunals should take the form of the Eichmann trial because in cases where genocide and mass violence are concerned, the guilt of a defendant is generally unquestionable once they have been indicted. The point of the trial is not so much to prove guilt as to straighten out facts of the story and provide a narrative for public digestion, as well as make a political point. Another aspect of tribunals is the evidence of a changed political atmosphere. Tribunals in Cambodia and trials in Germany were inconceivable during the time in which the perpetrators were in control of the government and directly after their downfall. The very fact that a trial is underway means that the oppressors are out of power and now their victims have the power to seek justice through an unbiased legal system.

A tribunal sanctioned by the Cambodian government as well as the UN lends considerable legitimacy to the testimonies brought forth by witnesses. A blog about Khmer Rouge mass violence doesn’t have the same intensity or legitimacy of a witness’s court testimony because the emotional qualities conveyed visually aren’t as readily available through print. Also, writing about mass trauma isn’t restricted to survivors only. Historians or regular Joes can assume the role of writing about the Khmer Rouge’s crimes against humanity through second hand knowledge of the event. The status of a witness as a primary source makes their knowledge more valuable to those like Wieviorka who believe that memory and history must remain distinct, although the memory of the witness may be (unintentionally) incomplete or false.

We try so hard to reconstruct a version of the past constituted from snapshots of individuals’ life experiences and then separate the subjective and objective parts into memory and history, respectively. But this is impossible. History should just be universally recognized as being a product of a particular collective perception (facts, events), as well as individual perceptions within that collective, shaped by memory with all its faults. The receivers of history are not objective; humans have subjective experiences which cause them to react to information differently. So why does history have to seem objective when it really isn’t?