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Štambuk, Marina; Čorkalo Biruški, Dinka; Kapović, Iva
Peace and conflict, 08/2022, Volume: 28, Issue: 3Journal Article
Repairing broken intergroup relations after conflict is a challenging process that becomes particularly complex when perpetrators and victims continue to live in the same community. In the present study, we have asked participants from different sides of the 1991-1995 conflict in Croatia to disentangle their understanding of apology and forgiveness 20 years after the war. We conducted focus groups with people who suffered war-related personal losses, those with no such losses, and young adults born after the conflict. The major research question was as follows: How do different community actors understand intergroup apology and forgiveness and its relevance for the peaceful future in the postconflict ethnically mixed communities? A total of 65 persons participated in 11 focus groups (36 Serbs and 29 Croats; 35 women and 30 men; aged 20-78 years) who had lived in two ethnically mixed towns (Knin and Vukovar) before and during the war. Our results showed no substantial differences in how people with different experiences or from different sides of conflict understood intergroup apology and forgiveness. However, the meaningfulness of apology-forgiveness cycles was impaired by mistrust in the sincerity of apologies and by strong differences in opinions about preconditions for intergroup apology and forgiveness between two ethnic groups. Our results show that an outright apology and forgiveness may not be necessary for the communities that suffered mutual massive violence. Rather, exchange of mutual social gestures showing readiness for contact and moving on with everyday living could be more constructive ways for community social reconstruction. Public Significance Statement In this study, we elaborate on how people from different sides of conflict, with different experiences and from different generations understand the concepts of intergroup apology and forgiveness after the conflict and their relevance for future community intergroup relations. The results confirmed the complexity of phenomena and emotional, cognitive, and motivational challenges operating in considering common future and social recovery among community members.
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