al final...
Forswearing revenge is an institutional action, without a doubt. In that sense, it is a methodological condition for reconciliation. It is also a logic of action and inter-action that forges new structures of recognition as it resets the scene of address in which subjects are addressed as such, in which dissent and demands are neither countered nor furthered by violence, physical or symbolic. In this sense, it is a substantive condition for reconciliation. We can agree with Schaap when he says that reconciliation starts with a breaking point, a moment in which history is interrupted in order to change its course. It is also a matter of the community, namely, of posing the question of what kind of community we want to be, stressing the fact that neither the ‘what’ nor the ‘we’ in that question have been previously defined. It is, in that sense, a highly Arendtian form of political action, in which spontaneity and newness are put forth as the highest expression of action: the constitution of a community and new ties of civility in exceptional, unpredictable ways. But for this to reach the extent it needs to have an actual effect on the constitution of a community, its transformative potential should reach the social as well as political status quo. Because, even if ‘politically’ we can imagine a new community, we also need to set the social conditions under which its coming into being is effectively enabled. Thus, we need to criticize Arendt’s conception of the social to acknowledge that sociality is not only about ‘nation-wide housekeeping’, about a normalizing force of life. Rather, it is the tether that brings together and sets apart, it is recognition and the scene of address that legitimizes subjects before politics is even discussed. Thus, a transformation of this scene of address in Colombia would bring new forms of sociality, it would transform the need for revenge and retribution in order to think of a community that has left behind fifty years of violent conflict. How this community might look like, though, cannot be determined in advance. It would be, perhaps, the work of people that, very much like artists do, put themselves to the task of imagining what will become of them without the order of violence.


















