Joshua Oppenheimer Quotes

In the aftermath of any war or genocide, healing and reconciliation are ultimate aspirations.

Reconciliation does not mean covering history with a blanket. Reconciliation means truth, justice and love. Justice without love can degenerate into vengeance. We need to know the truth for medicinal reasons, so that what happened … will never happen again.

Empathy is a necessary step for truth and reconciliation.

The goal of pursuit of justice must not simply be that justice happens but that reconciliation also happens.

In 1994, when I went back to Haiti from exile, we established a Commission for Truth and Justice and Reconciliation. I passed the documents to the next government, and I never heard about it again.

Truth commissions also allow perpetrators to be reintegrated into society and not go back into the bush to pick up their guns again.

There can be no deal, no amnesty for war crimes.

After genocide, justice is impossible …. You cannot put all these people who committed these atrocities to death or in prison.

The healing of a nation is a slow process that requires patience. It begins with truth telling, the confession of wrong-doing, the genuine respect for forgiveness and the willingness to accept the consequences of one's actions.

It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put - without delay, and with tenderness - back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.

Justice for the major perpetrators cannot be separated from the vindication of the rights of the individual victim.

After the war, Germany fully confessed to all its dirty tricks. It's necessary to is draw a line under the past, even if people did something evil. Until we do, wounds won't heal.

The second one, the joint Truth and Friendship Commission, which we started now with Indonesia, that is the one that has been criticized; its terms of reference call for providing amnesty for those who cooperate in telling the truth. It does not lead to prosecution.

Our family had been shattered, but we now are more united, and the remains of my family and the majority of my mother's family are glad to know the truth about a horrible crime.

Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation.

In the name of justice there cannot be subjection and in the name of peace there cannot be impunity.

Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn't be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice.

I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.

All that a truth commission can achieve is to reduce the number of lies that can be circulated unchallenged in public discourse.

Let’s open our hearts to [crime] victims and their families and give them something more than vengeance.

We can't continue with a justice of vengeance. Peace will require us to accept a certain degree of impunity; it's inevitable.

I will go back to my life when women in captivity go back to their lives, when my community has a place, when I see people accountable for their crimes.

Truth and reconciliation' are always combined, but I would split them: I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.

There can be no healing without truth.

Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity.