So the Birds Sing Again: The Reimagining of Democracy in the Wake of Conflict

• In Event: Utopias, Radical Politics, and the Political Imaginary

Abstract

In one of the more moving testimonies presented before the Commission, a witness to massacre concludes by saying that “even the birds had stopped singing.” The Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Co-existence, and Non-repetition (the Commission) is part of the peace process emerging out of the 2016 peace accords between the government and the principal guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP). This, as yet unfinished peace process will only be effective if (or when) it goes well beyond conflict resolution. In this paper, we explore the role of the commission and its recommendations which call for substantive social and political change. The activities of the commission and its report, we argue, aim beyond conflict resolution and toward a re-imagining of Colombian democracy as the “social republic” its constitution proclaims. This, we hold, is a task that embodies what E. Bloch termed a “utopian residue,” one which projects an image of hope and thus has the potential of informing a radical critique of existing society.

Authors

• Michael Forman, University of Washington, Tacoma

• Rachel A. May, University of South Florida