Testimony is always a recapitulation, a reckoning; sometimes a personal act of courage, not just truthfulness; sometimes it brings redemption and sometimes it reveals the worst face of a time, often even the one who is testifying, depending on the degree of participation in what he is telling. The spirit of testimony also implies “embedding” oneself in the image, that is, the witness simultaneously witnesses the world and himself.
Of course, there are different kinds of testimonies - both in intention and in nature. Writers testify about their time, witnesses in court help shed light on an event/crime, and we also have the so-called "repentant witnesses" who help bring down closed criminal structures - ranging from mafia organizations to corrupt regimes.
Human thought, all art, all possible artifacts are witnesses. When time passes, our books, paintings, preserved words do nothing but testify. About us and our era.
Testimony is crucial for awareness of the past. That's why it's always one of the key questions.
You remember, surely, when Djukanovic refused to go to The Hague and testify against Momir Bulatović, and his office came with an enthusiastic explanation that Đukanović did not go to testify “for high moral reasons.” That is exactly how it was explained, even though it was mere demagogy.
First of all - there are no high and low moral reasons. There is what is moral, and what is immoral. And it is always immoral to avoid telling the truth. About anyone and anything. It is immoral no matter how “highly moral” it is presented.
That's actually called shallow demagogy. And it can make a caricature of anything, especially morality.
We see it today, in different ways...
There are also testimonies that are a kind of confirmation of the end of an era, a clear sign that "the time has come" to say what, for one reason or another, was not said before.
The testimony of a former high-ranking police official has aroused considerable public interest. As much as some are now surprised, and even the witness himself sounds unconvincing at times, primarily in his need to subsequently and additionally cast a shadow over his own image - it is still the only way to shed light on some of the crimes that had the stamp of the authorities. And that, sooner or later, must be done.
He said mostly what the public already suspected, but, as in some previous cases - now that suspecting public received clear confirmation of what was happening, or rather the way it was happening.
It's about a bureaucrat (police intelligence, as oxymoron as that sounds) and it's probably at least part of this testimony - a kind of trade - but it can pave the way for further testimony and the right addresses from which to expect that testimony, or even insist on it.
This testimony confirms the high degree of criminalization of a regime, which usually always happens when those who are not too smart and certainly not burdened with morality and moral dilemmas gain too much power. Criminalized regimes can never overcome the moral and cognitive limits of their own creators, that is an axiom.
In fact, it is expected that there will be such testimonies, and there will be more and more of them.
Of course, as much as it is expected, the management of testimony is also visible. There is a clear tendency among the current managers of testimony to direct the story in only one direction, although by doing so they only diminish the effect of such testimony.
We should be clear about what we can hear from whom. One witness is not enough, because only when we have a mosaic of valid testimonies will we have the true or full picture. The true face of a government. Therefore, managers of testimony should search for the truth, not for healing their own political wounds and life frustrations.
It is an old truth that every testimony is useful to someone, but if it does not transcend the spirit of the transaction, no testimony is truly valuable.
Bonus video:
