On the Construction of Truth

If we look at cases like that of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, it will be very difficult to say that there was respect for elementary principles, such as the presumption of innocence.

The #MeToo movement, with its far-reaching repercussions or real shockwaves, represented and still does a pivotal moment in the defense of women's rights. Not only has it lifted the cloak of silence that had covered situations of abuse and violence for too long, but it has also contributed to giving public visibility to such situations and, at the same time, to broadening the concept of violence itself. However, in the light of the experience that has been accumulated in the meantime, particularly the experience closest to us, some reflections are due. Indeed, while it is necessary to defend with absolute intransigence the inalienable rights of those who claim to have suffered acts of violence, whatever they may be, it is no less important that this defense be carried out in complete freedom, with respect for the principles that govern the rule of law and that govern any democratic society. These principles include, first and foremost, the guarantee of the presumption of innocence, the guarantees of due process, adversarial procedure, equality of arms, transparency, impartiality, and judicial independence.

If we look at recent cases that have been widely covered by the media – most notably that of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, who has had major international repercussions, as he is possibly the only Portuguese social scientist with a worldwide reputation – it is very difficult to say that these principles have been respected, first and foremost the basic principle of the presumption of innocence. The intricacies of this case, which began with the publication in a Routledge collection of the chapter “The walls spoke when no one else dared to speak”, are public. The very professional dissemination of this chapter on a very large scale in a very short period of time gave rise to the media furor that is well known and which affected not only the people directly mentioned in the text, but also the Center for Social Studies as a whole, which is unparalleled in any similar case. The uniqueness of this case is that, from the outset, the credibility of the accusations made was taken an absolute principle. There was no question of taking the chapter itself as an object of scrutiny and subjecting it to adversarial procedure, either as regards the facts alleged in it or the method of analysis, which flagrantly violated basic scientific principles as to what an “autoethnography” should be – a circumstance that later led the publisher Routledge to withdraw it from circulation. This withdrawal, however, was irrelevant in the face of the installed mechanism for producing “truth”: once the conviction of the total veracity of the allegations was consensual in public opinion, anything that could challenge it – including the decision taken by one of the most prestigious scientific publishers in the Anglo-Saxon world – would immediately be recoded as yet another act of violence. This is the power of the victimhood narrative: once it is established, anything that contradicts it, even if it is articulated by credible testimonies or demonstrated by abundant documentation, becomes, in essence, irrelevant. To the point that even resorting to the basic right to defend oneself in court can be publicly denounced as yet another form of aggression.

Anyone who considers themselves a victim of violence obviously has the inalienable right to report it, but it is disturbing to see how this has usually been done, avoiding institutional channels and relying instead on the media. In this case, it is worth remembering that CES had and has a sufficiently specific code of conduct and an ethics committee, as well as an ombudsman to whom any violation of this code can and should be reported. The ombudsman's regulation, it should be noted, provides for the possibility of anonymous reporting, so that anyone who feels inhibited, for example, by unequal power relations, needs not remain silent. None of these instances, however, have been mobilized, just as other avenues of complaint, particularly in the courts, have not been mobilized. On the other hand, particularly since the publication of the “6th letter” from the self-styled “victims' collective”, there has been abundant and ubiquitous recourse to the written press, television, and social networks.

It's obvious that the absence of formal complaints before the competent authorities deprives those accused of any means of defense, since they don't have access to any procedural guarantees, all the more so since the whole opinion-forming process is based on the systematic denial of the fundamental principle of the presumption of innocence. This means, in practical terms, that before any guilt has been proven, the personal and professional damage accumulates and, whatever the outcome, it cannot be erased.

We live in a world of victims and the real suffering of any human being, so often disregarded, imposes the imperative of investigating all situations of abuse to the last consequences. But the forms of summary lynching or the caricature of justice represented by the construction of a narrative handed over to the “court” of the public square are not conducive to this goal; on the contrary, they will have an inevitable discrediting effect in the medium or long term. Only truth can serve justice and never post-truth.

Full article here

António Sousa Ribeiro

Retired full professor at the Faculty of Letters of the UC; former director of the Center for Social Studies