institutionalised, moderated encounters in such a way that they could once more live side by side with each other.
More people than just the perpetrators and victims can be involved in reconciling with each other. The children and grandchildren who share the perpetrator’s guilt and the victim’s fate can reconcile, enemies can reconcile who are simultaneously perpetrators and victims, even friends and lovers who fought and perhaps only inadvertently injured or wronged or lost each other can reconcile – simply stated, everyone whose relationships have been damaged can reconcile. While forgiveness lifts the burden of guilt from the guilty parties, reconciliation merely makes it a bit lighter. Reconciliation means that further attempts to coexist should no longer fail on account of guilt and recriminations.
At the very least, reconciliation calls for the recognition that others are human beings like ourselves, and for the insight that this equality must sometimes be sufficient to establish the foundation for living together in peace. Sometimes those seeking reconciliation can build on a broader foundation for their coexistence. Then political parties form unusual coalitions mindful of their common responsibility for the delicate state of their country – as happened in most countries at the beginning of the First World War, and in the United States when the country was made to believe that Saddam Hussein was a serious threat because he had weapons of mass destruction. Catholics and Protestants sometimes remember that more than anything else they are both Christians and celebrate the Eucharist together – it happens in hostile territory, between soldiers and prisoners of war in camps. Quarrelling lovers sometimes call to mind that their love is greater than their fight. Against all that would separate us, reconciliation emphasises the ties that bind, from equality to love.
Reconciliation requires at least two people. A third party can reconcile two people whose relationship with each other has been damaged, and there can be not just two but many who repair their damaged relationships by reconciling or being reconciled with each other. Someone may be too gravely injured to reconcile, or they may only be ready to reconcile if judgment or forgiveness has preceded it. But whenever two are ready to reconcile with each other there is no reason to argue against their ability or right to do so. When, however, politicians celebrate reconciliation as if they could heal not only their own damaged relationships but also those between peoples and parties with their embraces, it must be insisted upon vis-à-vis this pretension that reconciliation can only happen directly between those whose relationships with each other are damaged. Not even the Nobel Prize helps; when Briand and Stresemann got it, France and Germany were still not ready for reconciliation, nor were the USA and Vietnam when Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded or the Israelis and the Palestinians when the prize went to Arafat, Peres and Rabin. With reconciliation there is just as little proxy as with forgiveness.
If truth and reconciliation are the goals, then truth is the prerequisite for reconciliation. In the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions the perpetrators were supposed to genuinely confess their deeds to the victims if they did not want to have their amnesty stripped from them – a threat that was seldom enforced against the perpetrators, just as the promised reparations for the victims seldom came through. If there was any success at all to awaken a readiness to reconcile between the participants it was not due simply to truth. Reconciliation succeeded when the perpetrator presented him- or herself genuinely, listened and provided answers, withstood the victims’ outpouring of emotion and did not hide their own feelings. In order to acknowledge the perpetrator as an equal and to reconcile with them, the victim has to understand the
More people than just the perpetrators and victims can be involved in reconciling with each other. The children and grandchildren who share the perpetrator’s guilt and the victim’s fate can reconcile, enemies can reconcile who are simultaneously perpetrators and victims, even friends and lovers who fought and perhaps only inadvertently injured or wronged or lost each other can reconcile – simply stated, everyone whose relationships have been damaged can reconcile. While forgiveness lifts the burden of guilt from the guilty parties, reconciliation merely makes it a bit lighter. Reconciliation means that further attempts to coexist should no longer fail on account of guilt and recriminations.
At the very least, reconciliation calls for the recognition that others are human beings like ourselves, and for the insight that this equality must sometimes be sufficient to establish the foundation for living together in peace. Sometimes those seeking reconciliation can build on a broader foundation for their coexistence. Then political parties form unusual coalitions mindful of their common responsibility for the delicate state of their country – as happened in most countries at the beginning of the First World War, and in the United States when the country was made to believe that Saddam Hussein was a serious threat because he had weapons of mass destruction. Catholics and Protestants sometimes remember that more than anything else they are both Christians and celebrate the Eucharist together – it happens in hostile territory, between soldiers and prisoners of war in camps. Quarrelling lovers sometimes call to mind that their love is greater than their fight. Against all that would separate us, reconciliation emphasises the ties that bind, from equality to love.
Reconciliation requires at least two people. A third party can reconcile two people whose relationship with each other has been damaged, and there can be not just two but many who repair their damaged relationships by reconciling or being reconciled with each other. Someone may be too gravely injured to reconcile, or they may only be ready to reconcile if judgment or forgiveness has preceded it. But whenever two are ready to reconcile with each other there is no reason to argue against their ability or right to do so. When, however, politicians celebrate reconciliation as if they could heal not only their own damaged relationships but also those between peoples and parties with their embraces, it must be insisted upon vis-à-vis this pretension that reconciliation can only happen directly between those whose relationships with each other are damaged. Not even the Nobel Prize helps; when Briand and Stresemann got it, France and Germany were still not ready for reconciliation, nor were the USA and Vietnam when Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded or the Israelis and the Palestinians when the prize went to Arafat, Peres and Rabin. With reconciliation there is just as little proxy as with forgiveness.
If truth and reconciliation are the goals, then truth is the prerequisite for reconciliation. In the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions the perpetrators were supposed to genuinely confess their deeds to the victims if they did not want to have their amnesty stripped from them – a threat that was seldom enforced against the perpetrators, just as the promised reparations for the victims seldom came through. If there was any success at all to awaken a readiness to reconcile between the participants it was not due simply to truth. Reconciliation succeeded when the perpetrator presented him- or herself genuinely, listened and provided answers, withstood the victims’ outpouring of emotion and did not hide their own feelings. In order to acknowledge the perpetrator as an equal and to reconcile with them, the victim has to understand the
Similar Books
