“Do you remember Kim, the 9-year-old Vietnamese girl, running as she was hit by napalm from U.S. warplanes in 1972? That picture haunted John Plummer for 24 years; he had been a helicopter pilot and helped organise the napalm raid. His marriage crashed, he isolated himself and took to drinking; he eventually became a Methodist pastor in Virginia. In 1996, Kim and John met and he says: ‘Kim saw my grief, my pain, my sorrow… She held out her arms to me and embraced me. All I could say was “I’m sorry; I’m sorry” – over and over again. And at the same time she was saying, “It’s all right, I forgive you.” They are now good friends and call each other regularly.

This may be a unique story, but how can we talk about restoring peace after wars’ hurt and harm without paying attention to the human aspects of conflicts in general and that of forgiveness and reconciliation in particular?” asks TFF director Jan Oberg. “I think we need to make forgiveness and reconciliation a central objective: in research and studies, in training and education and, above all, we should empower every civilian and military – and every international organisation engaged in war-torn societies – to work for it with the locals.

Take a look at Bosnia and Croatia since 1995, look at Kosovo now, or Somalia… Have people really held out their arms or said ‘I forgive you’? Come together in trust? Have they learnt how to deal with the past, not in order to forget it or to blame each other, but to acknowledge what happened and find ways to avoid it ever happening again? Can that even be said about South Africa? It is easy to repair houses and infrastructure; it is easy to throw money around and talk about human rights. But what if people deep down keep on hating each other and won’t even dream about doing what Kim and John did? Will they themselves ever be happy and at peace with themselves? Will their children? What kind of society will it be if we cannot also, so to speak, repair souls and help create tolerance, co-existence, even cooperation and love?”

Jan Oberg continues: “One of the most moving experiences in my life was when, together with TFF team members, we helped a few Croats and Serbs in Eastern Slavonia, Croatia, come together: young boys and girls as well as the parent generation who were permitted for the first time to talk face-to-face about what had happened – but to stick to facts only and ‘I language’ and avoid blaming. Many cried; later many laughed together. Some are now friends and some do projects together – and, yes, some have left or lost hope again. TFF keeps working there today.

It made me understand how neglected the whole issue of ‘soul reconstruction’ is – and how vain everything else will be without it. You can pour any amount of dollars into Kosovo – it will not create peace unless we also, in deep respect and cooperation with the locals on all sides, do something that cannot be measured in money terms.

Recently I was in Burundi, where much worse violence has hit many more people. In two weeks I heard more sensible and genuine peace talk among NGOs and ministers than I have heard during TFF’s eight-year mission in ex-Yugoslavia. I have no answer, but I wonder whether we Westerners are more oriented toward a peace that builds on the sword, legality, mechanics and external implanting of economic, political and human rights conditions for peace – whereas others may see peace more in the direction of trying to be at peace with oneself, come to terms with the evil that has been, find your own ways and use your local cultural rituals and traditions to facilitate forgiveness and reconciliation. In short, the rich West may go for more or less interventionist quick-fix peace packages where people come last, while other cultures put people and non-material dimensions first and know that real peace has to come from within the individual and the social fabric. If so, we Westerners may have something important to learn about peace-making in other cultures.

There are many definitions of it, but forgiveness is an individual moral act of freeing oneself from the burden of hate and the right to revenge. Reconciliation takes at least two and aims at achieving something constructive out of a dark, hurtful past. It does NOT mean forgetting; it means remembering the past in order to live normally, or more fully, in the future. None of it can be achieved by money, by weapons or by legal measures – and it goes far deeper than human rights training.

To be more concrete,” Jan Oberg continues, “it is time to learn from all these terrible wars and draw constructive conclusions from moral and intellectual catastrophes such as the international ‘community’s present one in Kosovo. Let’s imagine that we establish regional institutes (or centres or academies) for reconciliation in regions where conflicts have historically occurred frequently and where the risk remains high for the future. Reconciliation could be understood here as an umbrella concept covering what happens from the moment a ceasefire agreement is signed up to peaceful life, normalisation and socioeconomic development – but with special emphasis on the human dimensions of post-war reconstruction.

For instance, we need more research on successful peace agreements and conflict-resolution processes, taking stock of the human experience; field studies of countries that have successfully learned to live with a painful past – lessons from old and contemporary history. We need systematic studies of the noble art of saying ‘I am sorry’ – repentance, forgiveness, respect, healing, collective processing of sorrow and trauma – and how to move simultaneously toward a vision of peaceful coexistence, either together or as good neighbours. We need to target children and youth for long-term violence prevention, which in many cases means different schools, teaching materials and history books.

We need memorials for all victims and all sides (as in Okinawa), books, religious places, theatre performances and exhibitions. We must build relations with those who have gone through war elsewhere. We need truth and reconciliation committees, but also future workshops. We must expand therapy facilities and methods: empowerment of survivors; reinstating self-control; rejecting dominance-submission relations; spiritual regeneration; mourning and remembrance; developing broad attachment to others; reconstructing historical narratives and integrating trauma constructively into memory. The list is endless.

The centres should be located in regions historically prone to conflict and likely to remain so – the Balkans, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central America, the Horn of Africa, southern Africa, etc. In Europe, one could imagine Åland, Trento/Alto Adige/South Tyrol, or Schleswig-Holstein as symbolic sites of reconciliation.

The institutes should conduct research, consultancy with former adversaries (including mediation and peace implementation planning), public outreach and pilot projects in post-war communities. They should offer courses, seminars and training for adversaries as well as locals seeking education in peace and reconciliation – theory and practice continuously inspiring each other.

Boards should consist primarily of local professionals with experienced international advisers, drawn from social and human sciences (including peace research), governments (including local), civil society, humanitarian organisations and area experts. A liaison committee should maintain permanent contact with organisations such as the UN, OSCE, UNHCR, regional associations (OAU, ASEAN, EU, etc.) to coordinate and cooperate.

Staff should be multi-ethnic and multidisciplinary. The institutes themselves should embody the values they promote – bringing together those five groups and modelling reconciliation in practice.

Funding should come from diverse constituencies; no single donor should dominate. Initially, some governments (e.g., Sweden or other Nordic countries) might offer special support.

Finally,” adds Jan Oberg, “forgiveness and reconciliation should not be seen only in a post-war perspective. Before wars break out, humiliation, propaganda and rights violations signal danger. As part of preventive diplomacy, pre-war reconciliation should be introduced. We should study cases where such processes turned people away from war.

The Year 2000 was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as the International Year for the Culture of Peace, and 2001–2010 as the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World. What more appropriate idea than to establish centres for the study and practice of forgiveness, reconciliation and nonviolent handling of human conflicts?” ends Jan Oberg.

*) “The Lost Art of Forgiving” by John Christoph Arnold, The Plough Publishing House, 1998.

© TFF 1999

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