Forgiveness and Reconciliation as Conflict Resolution

1. Forgiveness and Reconciliation as Conflict Resolution Tülin Levitas Montgomery College Rockville, MD

2. The Cradle of Humanity • In July 2004, a Fulbright-Hayes grant took me to South Africa for a month. The very first day that I was in South Africa, I was taken to a place at the outskirts of Johannesburg called “The Cradle of Humanity.”

3. The South AfricanTruth and Reconciliation Commission • The work that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has done in South Africa enabled that country to establish its democracy and ensure the future of a unified society.

4. Apartheid • Starting with South Africa, we need to look at what the system of “apartheid” came to. “Apartheid” literally means apartness, separateness. It was adopted by the National Party in the early 1940s as a system of segregation between different racial groups.

5. South Africa • Thus the native Africans became aliens in their own land. Two separate worlds lived side by side: the world of the dominant white Africaners and that of the marginalized and oppressed native black Africans. The “house of apartheid” was built on these foundations. As a reaction to this system of legal segregation and oppression, a resistance movement started to take root in South Africa.

6. Opposition Movements • Various movements within South Africa, such as the ANC or PAC were formed in order to oppose and end the apartheid system.

7. CONCEPTS ON FORGIVENESS:ACADEMIC TEXTS USED PEACE & JUSTICE STUDIES COMMUNITY Presented September 25, 2012 John E. Daniel, Student Montgomery College-Rockville Faculty Sponsor: Tülin Levitas, Professor, Montgomery College-Rockville

8. Course Description Introduce students to the concept of forgiveness as it has been applied by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa; explore the sources of the concept—its Judeo-Christian roots and South African roots of Ubuntu; address whether the Commission’s work did lead to justice; identify necessary and sufficient conditions entailed within different concepts of “justice”; and investigate relationship between concepts of amnesty, justice, and accountability.

9. Background Texts from Prior Classes • Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness. New York: Doubleday, 1999. 294 pp. • Pumula Gobodo-Madikizela, A Human Being Died That Night. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 193 pp. • Dalai Lama and Victor Chan, The Wisdom of Forgiveness. New York: Riverhead Books, 2004. 266 pp.

10. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence • By Martha Minow. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. 214 pp. • Harvard Law School, Dean • J.D., Yale Law School • Ed.M, Harvard Grad. School of Education

11. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness • Minow examines process of rebuilding lives and society in the aftermath of atrocity • Scrutinizes social and historic roots of genocide and mass violence • Recognizes any process will be inadequate • Silence is not acceptable • Challenge is to negotiate path securing justice for victims and rebuilding a society

12. Minow: Truth Commissions • Studies strategies of national experiments in justice and healing • Makes convincing case for restorative power of speaking about trauma • Central task of truth commissions is to write a history of a nation’s troubled past • Obviously favors South African model-TRC • Primary focus is restoring dignity to victims • Facing past, rather than attempting to forget

13. Ubuntu: An Ethic for a New South Africa • By Augustine Shutte. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: Cluster Publications, 2001. 228 pp. • University of Cape Town, Professor of Philosophy • M.A., Oxford University

14. Bringing South Africa Together • Bring together what apartheid kept apart • New ethic mirrors European ideas: freedom, individual power of free choice • Persons exist only in relation to other persons • Ubuntu: A person is a person through persons • Spirit of Ubuntu helping dissipate the spirit of apartheid • African philosophy: I am because we are • Manifested in forgiveness in TRC hearings

15. Ubuntu at Montgomery College • In her Inaugural Address on October 29, 2010, President DeRionne Pollard expressed her own version of Ubuntu when she thanked her mentors and family: • “The best of me is a reflection of you.”

16. Forgiveness: A Philosophical Approach • By Charles L. Griswold. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 242 pp. • Boston University: Professor of Philosophy • Ph.D., Penn. State Univ.

17. Forgiveness at Its Best • Ethical response to injury and the injurer • Sees a moral demand to forgive • Not required to forswear resentment, only to moderate it and forswear revenge • Both parties must satisfy certain conditions to qualify for paradigm case of dyadic forgiveness – Six criteria: • Offender: 1 - Repudiate one’s prior actions • 2 – Express regret

18. Forgiveness at Its Best(cont’d) • 3 – Commit to be a better person • 4 – Understand nature of harm from the injured party’s perspective • 5 – Offer narrative account of how she came to do the wrong and is now worthy of approbation, and • Victim: 6 – Forswear revenge; moderate, and commit to eventually let go of, resentment altogether; express declaration that forgiveness is granted

19. Making Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law and Politics • By Linda Radzik. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 239 pp. • Texas A&M University, Assoc. Professor of Philosophy • Ph.D., and M.A. in Philosophy, U. of Arizona

20. An Ethic for Wrongdoers • Approaches question of atonement from the wrongdoer’s point of view • Wrong sends message that wrongdoer is worth more that the victim • Explores responses that wrongdoers should make to their own misdeeds • Responses can be apology, repentance, reparations, and self-punishment • Offers wrongdoers opportunity to earn redemption within the moral community

21. An Ethic for Wrongdoers(cont’d) • Emphasizes rebuilding respect and trust among victims, communities and wrongdoers • Views atonement as repaying a moral debt • Unlike Griswold, Radzik argues that should a victim wrongfully refuse to reconcile after wrongdoer’s thoroughgoing atonement, wrongdoer may consider herself redeemed • Radzik says the victim may need to hold onto resentment out of self-respect or sense of justice

22. Conclusion • Wrongdoing and suffering wrong are all too common occurrences today • Society’s needs to face events of genocide, mass violence and forceful conflict raise questions of how we ought to respond to them • Seeking forgiveness, making amends, pursuing redemption are all worthy paths to take • Our authors have given us the conceptual tools to begin to address these complex topics