(For those of you who read my bulletin column, I apologize that some of this entry will be repetitive, but I have expanded my comments beyond what I put in Sunday's bulletin!) This past Monday, I attended at the International Restorative Justice Conference on Healing after Political Violence. Restorative justice is a process that focuses not simply on the criminal or perpetrator of a violent act, but also includes the victim and the community. The approach views crime as a wound that needs to be healed, and thus focuses on healing instead of retaliation and revenge. As Janine Geske said in her introductory remarks, if we choose revenge and retaliation, the violence will never end. Mark Umbreit, a professor and Founding Director of the Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking, noted that peace requires a heart open to understanding the context of the other. He quoted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who states

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

Peace and healing can only be found in getting to know and understand the other as a fellow human being. Dr. Umbreit also made the point that political means can achieve disarmament, but communities have to build peace.

The conference focused specifically on healing and reconciliation after occasions of political violence using three pairs of speakers. The first pair of speakers was Jo Berry, a woman whose father was killed in the 1984 bombing of the Brighton Hotel in England by the IRA, and Patrick Magee, a former IRA activist who served time in prison for bombing the Brighton Hotel. The second pair was Linda Biehl, whose daughter Amy was beaten and stabbed to death while living in South Africa as a Fulbright Scholar, and Ntobeko Peni, one of the men convicted in Amy’s murder. The third pair was Robi Damelin, whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper while serving in the Israeli army in the occupied territories, and Ali Abu Awwad, whose brother was killed by Israeli soldiers and who himself has been shot by Israeli soldiers and spent four years in prison (this was the one pair where neither individual was directly responsible for the act of violence against the other). Listening to these individuals speak was an experience of seeing God’s grace at work in the world. What they were doing, opening up their personal pain to a crowd of strangers, was certainly not easy for them, but each of them felt it was necessary. I learned so much from them and would like to share some of that with you. I realize it is not the same as listening to them in person, but what they had to say was too important not to pass along. I apologize if my notes do not do justice to the words they actually said!

Jo Berry commented that she would not call the experience of forgiveness a Christian experience, but a human experience, a spiritual experience. She said that her forgiveness of Patrick was not motivated by religion per se, but rather that many things motivated it. Pat added that he felt that the churches of Ireland have been a part of the problem rather than the solution, and that any good that came from them came from individuals rather than the institutions. I found that to be very sad. I think that we need to ask ourselves in what ways the Church is fostering healing and reconciliation in the world as opposed to division. There seems to be a lot of division between Catholics right now without much attempt (that I have seen) to understand the feelings, perspective, and context of the person with whom one disagrees. How are we/are we modeling healing and reconciliation within our own worshiping communities?

The overwhelming message of these individuals was the need to see others as human beings, not as the enemy. Patrick Magee stated that he realized he was guilty of something he had always attributed to the enemy – dehumanizing and demonizing those he was fighting against. Jo Berry said that if she had lived Pat’s life, she might have made the same decisions. Jo commented that a friend of hers, after seeing a documentary on her and Pat, remarked, “Pat doesn’t seem like a terrorist at all!” Jo said the problem is that we demonize the terrorist and fail to see him/her as a human being. Pat ironically commented that he is not a violent person, and yet he has caused a lot of violent actions. He began as a pacifist, but eventually was able to see no alternative to violence. He said that what he did goes against his inner grain. Jo commented on how it had affected Pat to choose violence and how seldom that aspect, the damage done to the perpetrator of the violent act, is addressed.

The other sentiment that all of these individuals commented on was that peace will never work if any party is excluded from the talks. Pat commented that no inclusive settlement can be built by excluding the margins. The party excluded will simply grow more angry, resentful, and bitter, and the violence will continue, if not get worse. Jo added that our greatest hope for peace is in listening to those who are not heard, to those who are choosing violence to get their needs met. Victims become the next victimizers.

To read more about Jo and Pat's story, as well as reflections Jo has written herself about the experience, see this article about documentary that the BBC has produced, Facing the Enemy: Everyman. Due to the length of this entry, I will stop here for now, and share some of the reflections from Linda Biehl, Ntobeko Peni, Robi Damelin, and Ali Abu Awaad next week.