The Open-ended Meeting of the Troika of the Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace
The Open-ended Meeting of the Troika of the Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace was held in the ECOSOC Chamber this November13, 2009.
The meeting opened with a presentation on ‘Forgiveness and the Power of Peace’ by Dr Eileen Borris. She spoke on the nature of forgiveness for countries emerging from war and shared about a 7 step process to let of go of anger for these countries. As forgiveness is an individual and personal choice, countries can only set the conditions for its people to forgive.
Some individuals after a war look to be free and have peace of mind, while others wait to have revenge.
There are three psychological ocnditions needed for forgiveness:
1. a concept of care worthiness. It is necessary to view the recipients as care worthy. There needs to be a feeling of empathy for the perpetrator. This can be achieved by the sharing of stories
2. Secondly, there needs to be an expected value in having a relationship with the others. The example offered was to accept back the brainwashed child soldiers of Uganda. They perpetrated horrendous acts to their community but were seen as having value to come back into the community.
3. Finally, what is needed for forgiveness is perceived safety. Trust must be felt for the process to move forward.
The political process of nations can be understood that forgiveness it is not an abandonment of punishment but it is an abandonment of revenge.
In the question and answer session that followed, it was clarified that forgiveness is an internal process for an individual while reconciliation is an outward process with another.
A most interesting comment was made by a member of the audience that in Rwanda the ‘hate-radio’ played a big part in that country’s violence. It was noted that the same feelings are being voiced right here in the United States.
The presentation was followed by the discussion of the draft general assembly resolution on interreligious and intercultural dialogue, understanding and cooperation for peace. A few comments were made about A/64/L15 and mission representatives of the cosponsoring missions, the Philippines and Pakistan, were present to hear the comments and concerns.
Erik