For great acts of forgiveness to occur, there are many preconditions
By B.C.
IT IS a fair bet that in churches all over the world, sermons are being preached today about Nelson Mandela as an example of the Christian virtue of forgiveness. And whatever the final judgment of history may be on apartheid and its aftermath, it is certainly true that Mandela's extraordinary lack of bitterness towards his jailers, and towards all his erstwhile oppressors, made a decisive difference. It is also accurate to say that he was deeply influenced in childhood by his Methodist teachers, though in later life he delivered some mixed messages about religion, at times emphasising his Christian roots, at other times acknowledging the influence of all religions.
South Africa is not the only conflict zone where giant acts of pardon have affected history. For many observers, a turning point in Northern Ireland's troubles came in 1987 when a man whose daughter died beside him in the rubble after a bomb attack publicly expressed forgiveness for the young woman's killers and urged that there should be no retaliation. People of all political persuasions were affected by the declaration of Gordon Wilson, a devout Methodist who later became an Irish senator: "I bear no ill, I bear no grudge." However indirectly, such words helped to pave the way for a peace deal in which many people, albeit bitterly and reluctantly, had to bury their differences.
But a lot of preconditions have to be in place before acts of forgiveness after conflict. There were "strategic" as well as spiritual reasons why the conflicts in South Africa and Northern Ireland, in contrast with many others, lent themselves to reconciliation rather than revenge. In South Africa's case, the country's elites could see that there was no good future for anyone in a civil war whose victors would visit ruthless collective punishment on their foes. There was a need for a grand bargain not only between black and white, but between different sections of the black majority who had been "divided and ruled" by their white masters. A settlement based on truth, reconciliation and amnesty served that need.
In the case of Northern Ireland, the local parties were driven to compromise by a mixture of deep stalemate (it seemed impossible for either side to impose a final defeat on the other) and pressure from the two interested states, Britain and Ireland. The only route to compromise was a huge, unstable "agreement to differ" not only about the territory's future, but about the past. Violent acts that one side looked upon as murder and terror were and are regarded by the other side as legitimate acts of resistance. That is why killers on both sides of the conflict were amnestied, although not always forgiven by their victims' loved ones.
Forgiveness is much less likely to occur in a conflict whose outcome is still open, and where total victory by one side or the other seems conceivable.
But I do think that religious and cultural values can affect the chances of forgiveness taking hold. Buddhism and Christianity put particular emphasis on forgiveness, though that doesn't stop Buddhists or Christians behaving with vindictiveness. Theistic religions stress that we will all be judged or forgiven by God, and they draw a variety of conclusions about how this affects relations between human beings. Islam emphasises divine judgement but it also lauds the virtue of "mercy" whether shown by God or humans. Christianity says we cannot expect God's forgiveness unless we forgive our human enemies. Judaism sometimes urges humans to settle their quarrels rather than running to God to do the job. In Asian religions, we are urged to forgive not so much to propitiate a Deity but more because grudge-bearing is bad for our own spiritual health.
Religions don't dictate people's behaviour in any straightforward way, especially in the midst of a conflict. To many Europeans, it often seems that church-going America puts more emphasis on the idea of "closure" through retribution, after terrible acts of violence, than their own cheerfully secular continent does. But unless people can at least conceive the idea that forgiveness can be a great and noble act, they won't understand the message delivered by a Nelson Mandela or a Gordon Wilson.
