Pathways to Reconciliation Between Theory and Practice

This book provides a useful, accessible and balanced guide to the experiences of reconciliation around the world and will help build a global resource of experience and insight.It covers many topics, including forgiveness, justice, conflict resolution and the recognition of human rights. It shows how the relative importance of these varies according to the circumstances of individual countries and difficult cultures and histories. It also shows how ultimately if they are to be successful they must all lead to some form of forgiveness.This does not involve forgetting or condoning what has happened in the past: on the contrary, it includes remembering atrocities so that we can prevent them from happening again; it involves taking what has happened seriously and not mininmising it, drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence; it involve dealing with the past, all of the past, to look forward to the future.