This is a book about a singularly
important topic: how do we repair relationships after a wrong, often a wrong so
severe that it cannot be simply rectified? How, after either personal or
communal abuse or trauma, do we avoid the vortex of recrimination and
retaliation? It is a book that deserves to be read slowly and taken seriously.

The collection of twelve essays includes
perspectives on reconciliation from psychiatric, psychological, philosophical and
theological standpoints, but blends them into an interdisciplinary and
multi-dimensional overview that neither propounds any one view nor excludes
others. The essays are thoughtful, balanced and scholarly while retaining a
real life relevance and urgency.

The chapters discuss the very
nature of forgiveness, what it might mean and what it might not. Does it have
to be public? Is it always personal? Is the full story always necessary? How
does telling your story, or having it told, influence forgiveness? Is the
process of the narrative healing in itself, does it lead to some personal
reconstruction?

Not surprisingly, the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission from South Africa, and those that followed this
example, feature heavily in the text. But stop for a moment and consider what
those words might mean and how they are linked. Is it possible to have one
without the other? Does the former always have to precede the latter? Does
truth-telling always lead to forgiveness and reconciliation; is that the deal?
Is reconciliation possible without some form of forgiveness? Is truth all you
need? Is truth necessary at all?

However, it does not confine itself
to modern times and chapters that deal with Hegel, Husserl and the
phenomenology of evil give depth to a historical perspective.

It seems important to ask the hard
questions and not to accept the facile answer and that, in part, is why the
book is both challenging and stimulating. Perhaps perpetrators have their own
story too? What about vicarious trauma? What happens if you don’t, or won’t or
can’t forgive?

What happens if you don’t want the
forgiveness?

What happens if you don’t want to
apologize?

These are not idle questions. They
resonate through our daily personal and political lives. Issues ranging from
systematic torture (in which the authors may include not only Chile but post-Saddam Hussein Iraq: the good, the bad and the very ugly) to random violence to
rights violation are with us every day. We have political leaders who feel it
important to say sorry, even if it was for something that they personally did
not do, but which was done either by or for those whom they represent, either
now or in the past. An example may be Bill Clinton and his statements over
slavery in America or repeated expressions of sorrow and repentance in Canada concerning former governments’ policies towards First Nations people. There are
those who refuse to apologize because they didn’t do it themselves, like
Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, condemning ‘the black armband view of
history" and declining to offer an apology to the country’s aboriginal
population for being forced to live on mission stations, being deprived of a
right to pursue traditional hunting, having land rights taken away, being
exposed to radiation tests and so the sad litany goes on. There are those who
advocate maintaining the rage and those who find it all too wearing. There are
those whose anger consumes them and those may not even feel they have the right
to be angry.

Where to go? What to do?

Much of the discussion, and one of
the main underlying themes, is couched in terms of relational ethics — the way
we behave. It also seeks to move beyond the person to person interaction and
inquire of systems what they can do and what responsibility they bear for the
problem, or the solution. Other perspectives that throw light into the darkness
include an examination of game theory (the prisoner’s dilemma), psychoanalytic
understandings of trauma, the gendered context, aboriginal approaches, virtue
ethics and theological insights. Some of these chapters are complex and
scholarly for the non-expert reader, but they all reward careful reading.

There are some truly awful examples
of what people can do to one another detailed in the text, but also some great
hope too. But hope is not presented simplistically or tritely. It is treated
with measured consideration and profound concern for human suffering brought
about by human action (natural disasters and trauma are not part of the
discussion).

It is an important book and should
interest students and scholars of many disciplines. Most of all it should
interest those concerned for the human condition.

© 2007 Mark Welch

Mark
Welch, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University
of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta and Co-Director of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating
Centre for Nursing & Mental Health

Categories: Philosophical, Ethics, Psychotherapy