Panelists analyze revenge, forgiveness in politics and work
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Forgiveness is a useful and practical alternative to revenge in the worlds of politics and work, panelists said in a discussion of forgiveness and revenge May 16 at Georgetown University.
Religious entities can play an important supporting role in promoting forgiveness as a means of conflict resolution, said veteran diplomat Robert T. Hennemeyer, a former U.S. ambassador and a co-author of the book "Forgiveness in International Politics."
William Bole, also a co-author of the book and a veteran religion reporter, said the notion of forgiveness in politics may seem counterintuitive if one looks at "the cycles of revenge and retribution in so many places" today.
However, he said, the authors found in researching their book that forgiveness is a political reality and "does have utility in peace initiatives and conflict resolution."
Robert J. Bies, a professor at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, said the instinct for revenge or retribution stems from a legitimate concern to right a perceived wrong. He praised the power of introducing forgiveness into the workplace dynamic but warned that elements such as acknowledgment of the harm done and some form of repentance may be necessary for forgiveness to work.
Sponsored by the Woodstock Theological Center, a Jesuit research center at Georgetown, the 90-minute conversation among the panelists was titled "Forgiveness and Revenge in Politics and Business." It was part of the center's Arrupe Program in Social Ethics for Business and drew from another aspect of the center's work, its program of peace and conflict-resolution studies.
Bole and Hennemeyer are fellows of the Woodstock Center.
Bole said the idea of forgiveness as a goal or element in resolving conflicts and building peace stirs skepticism "even among many who are involved in peace work."
"A common impression would be that forgiveness is, at best, an ideal of global statecraft, an ideal that's not quite realizable in this dangerous world," he said.
But that sense of an unreachable goal is true only if one is working with a "literal, undifferentiated notion" of what forgiveness means, he said. "You have to break up the concept of forgiveness. You have to break it into usable parts."
He said that "acknowledgment of wrongdoing" may fall short of an apology or restitution, but "it's a transaction of forgiveness." He cited the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in South Africa at the end of its apartheid regime an example of supplanting revenge with a process of forgiveness.
He said that country's first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela, "didn't gush about forgiveness when he made his white jailer -- the guy who kept the keys when he was a political prisoner -- an honored guest at his presidential inauguration. But Mandela's gesture was a transaction of forgiveness, a gesture of forbearance from revenge."
Hennemeyer cited the Rome-based Sant'Egidio Community's role in ending Mozambique's long civil war as an example of the role religious entities can play in fostering a process of reconciliation.
He said that during his long career as a U.S. diplomat, professionals in the field "understood the role of religion" in the culture and politics of the nations they were dealing with, but he found that their bosses, the decision-makers back in Washington, had only a "limited understanding" of religion's role in political cultures around the world.
He said former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright's new book, "The Mighty and the Almighty," which explores the role of religion in international politics, points out that one of the reasons Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton enjoyed some success as brokers of peace was "the empathy for other faiths that they showed."
Bies, who specializes in organizational behavior, said the possible dynamics of forgiveness or revenge that are found in the political world have parallels in the business world. The desire for revenge, he said, stems from a sense of an injustice that does damage to one's identity, often with "a perceived sense of irreversibility of the consequences."
"Revenge and forgiveness are coping responses to harm," he said, and "how you deal with harm is part of a healing process."
He suggested that forgiveness is part of what he called a "sequencing of virtues": It comes after the person who caused the harm has acknowledged the harm and his responsibility for it and has done something to apologize and offer some restitution for it.
While acknowledging many stumbling blocks along the path to forgiveness, the panelists said its potential for breaking cycles of violence and achieving peace and reconciliation in real-world situations should not be underestimated.
05/19/2006 2:34 PM ET
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