Forgiveness tends to break the vicious circle of violence
By Pasquale Ferrara ("Living City", october 2010)
Authentic forgiveness in its core is unrestricted and unconditional. That is why the Gospel speaks of forgiving “seventy times seven times.” It is not the quantity but the quality (we would say the depth) of forgiveness that makes up one of the foundational prerequisites at the birth of most human societies.
A moment of breach or division (sometimes a homicide or a fratricide), to which people feel called to respond with a wave of equal social revenge, is often present in the history of various cultures. It’s enough to think of the outline of many Greek tragedies.
Yet, already in the Old Testament there is the story of the "sign" that God placed on the forehead of Cain. Abel's murderer should not, in turn, be killed by others. Forgiveness, therefore, tends to break the vicious circle of violence, including the less evident, daily violence such as the act of avoiding greeting a neighbor, colleague or friend who has betrayed us. Denying the other of the ordinary ritual of greeting is something more serious than what may seem at first glance. It is a way to expel the other from the circle of relationships; it is a kind of arbitrary exclusion of the other from the community.
In addition to the personal level, there is the broader level of the "wounds" produced by social, inter-ethnic and intercultural conflicts. Consider, for example, the various "commissions for truth and reconciliation" that were created in many Latin American and African countries as a result of serious political and institutional crisis or civil wars. Some of these committees have focused not only on the restoration of responsibilities, but also on two basic concepts: “healing” and “reconciliation.” In other words, it is like saying that the part of society which was the victim or the author of crimes against human rights is ill, and therefore requires social healing.
The perspective of conflict resolution is somehow different from that of forgiveness. Forgiveness is primarily a private, personal matter, but without forgiveness there can be no real reconciliation. Any conflict resolution should take place between individuals who “forgive” each other. The act of forgiving does not negate the memory of facts and circumstances (including historical and political). The philosopher Paul Ricoeur spoke of “active oblivion” — the past of division and conflict should never affect our present efforts to be (re)builders of unity.
