Karuna Center LogoDear Friends,

We are pleased to send you the Spring edition of our electronic newsletter. In this edition, we focus on reconciliation and efforts underway in three countries to heal societies divided by conflict.

We are also pleased to anounce the addition of an on-line forum for you to discuss the contents of this electronic newsletter, and other topics in peacebuilding you think might be of interest to the Karuna community. Please take a moment to visit it here:
http://www.karunacenter.org/forum/

The Staff and Board of the Karuna Center


Spring 2007 - "Thinking about Reconciliation"

THINKING ABOUT RECONCILIATION

The Latin root word for reconciliation is conciliatus, which means to come together or to assemble a council. To reconcile means to re-unite the council, to restore broken relations, and to walk together in harmony again.  Reconciliation, reunion, or reuniting all imply the presence of more than one, of family or community and of a sustained process over time rather than a single gesture. Reconciliation also requires intention and perhaps even generosity. It is a commitment to restore unity where violent conflict has set people against each other.

Reconciliation in divided societies entails an encounter between the shattered past and the envisioned future. Of all the steps in peacemaking, inter-communal reconciliation may be the most demanding, as it requires those who participate to surrender hatreds passed on for generations, release chosen narratives, relinquish fantasies of vengeance and be willing to re-establish relations shattered by betrayal and brutality. It is no wonder that communal reconciliation is a rare and valued mission.

South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Paula and Bishop TutuNo national reconciliation process to date has matched the scope, size, drama, visibility and integrity of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, partially due to the moral leadership provided by TRC Chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu and then South African President Nelson Mandela.  Archbishop Tutu developed his conviction about forgiveness from his deep understanding of Christianity and through the South African concept of ubuntu, which translates roughly as “a person is a person only through others.” This orientation to life teaches us that we are not solitary, but interdependent; our humanity is caught up in each other’s existence. Dehumanization of others inescapably dehumanizes the self, and the act of forgiveness ultimately serves the self and others, extending out to the community and setting an example for all of humanity. 

The Archbishop is passionate on the topic of forgiveness. He believes that without forgiveness we are chained to the past, victims to our victimization. As a spiritual leader, Archbishop Tutu encourages what he thinks will best help his people return to their common humanity. “Because of forgiveness,” he writes, “there is a future.”
Karuna Center Executive Director Paula Green and Board of Directors member Judith Thompson spoke at the tenth anniversary conference of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Cape Town on November 2006. Entitled Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Reflecting on Ten Years of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the conference brought together speakers and participants from twenty countries concerned with these issues. Paula and Judith presented on the opportunities and challenges of social healing across differences of nationhood, identity and conflict, speaking out of their long years of convening group members from many nations and circumstances who have all experienced communal violence in their lives. Read Paula’s report on her experience at the TRC conference at www.karunacenter.org/TRCreport.pdf.

Rwanda Experiments with Restorative Justice

GacacaKaruna Center Associate Director Olivia Dreier and Karuna Center Associate Adin Thayer led the third annual field seminar in Rwanda for the CONTACT (Conflict Transformation Across Cultures) graduate certificate program at the School for International Training. Faced with the overwhelming task of justice after a genocide in which an estimated 400,000 people participated in killing, Rwanda has instituted an updated form of a traditional system of justice known as gacaca, translated literally as “grass” courts. For fours years over 200,000 locally elected judges have presided in over 10,000 village courts, in which testimonies are gathered and the whole community has the opportunity to offer evidence and cross examine defendants and witnesses. Judges are elected without attendance to ethnic identity or level of education; the only criterion is that they are deemed people of integrity. Prisoners who confess receive reduced sentences of community service. Some international organizations have complained that gacaca courts do not meet Western standard of jurisprudence.  However, after watching a number of these proceedings, we have found it remarkable to observe how time after time faulty evidence crumbles when there is an open opportunity for everyone in the community to speak their truth. As one survivor told us, “It is not a perfect system, and the quality of the proceedings varies with the quality of the judges. However, as a survivor, I have had the opportunity to learn how and where my loved ones were killed. As the truth of all that happened is gradually established, I can begin to once again trust my neighbors.”

We also visited one of the new work camps for community service.  Over three hundred men and women who had confessed to killing during the genocide are terracing a hillside to improve agricultural productivity in a community where many were killed. The villagers feed the prisoners in exchange for the work and join the prisoners for Sunday church services and once a month for a joint workday, followed by a community dinner and dancing. The prisoners spoke to us of their gratitude for the opportunity to make a positive contribution. Some criticize the program as forced labor; others complain that this is no punishment for genocide. The government official in charge, a genocide survivor himself, wondered allowed, “What would they have us do? We cannot possibly keep up to 400,000 people in prison. We have no choice but to return people to community life, and we must do so in a way that allows us all to live together without hatred.”

You can read more about Karuna Center’s work in Rwanda at: www.karunacenter.org/programs/rwanda.

Building a Future for the Children: Bi-communal, Bi-lingual Kindergartens in Kosovo

Kosovars in dialogueIn 1998, war in Kosovo resulted in the deaths of 10,000 to 12,000 Kosovar Albanians, forced 400,000 people from their homes, and shattered the economy. International intervention brought an end to the bloodshed, but left Kosovo’s political status in limbo and ethnic relations strained. While the UN is finally making recommendations on Kosovo’s final status, tensions are mounting. In December 2006, Karuna Center Directors Paula Green and Olivia Dreier were invited by Save the Children and Search for Common Ground to train kindergarten teachers to lead multi-ethnic, multi-lingual kindergartens. Based on the success of the Search for Common Ground’s Moziak kindergarten program in Macedonia for Albanian and Macedonian children, Save the Children has launched a similar program in Kosovo. Depending on the region, Albanian, Serbian, Bosniak, or Turkish children will be taught together in bi-lingual classrooms, learning each other’s language and becoming familiar with each other’s customs. Karuna Center’s training focused on ways to use this program to build a culture of tolerance for the children and their parents, as well as on team-building for the teachers, who must heal from their own vastly different experiences of the war and its aftermath. Our participants expressed concern that Kosovo’s ethnic groups are living in increasing isolation from each other. For most, this was the first opportunity since the outbreak of violence to speak from the heart about the deep wounds of the war and their fragile hopes for a different future. Learn more about Karuna Center’s work in Kosovo at www.karunacenter.org/programs/kosovo.

The Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, Inc. is a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization. Founded in 1994 to address the growing global challenge of ethnic, religious, and political conflict, Karuna Center today has conducted programs in more than twenty countries around the world. To learn more about the Karuna Center, please visit our website at: www.karunacenter.org.

This e-newsletter was sent by the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding. Any inquiries or comments can be sent to:
Karuna Center for Peacebuilding
447 West Street
Amherst, MA 01002
info@karunacenter.org

If you would like to discuss the contents of this newsletter, please access our forum here:
http://www.karunacenter.org/forum/

If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please email: unsubscribe@karunacenter.org