FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION - #10

In 1979 Seamus Heaney wrote about a man who died during the troubles after he betrayed the republican cause in Derry. Here are a few lines from the poem,"The Casualty."

"He was blown to bits out drinking in a curfew other obeyed,three nights after they shot dead the thirteen men in Derry. PARAS 13, the wall said, BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday everybody held his breath and trembled.

It was a cold, raw silence, windblown surplice and soutane: rained-on, flower laden coffin after coffin seemed to float from the door of the packed cathedral like blossoms on a slow water. The common funeral unrolled its swaddling band, lapping, tightening till we were braced and bound like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held at home by his own crowd whatever threats were phoned, whatever black flags waved. I see him as he turned in that bombed offending place, remorse fused with terror in his still knowable face, his cornered outfaced star, blinding in the flash.

He has gone miles away for he drank like a fish nightly, naturally swimming towards the lure of warm lit up places, the blurred mesh and murmur drifting among glasses in the gregarious smoke. How culpable was he that last night when he broke our tribe's complicity 'Now you're supposed to be an educated man,' I hear him say. 'Puzzle me the right answer to that one.' (Field Work. New York, Noonday Press, p. 22-23)."

Forgiveness and reconciliation involve personal and social, religious and political, ethnic and global dimensions. Criminals and victims and the community cry out for justice. But what kind?

Society can handle this by sponsoring a justice of vengeful punishment. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is demanded. Victimizers make restitution directly to their victims. Or they make indirect reparation through community service. Francis J. Schweigret says,"(Indirect reparation) is constructive, relatively inexpensive, educative, rehabilitative for offenders and reparative for victims (Chicago Studies 38 (1999): 212)."

But forgiveness and reconciliation need not end here."Justice is not equated with following the rules but with bringing about right relations and well-being.... Thus punishment is restorative rather than destructive, a search for solutions that will result in well-being....(T)his is justice that goes beyond reparation to redemption...(Schweigret, p. 213)." A society can move from reparation to redemption. It can close the gap between what people believe about redemption and how society treats those who committed crimes and made mistakes.

Restorative justice is the name given to a new kind of social intervention in the cycle of crime and violence. It entails five things. First, crimes gets redefined. They become injuries to persons rather than merely offenses against the state. Second, victims are the prime concern of restorative justice reform. "Restorative justice seeks to empower the victim more than punish the offender (Schweigret, p. 215)." Third, offenders are accountable primarily to the victims rather than the state. Offenders are called upon to give themselves to help determine how their harmful actions can be repaired. They are required to make restitution. Fourth, the community can invest in social control and affirm its values and behavioral norms. Fifth, the judicial process needs to restore harmony among the victims, their offenders, & the community.