Forgiveness News
Documentary Highlights Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue and Reconciliation
A just-released documentary, “Two-Sided Story,” highlights the power and possibility of dialogue and reconciliation among Israelis and Palestinians. The new film was produce by American Friends of the Parents Circle-Families Forum, a Middle East-based nonprofit that brings together Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families. View the trailer.
The film – directed by Emmy Award winner Tor Ben Mayor – tells the story of 27 Palestinians and Israelis who meet through a Parents Circle project and begin to explore the experiences and narratives held by the “other side.” By listening deeply to one another’s personal stories, rather than arguing over political views, these participants slowly begin to connect and see each other as people first, rather than enemies.
The American Friends of the Parents Circle is committed to holding 100 screenings of Two Sided Story in synagogues, churches, mosques, colleges, schools, community groups, dialogue groups and living rooms all over the U.S. For more information, please email Shiri Ourian at americanfriends@parentscircle.org.
The Parents Circle – Families Forum is an organization made up of over 600 bereaved families, half Israeli and half Palestinian. Since 1994, the members of this organization – all of whom have lost a family member to the conflict – have undertaken a joint effort in the midst of ongoing violence to transform their incredible loss and pain into a catalyst for reconciliation and peace.
Mother Forgives Her Daughter’s Abductor
The Telegraph, London, England – Madeleine McCann was abducted from her bed while her family was visiting Portugal six years ago this month. She was three years old at the time and has not been seen since. Her mother, Kate, says she spent years despising the person who took her daughter but that she no longer has to understand the motive behind the abduction to offer forgiveness.
“I think I could probably forgive Madeleine’s abductor whatever the circumstances” Mrs. McCann said in a recent interview. “I don’t know whether it’s simply because I’m stronger or because there’s no benefit in not forgiving someone. I can’t change anything and I don’t want to be eaten up by hatred and bitterness.”
She added, “And maybe there is an element of pity – what kind of person could do something like this? Of course, forgiveness will always be easier if there is remorse.”
Bomb Victim Practices Forgiveness to Heal from Tragedy
Democracy Now, New York, NY – Father Michael Lapsley, a former South African anti-apartheid activist, has turned his personal tragedy into a clarion call for peace and forgiveness.
In 1990, three months after the release of Nelson Mandela (who served 27 years in jail), the ruling de Klerk government sent Father Lapsley a parcel containing two religious magazines. Inside one of them was a highly sophisticated bomb. When Lapsley opened the magazine, the explosion blew off both of his hands, destroyed one eye and burned him severely.
Father Lapsley was not silenced by his injuries. He went on to work at the Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture in Cape Town, South Africa, which assisted the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He is now director of the Institute for Healing of Memories.
“The journey of healing is to move from being a victim to a survivor to a victor, to take back agency,” Father Lapsley says. “I realized that if I was filled with hatred and bitterness and desire for revenge, they would have failed to kill the body, but they would have killed the soul.”
Father Lapsley is currently in the United States and was recently interviewed by Democracy Now about his new book, Redeeming the Past: My Journey from Freedom Fighter to Healer. The book recently received the 2013 Andrew Murray-Desmond Tutu prize for the best Christian and theological book by a South African writer. Watch the video interview or read the full transcript: “Apartheid Regime Bomb Victim Father Michael Lapsley on Using Forgiveness to Heal From Tragedy.”
Bully Blues Busters: Positive Ways to Promote Kindness
Natural Awakenings, Naples, FL – Dr. Robert Enright’s Anti-Bullying Forgiveness Program is one of two anti-bullying programs featured in the February issue of Natural Awakenings, a publication that has more than 3 million readers in 82 US markets. According to Sharon Bruckman, founder of the 20-year-old magazine, “Our job is to keep our finger on the pulse of advancing thought in order to keep everyone apprised of the best healthy-life choices available to them.”
According to the Natural Awakenings article, most school anti-bullying programs focus on the prevention of unwanted behaviors. But Dr. Enright, co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, has developed a uniquely different approach.
“Because those that engage in bullying are often filled with rage from having been bullied themselves, they get to a point that they don’t care about the consequences of their actions, including detention,” Dr. Enright says. “Our program is meant to take the anger out of the heart of those that bully, so they bully no more.”
The National Education Association estimates that 160,000 children miss school every day due to fears of being attacked or intimidated by other students.
That Natural Awakenings article resulted in WZZM13 ABC TV in Grand Rapids, MI inviting Dr. Matthew Clark to be a guest on the 9 am talk show called Take Five & Company. Dr. Clark, Psy.D., runs The Clark Institute–Private Practice Psychotherapy for Children, Adolescents, and Adults in Grand Rapids. During that 4-minute TV segment, which you can watch at Positive Ways to Promote Kindness in Children,” Dr. Clark mentions the IFI, suggests viewers go to the IFI website, and gives the IFI web address.
Beyond Right and Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness
A movie review by Dr. Giles Fraser
The Guardian and The Church Times Review, London, England – Patrick Magee killed Jo Berry’s father on October 12, 1984. He was the notorious IRA Brighton bomber; she is the daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, former Tory MP for Enfield, Southgate, England. They were an unlikely pair to be mingling over the canapés in an upscale London hotel.
The occasion was the first London screening of a new documentary film, Beyond Right and Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness, which examines extraordinary stories of forgiveness in Northern Ireland, Rwanda, and the Middle East.
Some of it was almost unbearable to watch: the Rwandan woman whose five children were massacred in church is approached by their killer, who asks for forgiveness; the now-grown-up Irish schoolboy who was blinded by a rubber bullet meets the British soldier who fired the round; the Israeli and Palestinian families who meet, despite having all lost children in the conflict.
One of the stories in Beyond Right and Wrong tells how Magee traveled across England in 1978, planting 16 bombs in various cities and, then again, in 1984, when he blew up Brighton’s Grand Hotel during the Conservative party conference, killing five people. Magee eventually served 14 years in prison, released in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday agreement. Jo Berry’s forgiveness of Magee is quite extraordinary, taking huge courage and emotional poise. And she admitted to me that she sometimes goes for a walk on the beach in north Wales and smashes rocks against each other in frustration. This is a safe detonation of the anger she feels inside. She says that for all to move on and reclaim a more peaceful future, these feelings have to be left on the beach.
Too often, forgiveness is construed as miraculously having positive feelings towards the person who had harmed you. This understanding is, I suspect, an impossible fiction. But what is not impossible is the refusal of revenge, the refusal to answer back in kind. Beyond Right and Wrong examines powerful stories of ordinary people in Rwanda and Israel/Palestine who have let go of perfectly natural punitive instincts in the name of a brighter tomorrow, one not trapped by the hatreds of the past.
View the 2-minute movie trailer. Purchase the Beyond Right and Wrong DVD.
