Tagged: “Justice”
Beirut Explosion Levels Forgiveness Structure
Beirut, Lebanon – A massive explosion in Beirut’s port on Tuesday killed at least 135 people, injured more than 5,000, and displaced some 300,000 others from their homes. At least 100 people remain missing following the explosion that damaged more than 50% of the city. Debris from damaged buildings litters the streets of Beirut following the Tuesday explosion that has been called “one of the world’s largest non-nuclear detonations.” Beirut is home to 2 million people. (Ramy Taleb photo)
According to the Lebanese government, the source of the explosion was 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, an explosive chemical often used as fertilizer and sometimes in bombs, which had been stored in a port warehouse after being confiscated from an abandoned Russian-owned ship in 2014. Unconfirmed reports also indicate that the warehouses were storing more than 200 surface-to-air missiles.
The blast destroyed or damaged most structures over an area of about 160 acres (larger than the entire Disneyland Park in Anaheim, CA) including a building that served as a headquarters and operations base for Forgiveness Education projects in Lebanon. The Foundation for Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Lebanon (FFRL), a Beirut non-profit organization, was using the building as the center for its “Play for Peace” program.
Play for Peace is part of FFRL’s Forgiveness and Peace Curriculum that is designed to build bridges between participants from diverse backgrounds–Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Muslim, Christian and others–through football (better known elsewhere as soccer, the world’s most popular sport). The program operates in partnership with Al Shabab Al Arabi Club Beirut, a 40-year-old Lebanese football club. Watch a 3:36 Play for Peace video.
“Yesterday we were in Bourj Hammoud checking on our Play for Peace families who live there,” says Ramy Taleb, founder and director of FFRL. “Most of their houses are gone or broken, just like our building. These families are now in desperate need of support for medical and general humanitarian assistance.“
Bourj Hammoud is a municipality about a kilometer east of Beirut’s port area (where the explosion occurred) and one of the most densely populated districts in the Middle East that includes large numbers of refugees. According to Mercy Corps (a global team of humanitarians working in Beirut), refugees now account for about 30% of Lebanon’s population.
“Today we went back to Bourj Hammoud with our youth group from Saida (a city in southern Lebanon also known as Sidon). We listened, we wept, we began to clean up so families can somehow rebuild,” Taleb said. “Many of these families were in need of assistance even before the explosion. Lebanon has always been a country of great resilience, but when is enough, enough?”
Ramy and Roula Taleb operate the Foundation for Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Lebanon. With their two children, the couple live south of Lebanon’s capital of Beirut.
Taleb’s frustration reflects the complexity of the situation in Beirut. While searchers are still pulling bodies from the rubble, the explosion destroyed the country’s main grain silos, spilling and contaminating 15,000 tons of their contents. That, together with the COVID-19 pandemic, is pushing Lebanon toward a major food shortage.
“We desperately need help,” Taleb says. “Our families need help. Our children need help. We always appreciate any support that we can get and now is when we need it most just to survive.”
Please support the people in Lebanon who survived the horrific explosion. Watch a 56-second video of the destruction in Bourj Hammoud as described by Ramy Taleb then click the picture above to let those in Lebanon know they are in your heart.
Learn More:
- Visit The Foundation for Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Lebanon website.
- Watch a short 3 min. 17 sec. video about the FFRL.
- Review the Grade 6 FFRL Forgiveness and Reconciliation Curriculum.
- Donate to help FFRL build a generation of future Middle-East peacemakers.
Photos and Media Coverage of the Beirut Explosion:
If I forgive my own child for misbehavior I am concerned that this is giving the wrong message. I might be creating a sense of entitlement for that child who now comes to expect forgiveness and so continues to misbehave.
As you forgive, be sure to included justice as well. Yes, forgive when you are feeling resentful, but then ask something of the child so that correction occurs. When you ask for fairness when you are less angry, then what you ask may be even more fair than if you ask when fuming with anger.
For additional information, see Forgiveness Defined.
What if there is no justice in place to protect you? Perhaps, it is a problem with justice not forgiveness, but do you still recommend forgiveness even if justice is not available to protect you? Why or why not?
Are you asking this?—What if the boss is obnoxious and you want to leave? The old job with this boss is bad for you and there is no better job on the horizon. Might forgiving the boss keep you in an unhealthy job? I do not think that forgiveness is a weakness here. You can forgive and then perhaps, with reduced anger, ask for a more just situation with the boss. In this case, forgiveness may help you to seek fairness where, right now, justice does not exist. Your trying to **create** a just situation, after you forgive, may be your protection.
For additional information, see The Four Phases of Forgiveness.
As a follow-up question, let us suppose that children as young as 10-years-old have learned about forgiveness and want to practice it. How can they go about forgiving a parent if that parent keeps offending?
This will depend on the severity of the injustice. If there is abuse, it would be my hope that this will be discovered by professionals in the child’s school. Such abuse often leads to observable effects in children such as inattention during schoolwork, aggressive acting out in school, poor grades, and anger or depressive mood. The child needs justice along with forgiving. The forgiving in this case likely would begin only after the child is in a safe place. If the injustice is not so severe as to require a solution from outside the home, the child could start forgiving by: a) acknowledging anger. This can be difficult because of loyalty to the parent; and b) seeing the inherent worth in people in general and then applying it to the parent.
Many children are very good at exclaiming: “That’s not fair” and if a child is schooled in the moral virtue of forgiveness, which includes schooling in fair treatment, this kind of proclamation, spoken from a forgiving heart, may aid parents in thinking through their own behavior. This kind of pattern is not easy to solve and so, again, I recommend forgiveness education in schools to equip children with the tools for overcoming disappointments and anger caused by truly unfair treatment against them.
For additional information: Teaching Kids About Forgiveness.
Would implementing IFI’s forgiveness therapy in Police Departments help with racism, police brutality, domestic violence and suicide in the police community? If so, how would IFI recommend police get forgiveness therapy into their departments?
All organizations are made up of imperfect people. Therefore, any organization will have its share of unjust treatment by others outside the organization and toward people both outside that organization and within it. Those organizations that have much more stress than others, such as the police and the military, probably could benefit from forgiveness workshops. Why? If people in these organizations are abused by others, learning to forgive can quell the anger so that the anger is not displaced onto others. If people in the organizations abuse others, then the first step is to exercise the moral virtue of justice and make right that which was wrong. Asking for forgiveness is delicate because those hurt by the injustice may need a time of anger or sadness and therefore are not necessarily ready to forgive. Another step, once justice is restored, is learning to engage in self-forgiveness, which is important to avoid self-hatred. We have given workshops to military organizations and to those in the criminal justice system, but not yet to any police organizations, only because we have not been asked yet.
