1. Forgiveness and Reconciliation After an Ethnic Conflict
Dr. Jared O. Bell, Assistant Professor of International Relations and Public Administration
Faculty of Business and Administration
International University of Sarajevo

2. What’s the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation?
What do you think the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation may be?
Is it more important to forgive or reconciliation after an ethnic conflict?
What’s the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation?

3. An Introduction to Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Forgiveness is both a process and a choice.
If legislated or regulated in any way, forgiveness may become fraught with difficulty.
If community members – including both authorities and civilians – adopt a forgiving attitude, that can be a very useful public health and community-building tool.
Forgiveness may require relinquishing something that was important to you, such as giving up your moral indignation, your desire for retaliation, or your attachment to being right.
Community builders can enter into a reconciliation process by listening to the story and the pain of the “other,” then start to build empathy and understanding
An Introduction to Forgiveness and Reconciliation

4. An Introduction to Forgiveness and Reconciliation (cont.)
Reconciliation assumes a need, a will, or an actual effort made on the part of an individual or group to live side-by-side in peace with a person or group they had considered to be their adversaries in the past.
Pardoning may lead to reconciliation but is different from forgiveness.
Reconciliation lies at the heart of building and maintaining peace in a community.
In time, people may realize that holding on to resentment has a cost. Only then they can start to work on ways of developing plans to repair the harm.
An Introduction to Forgiveness and Reconciliation (cont.)

5. What do we mean by forgiveness and reconciliation?
Definition: Forgiveness is the principled decision to give up your justified right for revenge; it also requires the forgiver to recognize that the offender is “human like myself.”
Categories
Unilateral forgiveness
Bilateral forgiveness
Some Key Points about Forgiveness
Process
Recognition
Empathy
Reconciliation
What do we mean by forgiveness and reconciliation?

6. What do we mean by forgiveness and reconciliation?
Forgiveness (cont.)
Common Themes in Forgiveness
There is an injury or violation with subsequent emotional or physical pain.
The violation results in a broken or fragmented relationship between parties.
Perpetuation of injury is halted.
A cognitive process is pursued where the painful event or action is understood or reframed with a fuller context.
There is a release or letting go of justifiable emotion and retaliation related to the event.
There is a regeneration of the relationship
What do we mean by forgiveness and reconciliation?

7. What do we mean by forgiveness and reconciliation?
Definition: Reconciliation refers to the restoration of fractured relationships by overcoming grief, pain, and anger.
Reconciliation can be seen as a five-step process, including:
Developing a shared vision of an interdependent and fair society
Acknowledging and dealing with the past
Building positive relationships
Facilitating significant cultural and attitudinal change
Enabling substantial social, economic, and political change
Reconciliation can also involve the reframing of identity
What do we mean by forgiveness and reconciliation?

8. By engaging in the process of forgiveness (individual level)
Self-forgiveness
Common stages in the engagement process
Developing forgiveness on an individual level
By engaging in the reconciliation process (community level)
Promoting forgiveness on community level
Ways to build and rebuild relationships
Cultivating dialogue
Starting grassroots initiatives
Utilizing the healing power of sharing stories
Developing victim – offender programs
How can one develop and promote forgiveness and reconciliation in Post-Conflict Communities?

9. Some challenges and reflection questions
Letting go
Assuming that forgiveness means reconciliation
Accountability
Creating the right climate
No set formula
Provision of resources
Sustaining dialogue
Some challenges and reflection questions