April 4 • Prof. Hizkias Assefa
“Negotiations for Peace”
If the world is to move toward peace, the world must understand and embrace modern technologies of non-violent conflict resolution. Non-violent conflict resolution is a technology at the cutting edge of the modern conversation. Nonviolence is a mindset. One enters into negotiation either in a violent or a nonviolent mindset. Choosing the nonviolent mode gives an advantage. The violent choice always gives way to conflict.
Hizkias Assefa is a modern mover in the advance of non-violent technologies. He is a master of the technologies of nonviolent conflict-resolution. He is particularly eloquent on the topic of reconciliation:
“…the methodology used to arrive at justice in the reconciliation process is different from that used to arrive at justice in the conventional (juridical) approach. The aim of the latter processes (particularly of the criminal justice process) is primarily to identify guilt and administer the punishment that the law requires with little attention to healing the bitterness and resentment that exist between the parties in the conflict. Identifying ways in which offenders are assisted to redress the material and emotional damage they have inflicted through self-reflection, acknowledgment of responsibility, remorse, and compensation would be an important step towards establishing an environment of reconciliation. The approach known as ‘restorative justice’ as opposed to ‘retributive justice’ brings us closer to the point where justice can be done but at the same time the possibilities for reconciliation are enhanced.
Links:
Hizkias Assefa on Reconciliation: http://www.gppac.net/documents/pbp/part1/2_reconc.htm
Hizkias Assefa bio page, Eastern Mennonite University: http://www.emu.edu/personnel/people/show/assefah
Excerpt from Thriving in the Crosscurrent: Clarity and Hope at a Time of Cultural Sea Change (Jim Kenney, Quest Books 2010), p. 225.
Theologian Walter Wink offers an evocative “new story” flourish to the peace-culture paradigm. Human societies since prehistory, he argues, have most often lived by the myth of redemptive violence, the story, told in countless variants, of good overcoming evil. That victory, however, is always accomplished through violence. It’s a story that dominates the literature and imagery of our own modern society, the tale of the villain who just needs killing. Now, however, Wink and many others see a new myth taking shape, already emergent in some ways, still horizonal in others. It’s the myth of restorative justice, the powerful new story that recognizes the interrelated values of peace, justice, and sustainability and teaches the lesson that peace can often be secured by restoring the missing leg of the tripod.