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3 - A third way?

Eve Garrard
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Summary

Esther Mujawayo lost hundreds of relatives, including her mother, her father, and her husband, in conditions of unspeakable brutality and horror during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In her writings after the end of the massacres she wrote:

“I don't want to understand [the killers], at least, not yet. I want to proceed step by step: within ten years maybe. I don't want to understand … I say to myself that some people are paid for that, for understanding the killers – politicians, humanitarian staff, right-thinking people … all those whose work is to get into contact with criminals. Myself, I don't need that. I don't want to understand them and I don't want to excuse them. They did it … and I want them to pay for that and not to sleep soundly. …

All those I met in Rwanda, until the survivors working on the field, … never think about forgiveness .… However, all of them work in favour of a reconciliation. Because to reconcile does not mean to forgive. To take up with neighbours again, starting with the ability to greet each other, is important for all the reasons that I have already emphasized: our culture cannot be conceived without these traditions, these rituals.”

(Quoted in Brudholm & Rosoux 2009: 33)

The need for forgiveness (if forgiveness is in fact what's needed) arises out of human conflict. The perpetrator's wrongdoing is the locus of that conflict; it may indeed have started it, and it has to be handled in some way or other by the victim.

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Forgiveness , pp. 42 - 62
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2010

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  • A third way?
  • Eve Garrard, University of Manchester
  • Book: Forgiveness
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654680.004
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  • A third way?
  • Eve Garrard, University of Manchester
  • Book: Forgiveness
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654680.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • A third way?
  • Eve Garrard, University of Manchester
  • Book: Forgiveness
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654680.004
Available formats
×