Two Frontrunners for Peace: John Paul II and Fethullah Gulen
by Thomas Michel S.J.
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In his approach to peace, Pope John Paul II follows a statement he made repeatedly over the years: “Peace stands on two pillars: justice and forgiveness .” I believe that there is much to be said for this view. It affirms that both of these elements, justice and forgiveness, are necessary to achieve a genuine peace. Focusing on one without the other cannot produce real peace, and peace efforts and negotiations that do not put these two elements at the center of the matters to be addressed will not succeed. One element without the other is not enough for a real peace.
The first element, justice, seeks to redress the wrong done, unfair treatment corrected, material property restored, false judgments rectified, whereas the second, pardon, seeks to repair the human relations damaged and destroyed in the conflict.
Looking at conflicts from the perspective of justice focuses one's attention on the victims of injustice, on their plight, on the effects of violence, strife and oppression on innocent people, on the concrete ways in which their lives have been shattered. People suffer, not because of the forces of nature or biology, but because of the way they have been treated by others. Injustice is not a mystery in that it is possible to trace its sources in the history of human choices. People could act in other ways to others, but they have chosen to act unjustly. In any conflict, there are many victims, in multiple ways, on all sides, but the level of loss and suffering is not the same for all. Some have experienced more bitter injustice than others. It is those who are greater victims of injustice, humanly and materially, who will be obstacles to peace until their injustices are redressed.
Every nation, every religious or ethnic group, can draw up a long list of grievances that they have against each other, of wrongs that their group has suffered at the hands of the others. This is the human burden of the experience of past misdeeds that people bring into their relations with others which complicate the way that groups relate to one another, that give rise to suspicions which can poison all efforts at cooperation and reconciliation and that can flare up into violence the slightest provocation.
I believe that the Pope's focus on the injustice experienced by victims of oppression and wrongdoing, rather than merely on the geopolitical and economic issues which are often at the forefront of negotiated settlements is realistic. The Pope's reasoning is like this. Any real peace, if it is to go beyond a simple “cease-fire” or temporary cessation of hostilities, has to get to the heart of the conflict and try to heal the breach in human relations which was ruptured. When peoples are at war, when individuals are estranged and alienated from one another, they are angry, suspicious, and resentful of one another. They see the other as an enemy to be overcome, defeated, the object of retaliation, rather than a fellow-human with whom one ought to be reconciled. Thus, no talk about peace can proceed effectively without addressing the issue of broken relationships and without taking positive steps to repair those relations.
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