Two Frontrunners for Peace: John Paul II and Fethullah Gulen
by Thomas Michel S.J.
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If one group or individual is being oppressed or treated unjustly by another, one cannot hope for peace between the two until there is justice. The Pope sees justice in two ways: firstly, as a human quality which a person can acquire and develop with God's powerful assistance, and secondly as a “legal guarantee,” that is, part of the functioning of the national and international rule of law. The aim of justice, both as a personal quality and as an element of the international system of relations among peoples, is to insure “full respect for rights and responsibilities” and to carry out a “just distribution of benefits and burdens.”
Justice is thus a first, indispensable condition for peace. Unless one person treats another justly, that is, with respect for the other's rights and duties and by giving them their proper share of what is due to them, there will be no peace between them. The same holds true between social groups, ethnic groups, peoples and nations. Where there is aggression, oppression, occupation, transgression, there can be no peace. First, justice has to be established, then peace can be built.
However, for true peace, justice alone is not enough. Justice can never, by itself, make up for the suffering of people that often has gone on for many years and decades. One can take as an example the case of many groups of refugees around the world. Even in the rare scenario of the possibility for the refugees to return to their land, how can people be recompensed for the years of suffering? In the more frequent situations where a return to one's homeland is not a viable option, what financial considerations could make up in justice for lost decades lived out in the inhumane conditions to which refugees are subjected?
Even if armed conflict passes, how can people ever hope to live together in peace after all the bitterness and violence that has passed between them for so long? Focusing solely on justice will not bring back lost years, lost relatives, lost trust, lost hopes. Something more is needed, on all sides of the conflict.
This is where pardon, the second pillar of peace, comes into play. Whenever violent conflict ocurs, the human relations are damaged and must undergo a slow, painful process of healing. Pardon can seem like a “soft” element in the peace-building process, something more suited to do-gooders, bleeding hearts, and idealistic religious types than to hard-headed politicians and negotiators. However, forgiveness and reconciliation are just as essential as elements of peace as is the focus on justice, and in fact much more difficult to achieve. This is where many religious and secular NGO programs are providing a critical component of the peace-building process. By bringing together those who have lost family and neighbors in shooting and bombing incidents with those from the other side who have similar histories of loss, by facilitating and favoring the sharing of experience of past suffering and discovering common hopes for the future, by enabling people on both sides to see “the enemy” as individuals who are not very different from oneself, these organizations of reconciliation are playing a key role in the long-term effort to build peace.
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