This commentary by Israel Rafalovich from England’s Economic Voice, provides a much-needed push for the role of forgiveness in international relations and precedes a book he is writing on the same topic. In the rare air of international negotiations and relations, it’s easy to objectify the people impacted. Rafalovich argues that politicians “have to be able to develop empathy for their enemies and not invest themselves in dehumanising their enemies.”

“Forgiveness has to be possible in politics,” he writes, “if there is to be any hope of former enemies to be able to-co-exist as members of the international community. For we learn the need to forgive and be forgiven from our experience of living together with others. In forgiveness we affirm our readiness to act anew and to establish new relationships. When we do achieve the goal of being neighbours to people who were once our enemies, than we will see forgiveness in politics in action.”

It’s worth a read!

Submitted by: Roselle Kovitz

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Forgiveness, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.