THE PROCESS I CALL
PEACEMAKING: NO MORE TAKING SIDES
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu,
pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 2, 2012
To my
sisters and brothers at the 3rd Annual Mediation Symposium of the
Mediation Board on “Transforming Trinidad and Tobago Through Mediation,” in
gratitude for our time together:
After
returning home yesterday I fell asleep early last night. I awoke as the bedside clock showed
6:57. I decided that this morning I
would like to hear “On Being”—a weekly interview program that airs on my local
public radio station from 7-8 Sunday mornings, where I often go for a homily. Please do go to this week’s program at www.onbeing.org featuring a network of murder
victims family members across the Israeli-Palestinian sides, in a “restorative
justice” network called “No More Taking Sides” that extends across national
boundaries across the region. The
website also links to a documentary the show made in the region, and the
unedited interview from which the program has been put together. Network creator Robi Damelin and Ali Abu
Awwad build on their personal stories to describe how sharing of pain across
sides rather than inflicting pain on the murderers is the way that memories of
how loved ones lived and what they displaces memories of moments of death and
loss—the process many of us at the symposium called “forgiveness.” They respond to the entropy of death and
tragedy with doses of human synergy.
Together, theirs is a story of stories of personal transformation, in the
manner of stories of personal and professional transformation I shared with
you. They, like many survivors of
extreme violence whose stories I have been privileged to hear, speak with the
authority of those who live closely and personally in the midst of horrendous
organized violence—gang warfare on a grand scale. Their “No More Taking Sides” program embodies
the celebration of mediation I experienced with you this past week. Pass the radio show on.
Every
formal occasion I have attended in Trinidad begins with your national anthem
and a prayer for God’s blessing. Prayers
may be offered by children of Abraham, by Hindus, by Buddhists, and as at the International Conference on
Penal Abolition at the University of the West Indies last June, by Caribs. I have no name for this spirit, but I feel
its presence constantly. I believe the spirit
moved me to get up and tune into a radio program first thing this morning. I think it no accident that I heard it just as
I was trying to figure out how to put my time with you into words. I believe it no accident that in the
religious tradition my mother introduced to me, this is happening on a Sunday
morning. Thank you. Love and peace--Hal
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