Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela of South Africa on forgiveness
Given our sudden, brutal awareness of terrorism, the work of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission seems all the more amazing: victims of terrorism, confronting the terrorists -- and forgiving them. Forgiveness, and its role in justice, was the subject brought home to first-year seminar students Friday (Oct. 26) by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who served on the commission. Some perpetrators of terrorism display a sense of not only guilt, but remorse that "weighs heavily on their heart" and causes them to seek forgiveness, she said. "That's when they show their humanity." The victim who grants that forgiveness "isn't forgiving the act, but the doer. The victim is responding with humanity." Such an act "breaks the silence and empowers the victim." Her presentation was sponsored by the Center for Global Education, the Program in Applied Ethics, and the First Year Seminar.
