The training focussed on three main themes:
- Understanding reconciliation as a multi-dimensional process
"Reconciliation" assumes different forms and different roles at different levels of engagement in different contexts. Among the topics addressed were: definitions of reconciliation and its goals; a typology of different types of reconciliation (inner, interpersonal, intergroup, political) and their respective modes; the stakeholders and participants in reconciliation at different levels of engagement; and the relationship between reconciliation and other peacebuilding, statebuilding and transitional justice processes in post-violence societies, including a close examination of the role of truth-seeking, apology/forgiveness, justice, healing, and accommodations in promoting reconciliation among violence-affected communities. Participants reflected on instances of conflict and reconciliation in their personal experience, and analysed case studies of reconciliation at the community and state levels. Case studies included reconciliation among sectarian groups in Iraq and among the country's diaspora; between Japan and China over the Nanjing massacre and Japan's 'comfort women'; in post-genocidal Rwanda and its creation of the Gacaca courts; between the government of Australia and the Aboriginal people; and among ethnic communities in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. - Understanding the impacts of violence on communities and intergroup relations. Key to the discussion on reconciliation were reflections on the cycle of violence and the factors that contribute to its perpetuation and mitigation. Such factors included the role of identities and collective narratives in conflict and violence; psychological and political aspects of violence, victimhood and woundedness; the differentiated roles and needs of perpetrators, bystanders and victims before and following violence; the politics of memory, forgetting, and memorialization; the impact of violence on collective identities and processes of socialization; and the worldviews underlying violent and peaceful societies.
- Facilitating reconciliation among violence-affected populations, with sensitivity to context and culture, entry-points and timing, inclusive methodologies, and relationship-building between bottom-up and top-down interventions in order to amplify and sustain social recovery and transformation processes in divided societies.
The training combined exercises in critical self-reflection, group discussion and analysis, visual methods, project design, and group mentoring with academic theory and research. Attention was given to creating a learning environment which offered opportunities for increased self-knowledge, for the exercise of skills relevant to reconciliation work with vulnerable populations, and for the development of projects centred on improving reconciliation among divided groups in each of the participants' countries.
The participants contributed substantially to the programme through discussions, group work presentations of case studies, and through sharing of experiences and professional knowledge during the sessions and informal activities. I was personally inspired by the high-level of discussion and sharing that took place, and by the projects which participants developed for applying reconciliation concepts in their professional and community work back home.
My thanks to the organizers and all the participants for these excellent few days together!