From The Inside Out: Reconciliation Is More Than Possible
By Voices for Reconciliation -August 28, 2012
What’s in a name?
We chose our name ‘Voices for Reconciliation’ after much deliberation, because we felt it went to the heart of our aims: the creation of a safe space for the sharing of different viewpoints, to encourage constructive and collaborative dialogue through which people could understand each other better. However, we soon began to realise that our view of what constitutes ‘reconciliation’ was just one in a host of interpretations being voiced in the discourse on post-war Sri Lanka. The dialogue workshops we run with Sri Lankans living in the UK have thrown up further proof that the word carries different meanings for different people, and we therefore think that it is vital to explore the concept further.
Since our philosophy is about sharing opinions, this article includes quotations that we have heard along the way from a diverse range of individuals. While we do not always agree with them, we do respect and value them, since they clearly illustrate that ‘reconciliation’ is not as simple a concept as people often assume.
One way to tackle this definitional dilemma is to look simply at the word itself. To re-concile seems to imply an act of healing after an injury, of mending a rupture, bridging a rift. In other words reconciliation can only occur after a trauma has been suffered. And this trauma, more often than not, seems to be relational; only opposing, antagonistic groups need ‘reconciling’. This highlights one aspect we have found key: reconciliation should be people-focused. It is about bringing together opposing groups and restoring amicable, or at least peaceful, relations between them. But what exactly does this entail?