allies – Engaging Peace

Giving thanks for peace

Posted on November 28, 2013November 28, 2013 by kathiemm

Loud voices are claiming that peace is impossible, that peace agreements don’t last, and that there will always be war. War profiteers may scoff at the feasibility of peace but here are some examples of lasting peace for which we can be thankful.

Thanksgiving Square Beacon symbolizing regeneration, reconciliation, peace, and aspiration. Photo by David Baird, used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 license.

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 1842: The U.K. and U.S. settled boundary disputes remaining from the Treaty of Paris (which concluded the Revolutionary War) and ended the (non-violent) Aroostok War over Maine’s border. The Treaty produced what became the longest (still) undefended border in the world.

Treaty of the Triple Alliance, 1876: At the end of a long and bloody war, the Triple Alliance (Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay) wanted to divide up large portions of the defeated Paraguay. U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, playing a positive role that might amaze today’s world, was asked to arbitrate a dispute over Paraguay’s final borders. His ruling that a contested area remain with Paraguay prevailed without further warfare.

Dissolution of the Norway-Sweden Union, 1905: This nugget is not a treaty but a non-violent peace settlement to a threatened war. Norwegian feelings favoring full independence from Sweden were so high in 1905 that Norway assembled an army to fight Sweden. Cooler heads prevailed and both sides agreed to go to a Court of Arbitration at The Hague instead. The result: no war and Norway achieved its full independence.

Paris Peace Treaties, 1947: Although some of the victorious Allies (particularly the U.S. and U.K.) have been extensively involved in warfare since the end of WWII, it is not with their former enemies, the Axis Powers. Indeed, that peace agreement has been so successful that a recent U.S. President felt compelled to invent a new “Axis” (“of evil”).

Michael Corgan and Kathie Malley-Morrison

Exonerating or pardoning the victim (Moral engagement, part 9)

Posted on December 16, 2010December 22, 2010 by kathiemm

The form of moral engagement that we call “exonerating or pardoning the victim” is in many ways a logical outgrowth of perspective taking and empathy. If you are able to put yourself in the shoes of another, you become more able to understand the ways in which people who behaved inhumanely may be no more inhumane and evil, and have no more desire to kill and maim, than you.

Failure to pardon can have disastrous effects. After World War I, there was no exonerating or pardoning of any of the people in the Axis powers by the Allies. Instead, the heavy load of reparations, imposed poverty, and humiliation of all Germans–whether they had been directly involved in the war or not–contributed directly to the rise of Hitler and World War II.

After World War II, the victorious powers proved that they, for at least that one generation, had learned the lesson of World War I, and avoided acting on desires for punishment and retaliation, working instead to rebuild Japan and Germany.

Perhaps the highest level of moral engagement can be found in individuals who were themselves victimized but have found the courage to forgive their oppressors; a perfect example of this level and type of moral engagement can be found in Nelson Mandela. In a later post, we will provide a review of the film Invictus, a powerful illustration of Mandela’s forgiveness program, carried out in the context o f preparation for a World Cup rugby match.

The following movie review by our guest blogger, Mimi Maritz, illustrates these themes of exonerating and pardoning in another film.

Review of “Forgiving Dr. Mengele”
This documentary tells the story of Holocaust concentration camp survivor, Eva. Like her twin sister Miriam, Eva was subjected to excruciating and nearly fatal experiments by Dr. Mengele, the notorious prison camp doctor, yet she came to pardon her former oppressors.

Through her search to help Miriam discover which drug Dr. Mengele injected to stunt her kidney growth, Eva met face-to-face with other Nazis involved in the Holocaust. Her search led her to realize that the only way to move forward and live life without regret was by forgiving those who had harmed her and millions of others.

Eva argues that to avoid being victims for the rest of their lives, the survivors of victimization must free themselves from suffering, and that the only way to do this is by accepting the past and forgiving the transgressors.

By forgiving, Eva does not mean forgetting; she is continually spreading her story to all who will listen. When another survivor says to Eva “I am unable to smile deeply from my heart… I do not know how to be happy,” Eva declares that we have the right to live without pain and we do not need permission to start healing our hearts.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology, with Mimi Maritz

Healing in the aftermath of 9/11

Posted on September 13, 2010July 6, 2011 by kathiemm

Ground Zero memorial — Ground Zero (Photo by Niesy74; Permission is granted to use this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. From WikiMedia Commons)

As we reflect back on the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001, it is useful to consider the question of healing.

Let’s look at an example from the last century. The U.S. and several of its allies learned, at least temporarily, a lesson after World War I.

They learned that a rabid preoccupation with revenge and punishment can keep hatred and a desire for retaliation alive and lead to further violence. Thus, the outcome of World War I led to World War II.

The aftermath to World War II was handled differently and with wisdom, as the allies helped the Axis powers rebuild. Today Germany and Japan are major allies of the United States.

Furthermore, the U.S. government has apologized to the innocent Japanese Americans who were corralled into concentration camps in the U.S. for no reason other than their Japanese ancestry.

Today in New York City we see a reprise of the kinds of hatred and distrust being leveled at innocent Americans because of their ancestry–in this case because they are Muslims.

The efforts to stop the building of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero are fueled not just by prejudice and ethnocentrism but by the political agenda of power-seekers.

Those power-seekers know that one way to get people to follow you and build your power is to foment fear while also making them believe that you have the answers. But are they the right answers?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology