Please help me think this through...

Susan Kerr susan.kerr at aurora.org
Thu Jul 1 11:08:51 PDT 2004


Hi Doug,

The phrase sounds familiar to me also but I'm not sure from where; the
website below might be where you know it from:

      http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/index.html

On the site it states the commission is no longer active.

Anyway, thank you for writing what you wrote. I've thought it so many
times. I don't understand why we, the U.S., reacted the way we did after
9/11 in our approach to Iraq and why it seemed the consensus (here) that it
was the only way and the right way to react and handle the situation. If,
when we started after the "terrorists," we had hosted an international open
space to discuss the real threat to peace throughout the world, I wonder if
any of us could envision what outcomes we would all now be engaged in.

But you speak of moving forward and what you state in the apologetic
approach I completely resonate with. I'm not trained in griefwork but I
think it would open the door to healing and reconciliation - and not just
our relations with Iraq. So how do we begin to do this?

New to Opening Space...
Susan








             "Douglas D.
             Germann, Sr."
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                                       Please help me think this
                                       through...
             07/01/2004 10:24
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To my good friends--

Would you be so kind as to help me think this through?

The last few days watching the news the phrase "truth and reconciliation"
keep coming to me. Now I do not know much about the phrase, but I associate
it with a formal process that was undertaken a few years ago (maybe it is
still ongoing?) in South Africa to help heal the wounds of Apartheid.

What would happen if the USA would apologize to the people of Iraq for the
invasion and the atrocities done by us or under our watch? What is the
likely result if we would make sincere efforts to make amends? Even to dare
to vulnerably make amends?

Some would surely say it will be viewed as weakness, as an admission of
defeat. But it takes a strong people to make an apology, yes?

Is this not a form of griefwork?

What do the learnings of open space do to help us think this through? What
would warriors for peace do?

                              :-Doug. Germann
                              Seeking people making change.

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