Forgiveness, Not Revenge

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Born in 1954, Minow became aware of politics at an early age, she says. Her father, a prominent figure in the broadcasting trade, served under President Kennedy as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. After the family left Washington and returned to Chicago, Minow's mother introduced her to working with abused children. Both parents actively supported the civil rights movement, and Minow attended rallies with them. Seeing and hearing Martin Luther King Jr. on his visits to Chicago deeply affected her—as did watching media coverage of his murder in 1968. For a girl awakening to the violent energies unloosed in the world, TV was a window into the darker aspects of reality: assassination, racial strife, the fighting in Vietnam. This early glimpse of the extremes of human nature, beamed into the family living room, would leave its mark on her later work. As Minow has noted, growing up in the second half of the 20th century has given her and others a certain insight into the forces that shape history.

“I don't think the level of violence in this century is what makes it distinctive,” she says. “But I do think the mass media coverage of violence is distinctive.” One result is the growing role of world opinion in defending human rights, she says. For the first time ever, “the global use of peer pressure” has become an important moral force. With no sovereign to insist that individual countries obey this code, the only threat is “the possibility of shame, of holding out for everyone to see, here's what they did.”

Also unique to the age are insights of modern psychology, including the psychology of oppression. There's a better sense of how damaging violence and abuse can be, both to individuals and to entire societies, Minow notes. The challenge now is to use this knowledge to redress the deep injury often caused by such wrongs—that is, to make the victim's need for healing an integral part of the justice process.

That may explain why the concept of forgiveness seems to be growing in importance. Victims denied the chance to forgive can suffer doubly, Minow notes. Even when they win in court cases, something crucial may be missing in a system that does not allow victims to tell their stories, demand an apology, and then forgive—if they so choose. In any case, it's critical that the choice be theirs. There's nothing sentimental about forgiveness, at least as Minow presents it. Forgiveness is a complex transaction that reasserts the power and equality of those who have been injured or abused. Minow looks to the social sciences and even studies of primate behavior in defining the innate human need for “rituals of reconnection.”

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