The Unforgiving. Reflections on the Resistance to Forgiveness after Atrocity

Rosoux, Valérie [UCL] Brudholm, Thomas [University of Copenhagen]

Brudholm and Rosoux question the ethics of having religious and political leaders call on individual victims to forgive wrongdoing as an aid to group-conflict resolution. Even though a group might strongly desire political stability and peace, these goals should not be obtained at the expense of the needs of the victim. They argue that even when the group strongly desires reconciliation, reconciliation does not necessarily require forgiveness. They also consider several actual examples of resistance with particular concentration on the reflections of two genocide survivors, namely Jean Amery and Esther Mujawayo.