Is There Hope for Forgiveness After Group Violence?

In 1994, a plane crash killed Rwanda’s president, Juvénal Habyarimana. Over the next 100 days, the Hutu majority killed around 800,000 Tutsi who were blamed for the president’s death.

In the aftermath of this ghastly genocide, the country needed to figure out how to move forward. Concerned about renewed violence, the newly formed government created a justice and reconciliation process to ensure that all Rwandans live side by side peacefully. This would be achieved by establishing “Reconciliation Villages.”

One of the villages, Rweru Reconciliation Village, serves as a case study in post-genocide reconstruction. In the village live both survivors and perpetrators of the genocide, there to demonstrate that living side by side is possible. All the residents participate in joint activities, such as farming the land and building homes together, attending communal gatherings, and reconstructing the social fabric.

As we’ll see, forgiveness in Rwanda is not without its challenges. Forgiveness takes time and can be a profound personal journey, shaped by cultural, religious, and spiritual beliefs. But for those who live in Rweru, forgiveness is seen not as condoning past atrocities, but as breaking free from the cycle of violence and hatred. We believe Rwanda shows the world that, even in the face of unspeakable horrors, communities can come together, forgive, and rebuild.

It is one thing to forgive someone who has offended you. It is a different story when faced with the task of making peace between groups that have committed violence against each other. What does forgiveness look like in a situation like this, and can forgiveness initiate societal change? Through our work at the Forgiveness Project at Stanford University, we’ve come to see Rwanda as a model of political forgiveness—a concept that is essential to building a more peaceful world.

What is political forgiveness?

In her book The Human Condition, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt writes, “Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would be confined to a single deed.”

The beauty of forgiveness, as noted by Arendt, is that forgiveness interrupts otherwise automatic processes—not only in our private lives but also in the public sphere. Forgiveness is as vital in the public realm as it is to preserve bonds between individuals.

Psychologists describe forgiveness as a conscious choice to set aside feelings of anger and resentment toward an individual who has caused harm, regardless of whether that person deserves it. Although there is some disagreement about whether forgiveness requires developing positive feelings toward the offender, there is agreement that forgiveness is a process of letting go of deeply held anger or resentment.

In recent decades, psychologists have empirically validated several methodologies that promote forgiveness toward self and others, one of which is the Stanford Forgiveness Project. Research on the impact of psychoeducation on forgiveness has shown that it helps people forgive those who they feel have wronged them, forgive themselves, and enable existential forgiveness. These approaches, which we believe have been validated across a wide range of human offenses, offer promise in helping to resolve political and civil violence.     

Our goal is to integrate the secular model of forgiveness developed by the Stanford Forgiveness Project with a tested dialogue method from Colombia, South America, to create a testable process we are labeling “political forgiveness.” We believe the essence of political forgiveness integrates interpersonal and self-forgiveness with structured dialogue to help enable communities to recover from violence and civil unrest.

Political forgiveness can be defined as the process of repairing fractured relationships among individuals, nations, or groups. The goal of political forgiveness is to heal individuals, reconstruct communal relationships, and rebuild trust. Political forgiveness emerges from the enfolding of appropriate grieving of wounds, forgiving of self and others, and creating positive dialogue. Forgiveness by and for individuals and groups is a powerful mechanism for healing harmful actions that cannot be reversed.   

Forgiveness in Rweru

What does political forgiveness look like?

Let’s return to the example of Rwanda and the Rweru Reconciliation Village. Two of its residents are Maria Izagiriza, a survivor, and Philbert Nterzirizaza, a former perpetrator and Izagiriza’s neighbor, who killed some of her family members. Izagiriza’s husband and six of her nine children were murdered during the genocide.

Right after the downing of the plane that killed the president, Izagiriza had been warned that there was trouble ahead. Her neighbor said to Izagiriza that her people were responsible for the leader’s death, and she would pay dearly for what she had done.

The following morning, the militia showed up at her home, killed all her livestock, burned her house down, and beat her husband nearly to death. Fortunately, her children were left unharmed. Izagiriza hid until nightfall when she felt that it was safe enough to return to her compound to get her husband and children. When she finally found them, she described what she witnessed: “Though breathing, my husband was so badly wounded and bleeding from all parts of his body,” she says, pausing to wipe the tears streaming down her tired face. “The children were scared stiff but unharmed.”

With the help of her children, Izagiriza somehow managed to drag her injured husband to a hiding place where she felt they would all be safe. This is when she realized that the person she thought was a friend and who offered to help, instead delivered her husband and children to the killers. Again, she managed to escape, but this time, with her four-month-old baby strapped to her back. No one else made it. “That was the last time I saw my family alive.”

Izagiriza ended up at a barricade where a group of young men stopped and killed people. Among them was her neighbor, 18-year-old Ntezirizaza, who was motivated by his own hate and, with disregard for human life, was responsible for killing some of her family members.

“In 1994, I was a teenager, my body full of youthful vigor and my mind filled with a terrible ideology, fed to me since I was in elementary school. . . . Our mindset at that time was more lethal than the machetes we carried.” Ntezirizaza paused, then, with a low voice and distant gaze, said: “We hacked her husband and eldest son to death and threw the remaining two children in a deep pit, alive. We knew they wouldn’t survive.”

Ntezirizaza, who spent time in prison after the genocide, carries the burden of shame and guilt for what he had done. Like others who committed acts of violence, he wanted to make amends through Rwanda’s reconciliation process. Ntezirizaza was afraid to face Izagiriza. He understood that asking for forgiveness was necessary if both were to move forward. He also recognized that he could not just ask for forgiveness to absolve his guilt; he was asking for forgiveness to help them both move on to restore their community.

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  Putting the Science of Forgiveness Into Practice

  This article is part of a two-year GGSC project on forgiveness, supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF). Learn more on TWCF's Discover Forgiveness website.

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Izagiriza understandably struggled with forgiving the man who killed her loved ones. Yet, over time, through the village’s reconciliation program, Izagiriza came to understand what had happened and why Ntezirizaza had been indoctrinated to hate. Her experience of forgiveness brought her peace and speaks to her survival and recovery.

“When one’s heart is burdened, you don’t see anything good at all,” she told Vice Magazine. “But when you forgive from your heart, you see many good things coming your way. And forgiveness is an important thing, as it makes your heart relieved and you gain new ideas of self-development, and life continues as normal.”

For his part, Ntezirizaza came to understand the gravity of his actions and, in so doing, was able to ask for forgiveness. “After getting released from jail, I would feel guilty that I committed crimes against Maria, and I would feel fearful and ashamed of myself. . . . I asked her to forgive me. She forgave me, and I felt relief in my heart.”

Izagiriza and Ntezirizaza are now working together in the village fields, helping to grow food to sustain their community.

Turning experiments into examples

Political forgiveness begins with people from all warring sides agreeing to come together and work with one another. Our method involves meeting separately with two groups who have been in conflict in order to teach the basic skills of forgiveness and discover how the process of forgiveness has inspired people in similar situations. The goal is to come to a common understanding of what forgiveness is and is not.

The process we’re currently testing is based on work done in Colombia, which saw decades of violence between the government, militia groups, and crime syndicates. After many attempts to stop the violence, in 2012 President Juan Manuel Santos was able to begin peace talks in Havana, Cuba. One of the outcomes of the talks was the creation of the “Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Co-existence and Non-repetition” (CEV) focused on victims and their right to the truth.

The CEV promotes the idea of co-existence, which was achieved by creating safe spaces for dialogue between the deeply divided sectors of Colombian society. Rather than treating the “truth” as a series of facts, Father Leonel Narváez developed a process called “logics of truth” to facilitate emotional healing. Inspired by political forgiveness models, this framework acknowledges that there are different layers that make up what we call “truth.”

This process helped de-escalate hostilities by having participants explicitly separate events, which are objective, from the meaning ascribed to them. This dialogue framework helps participants grasp the complex, multifaceted nature of truth. The dialogue process begins with each side discussing what happened as they see it, why it happened, and its significance. Then they discuss how to move forward from what happened, including the painful consequences and intense feelings. Finally, the dialogue broadens to discuss how the group can work toward societal reconciliation to help prevent violence from erupting again.

We are now testing this model with Palestinians and Israelis based in the United States who are struggling to make peace with each other. In our work as researchers and practitioners, we understand that forgiveness is both a decision and an ongoing process. We have each worked with suffering people whose suffering only abates when they can forgive. We try to never lose sight of the fact that forgiveness is a choice, something that can be taught and practiced.