Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice After Civil Conflict - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0878403949 ISBN 13: 9780878403943

Publisher: Georgetown University Press, 2003

Synopsis

No one can deny how September 11, 2001, has altered our understandings of "Peace" and "Justice" and "Civil Conflict." Those have become words with startling new life in our vocabularies. Yet "making" peace and "doing" justice must remain challenges that are among the highest callings of humanity―especially in a terror-heightened world. Nigel Biggar, Christian ethicist and editor of this now more than ever "must read" (Choice) volume, newly expanded and updated, addresses head-on the concept of a redemptive burying of the past, urging that the events of that infamous date be approached as a transnational model of conflict-and suggesting, wisely and calmly, that justice can be even the better understood if we should undertake the very important task of locating the sources of hostility, valid or not, toward the West.

Burying the Past asks these important questions: How do newly democratic nations put to rest the conflicts of the past? Is granting forgiveness a politically viable choice for those in power? Should justice be restorative or retributive? Beginning with a conceptual approach to justice and forgiveness and moving to an examination of reconciliation on the political and on the psychological level, the collection examines the quality of peace as it has been forged in the civil conflicts in Rwanda, South Africa, Chile, Guatemala and Northern Ireland.

There are times in history when "making peace" and "doing justice" seem almost impossible in the face of horrendous events. Those responses are understandably human. But it is in times just like these when humanity can―and must―rise to its possibilities and to its higher purposes in order to continue considering itself just and humane.

About this title

About the Author

Nigel Biggar is professor of theology at the University of Leeds, where he directs the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion, Ethics, and Public Life. His previous books include Good Life: Reflections on What We Value Today and Theological Politics: A Critique of "Faith in the City."

Review

A thoroughly researched, stimulating, and unequaled work that is ideal for case methodology instruction--a 'must read' for graduate students, researchers, faculty, and professionals/practitioners.

--Choice

Well-written, timely and genuinely breaking new ground.

--Religious Studies Review

A fascinating collection of essays.

--Journal of Peace Research

Edition details

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0878403949
• ISBN 13: 9780878403943
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368
• Editor: Biggar Nigel