The GHFP is hosting a ‘Peace in the City‘ event as part of the Brighton Festival Fringe at the Friends Meeting House. New date to be announced.
Continue reading “Brighton Festival Fringe: Peace in the City”
International Seminar on Trustbuilding and Collective Healing, 30th October at IofC London
Hosted by IofCI’s Trustbuilding Program in partnership with the GHFP Research Institute, this international seminar offers a unique opportunity to meet, share and discuss the process of building trust.
At a time of increasing fragmentation, trust is diminishing around the world. Communities face racial, ethnic and religious divides, intergenerational conflict, and the rise of extremist attitudes, as well as social divisions and the legacy of war. The Seminar poses a critical question: “How can we address these challenges?”
Among the discussants will be Letlapa Mphahlele, commander of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army during apartheid times. His anger was such that he ordered retaliatory massacres of white civilians. After a radical transformation he now sees the whole of humanity as ‘my people’. Letlapa, who, until 2013, was President of the Pan Africanist Congress and a Member of the South African Parliament, is a protagonist in the award-winning film, Beyond Forgiving, which depicts a profound story of tragedy, forgiveness and hope.
This is by invitation-only event. For further information and interest to contribute, please contact events@ghfp.org.
International Symposium: Collective Healing of Traumas: New Possibilities for Peace in Communities 24 Sept 2019
Collective and community initiatives can empower those suffering from the wounds of a violent past to collaborate towards mutual healing, thus creating new possibilities for peace.
To better understand the significance of these community-rooted collective healing endeavours, the GHFP and the UNESCO Slave Route Project hosted a one-day International Symposium, at the Royal Society for the Arts in London.
The event brought together practitioners and scholars who have experiences and expertise in the field of communal and collective healing of mass traumas, for an intimate dialogue focused around three core questions:
- What are the typical psychological and social symptoms encountered in communities resulting from the experience and legacies of past atrocities?
- What might constitute collective healing in these situations?
- How do community-based processes and practices contribute to collective healing? (And how would the community evaluate collective healing? What are the relevant indicators that some healing has taken place?)
Presentations included the Australia’s journey of healing through the Sorry Day marches, the Healing the Wounds of History programme in Lebanon, Foresee Research Group’s restorative healing approaches in Hungary, critical reflection on the structural conditions of healing from the perspectives of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation, the Initiatives of Change International’s Trustbuilding in the communities programme, and the Peace Charter of Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Read HERE Collective_Healing_Mass_Trauma_Concept_Note. Please return soon for links to videos of presentations and other information following the event.
5-step-peace-process
The following 5-step towards peace process has been developed by the GHFP’s trustee Alexandra Asseily.
Step One: Taking Responsibility
The first step is to take responsibility for one’s own part in any conflict, imbalance, tension, grievance or problem with courage, honesty, and humility, even if one does not feel personally involved in conflict.
Step Two: Asking and Reflecting
The second step is to ask a number of questions, examples are given in ‘my responsibility for peace’.
Step Three: Releasing, surrendering and forgiving
The third step is to understand the power of forgiveness and compassion. By understanding and allowing for forgiveness of oneself and others, including our ancestors and our collective past, we can let go of guilt, shame and fear. We then no longer need to uphold the same grievances from one generation to another. As we forgive others, we forgive ourselves and vice-versa.
Step Four: To understand our authentic selves
The fourth step is to understand the changes we can make in order and speak with our ‘inner’ cohesive authority and thereby helping us to promote harmony and peace in the world.
Step Five: Sharing
The fifth step is to go out and share this healing process with others.
Practising this process can transform ourselves, others and our communities.
Read more on our work in forgiveness, reconciliation, peace
Mapping Healing
Under the leadership of UNESCO’s Slave Routes Project, the GHFP is working with Georgetown University to launch a research project with an aim to map out the diverse conceptions and methodologies of healing (mass trauma such as genocide and slavery). This research locates the inquiry around the contextualised question: “What might constitute healing (in the context of the wounds of trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery)?”
This commitment highlights the necessity for such an inquiry especially given the kinds of harm and woundedness that need to be attended and addressed through healing processes. It argues why a mapping research should be designed as a mixed-methods investigation, and outlines the details of the intended research processes.
It is hoped that the research can help identify pointers towards a conceptual and methodological framework for understanding healing of the wounds from mass trauma of trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery.
Further to this please refer to https://healingthewoundsofslavery.org/
Healing the Wounds of Slavery aims at healing and addressing the wounds and psycho-social, economic and political consequences of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slave history. The hope is to create pathways towards personal, cultural, relational and institutional transformation.
International Seminar 2014
International Seminar on Memory, Trauma and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding
4th April 2014
Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace,
Brighton. UK.
The aim of this seminar entitled ‘Memory, Trauma and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding’ was to explore the healing of traumatic memories in post-conflict recovery, reconstruction and peacebuilding. Our invited key speaker, Professor Vamik Volkan, drew on his nearly 40 years’ experiences in the field of international relations and peace-related diplomacy and investigate the inextricable links between large group identity, conflict and dehumanisation of the other. Vamik analysed the formation large group identities, the shared traumas of mass violence and the societal/political consequences of such atrocities. He also examined the need to interrupt the trans-generational transmissions of trauma by healing past memories, as well as the imperative to develop psychoanalytically informed diplomatic strategies for dealing with associated peacebuilding challenges.
For discussion, we critically engaged with these topics, and examined how to remove the ‘sting’ in individuals’ memories of trauma so that they no longer serve as an impetus for continued violence.
Here are some of the questions that the seminar set out to explore:
(1) What are the effective approaches to enable individuals and groups to break away from the hold of traumatic memories?
(2) What kind of structural processes must be in place in order to engage in healing of memories?
(3) How can individuals have healthier conceptions of their group identities that do not involve making potential enemies of the other?
Professor Vamik Volkan is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine; an emeritus training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute; and the Senior Erik Erikson Scholar at the Erikson Institute for Education and Research of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Amongst his many posts, Vamik also headed an interdisciplinary team and conducted years-long unofficial diplomatic dialogues between Arabs and Israelis, Americans and Soviets, Russians and Estonians, Croats and Bosnian Muslims, Georgians and South Ossetians, Turks and Greeks and studied post-revolution or post-war societies such as Albania after the dictator Enver Hodxa was gone and Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion was over. After September 11, 2001 he was a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association’s (IPA’s) Terror and Terrorism Study Group.
The Seminar’s discussant was Professor Nigel Young who has been active in transnational peace activity for at least a half century. He is presently Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Oxford International Encyclopedia of World Peace’ (a four-volume reference work). He is active in the Balkans Peace Park Project, UK (B3P). He has authored numerous publications including six books (two co-authored), and edited or co-edited others. A co-founder of the first Peace Studies department in Britain (Bradford, 1973/4), he was also the first endowed Peace Studies Chair-holder in the USA. As Professor of Peace Studies he was director of one of the earliest university Peace Studies Programs in North America (Colgate University, New York 1984-2004) where he retains the title of Research Professor. Professor Young has held academic positions in sociology, politics and peace studies, at over a dozen universities and colleges worldwide, and was a Senior Peace Research fellow in Oslo, Norway (1981-84). He is currently working on books on Historical Memory as related to peace, and the community basis of resistance. In 20l2 he received the Dayton Peace Prize for outstanding scholarly achievement.
Seminar attendee Biographies
Prof Volkan is Founder of the International Dialogue Initiative (IDI) which aims to facilitate dialogue between representatives from various large groups, states and cultures for the purpose of learning about differences in perspective and finding peaceful solutions to inter-group relationship problems.
International Seminar 2013
International Seminar on Healing, Forgiveness and Reconciliation
25th October 2013
Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace,
199 Preston Road, Brighton, BN1 6SA UK.
Background..
Healing, Forgiveness, Reconciliation. These concepts are often used interchangeably in discussions, for example about post-conflict peacebuilding. The distinctions between the terms is not clear by nuance, how they relate to each-other, and how such relationships are played out in the dynamic of interventions towards peace. It is therefore necessary to develop an appropriate clarity of understanding of these terms to help shape our work in fostering harmonious relationships and in analyzing the task of rebuilding communities in divided societies.
Furthermore, for peace-building processes aimed at healing, forgiveness and reconciliation, there may be a whole range of contiguous analytical factors to identify and understand. For instance, in looking at the nature and roots of conflict, it is necessary to acquire a workable comprehension of the local cultural norms, power relationships, historical narratives and memories, politics, social policy, and religious and spiritual practices. All these invariably affect the individual and large group identities, which could further determine people’s perceptions of and attitudes towards the other, and the ways they related to each other in post-conflict societies.
Additionally, the dimensions of moral and ethical principles must also be considered in framing any emergent culture of peace, and in working towards underpinning relation-formation within the society, including the perennial tension between justice, forgiveness and reconciliation. So, showing with clarity how all these factors are interrelated can help us to determine actions and interventions aimed at healing, forgiveness and reconciliation.
There is, moreover, a wide diversity of perspectives and disciplines from which and through which a professional practitioner on the ground could approach post-conflict situations. These can be simultaneously psychological, therapeutic, socio-political, educational, communal, theological, spiritual, legalistic, or rights-based. These all require deliberation, contextual understanding and professionalism.
While such terminological and analytical complexity may fascinate us, it can also serve to obscure our ideas in theory and our practice. The complexity challenges us to reach for more profound insights into post-conflict peace processes and to work on developing deeper understanding to guide our practice.
The GHFP Seminar on Healing, Forgiveness and Reconciliation
For over a decade, the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace (GHFP) has been exploring some key concepts in peacebuilding, including those mentioned above. Throughout, for example, our ‘Garden of Forgiveness’ project, the ‘Healing the Wounds of History’ programmes, as well as the narrative strands in our work, we have been concerned with seeking new understanding and clarification. We would like, at this time, to explore these notions through discussion with distinguished colleagues.
So the aim of the seminar is two-fold:
a. To develop a shared understanding and observation of these concepts.
b. To explore how this understanding can be translated into practices and actions on the ground, and what challenges and opportunities are involved.
Questions explored were:
1. Why are these three concepts important in post-conflict peace-building? Does one need to come first before the others can follow?
2. What kind of intervention work well and what doesn’t with a focus on healing, forgiveness and reconciliation help transform conflict and develop trusting relationships amongst individuals and communities?
3. Are there ways in which the same transformation could take place in a conflict situation before violence breaks out?
4. What shared understanding do we have of the three concepts for post-conflict reconstruction, and peacebuilding in general?
It is very unusual for a national government to initiate a nationwide campaign aimed at reconciliation, so the nearly twenty years of accumulated experience of the Rwanda National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) is unique and has a global importance. This is why we have invited Dr Jean Baptiste Habyalimana to give the opening presentation. At the same time, we hope that Jean Baptiste’s reflection on the Rwandan journeys could also provide a nudge to help us expand our thinking and to initiate a conversation around the key questions.
Read the notes from the seminar
Rwanda HWH Conference 2012
International Workshops on ‘HEALING THE WOUNDS OF HISTORY: ADDRESSING THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE’ were proposed jointly by the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, in collaboration with the Mizero Foundation and the Rwandan Professional Dreamers, and with support from the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide and the National University of Rwanda.
It was held at Hotel Rwanda in Kigali on June 13-14 2012. The event was opened by Bishop Dr John Rucyahana, the President of Rwanda National Unity & Reconciliation Commission.
The main aim of the event was to explore the psychological roots of violence in recent Rwanda, and to identify new modalities of healing, reconciliation and forgiveness, between both individuals and groups.
To learn more about the conference, please visit the official Healing the Wounds of History RWANDA page.
Lebanon HWH Conference 2011
Healing the Wounds of History conference 2011 was the major launch event please refer to the official website or follow the community on facebook.com/hwharv
Under the High Patronage of His Excellency, the President of the Council of Ministers, Mr Najib Mikati, the Centre for Lebanese Studies and the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, in partnership with the Institute of Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation, have organised the International Conference on ‘Healing the Wounds of History: Addressing the Roots of Violence’. The Conference was hosted by the Lebanese American University on 11-13 November 2011 at its’ campus situated in the beautiful ancient city of Byblos, Lebanon.
The Conference explored the innovative psycho-social approaches to addressing the deeper roots of violence. The goal was to establish constructive relations between the people and communities in present-day Lebanon. Read the Concept Paper
Click here to download a Summary of the Keynote Address and the Power Point Presentation given by Professor Vamik Volkan.
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focus
to raise awareness about the need to resolve historical grievances as a step towards social harmony in Lebanon and beyond
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resource
to help people learn more about the diverse approaches to addressing the roots of conflict and cycles of violence in our society
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vision
to catalyze a process that will implement the key insights and methods from the Conference through a series of nationwide projects that touch all communities