Pierre Harmel, April 30, 2005.
“In order to inspire those who want peace, the most powerful incentives are reconciliation and forgiveness. Throughout a long life we have been witnesses that such gestures, accomplished as soon as they became possible, are able to modify the nature of relationships among peoples and antagonistic human groups. They can also change the course of history?
When on 8 March 1950, the Frenchman Robert Schuman and the German Konrad Adenauer started to reconcile their nations, they were anticipating a uniting and peaceful Europe. When in December 1970, the German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt in front of the monument erected in the Warsaw Ghetto, he accomplished a decisive step which inaugurated a new relationship between Germany and the nations of Eastern Europe. When in November 1977, the President of Egypt Anouar el Sadate flew to Jerusalem and addressed the Knesset, he did the first step to rapprochement between Israel and the Arabic nations, and thereby inaugurated a new era. And when, on 9 May 1994, M. De Clercq and Nelson Mandela brought apartheid to an end, they accomplished a historical gesture.
These were examples of the non-violence which Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King in the United-States put into practice in order to stop racial segregation. These were demonstration of the spiritual effectiveness of reconciliation and asked for or granted to achieve peace. Let us ask the Lord to make them multiply !