FORGIVENESS

What do you understand by “forgiveness”? Does forgiveness have any role to play in the settlement of destructive conflicts beyond the interpersonal-level?

Habiba Musa Ahmed

4718750

The Role of Forgiveness in Conflict Resolutions

Introduction

Forgiveness is a virtue that many people are familiar with but are unable to understand the actual use of forgiveness. Every major religion tells us and teaches us to forgive. However, people in these days and age are unable to comprehend how forgiving can actually be beneficial for themselves and for people around them. These people have this in built and innate quality that encourages them to take revenge (Monteil, 2000, pp. 95). If we look around us, we would see that everyone has a certain gripe with someone else for whatever reason. We see people bad mouthing their “friends” behind their backs; we see brothers and sisters complaining about each other; we see sons and daughters bickering about their parents. Forgiveness is rarely considered in such situations unless a person sees some benefit in the act of forgiving. In the work place, we can see that employees back biting their bosses and vice versa. For example an employee will forgive his boss for a mistake because that employee knows he cannot work without his boss's assistance. In addition a boss may be willing to forgive an employee if the boss realizes he or she cannot get his work completed without the employee's help. Overall the world is a cynical and hypocritical place where people try to find their benefits before committing to a helpful act such as an act of forgiveness.

Aims & Objectives of the Essay

In order to thoroughly understand the idea of forgiveness and its implications on the structure, rebuilding and conflict resolution in societies; the following aims & objectives were kept in mind when proceeding with the essay:

What is forgiveness and what role does it play in the settling destructive conflicts

What do the major religions of the world say about forgiveness and how those elements can be applied in real life.

The role of forgiveness beyond the interpersonal level

Role of Forgiveness among racial, ethnic and religious segments of the society.

The main aim of this essay is to inspect the topic from varied angles and endeavour to reach a meaningful conclusion. The overall paper is organized in a sequential manner. First of all, the topic is introduced to the topics to allow them to comprehend the fundamentals followed by a session presenting human examples explaining different situations about the forgiveness. In the subsequent session, reconciliation will be discussed in detail. After this, the next section will present the analysis of forgiveness beyond interpersonal level.

However, in some cases forgiving someone may be extremely difficult. For example not many people would be willing to forgive the murderer of their family member. Not many people would be willing to forgive a fraudster that has deprived a person of all their valuables through a scam. Not many would be willing to forgive extortionists who keep entire families in a constant state of ...