Afterword: A Living Tapestry of Peace and Reconciliation

Abstract

This chapter is a postscript to the International Handbook on Peace and Reconciliation, a product of the Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP). Beginning with a simple poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, calling people “to say the names of things,” it invites readers to “see the voices” both of renowned peace activists and of respondents to the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS) who shared their views on peace and reconciliation in this book. Leaving aside the objective academic voice, this chapter takes readers on a journey designed to remind readers that the respondents are human beings who have suffered from the wars and conflicts pervading our world, and asks readers to put faces on the respondents and connect with them. The author envisions the stories of the respondents as part of a tapestry of peace, a tapestry that could be displayed in a meditative gathering in which we can envision Ghandi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Nelson Mandela, our brothers and sisters in our own journey toward peace.

I want to portray you

not with lapis or gold,

but with colors made of apple bark

I want, then, simply

to say the names of things.

– Rainer Maria Rilke from Bowaers & Macy, 19