AFTER VIOLENCE: 3R, RECONSTRUCTION, RECONCILIATION ...

offered here without comment./88/ Basic is how self-therapy
(preferable) and other-therapy (often necessary) try to come to
grips with all three corners of the triangle, substituting for
direct violence nonviolence, for structural violence creativity
(transcending contradictions built into the structures), and for
cultural violence empathy with all conflict parties, including
oneself (which may be difficult). Empathy is then seen as
cognitive and emotional sharing, Einleben, and compassion, feeling
and understanding the passions of Other without necessarily
agreeing with it all. Empathy is not sympathy.
It is hardly necessary to repeat that the time to start the
process of resolution is not when the first acts of violence have
occurred, even if that mistake is very frequent. The time to start
is always--peace work is not piece work--and the time to end is
never. Like for disease theory, there is no limit to prevention,
and no limit to rehabilitation. There is a limit to therapy: the
patient is symptom-free. Violence theory works the same way, but
the terminology is different in the third phase. The word
"rehabilitation" still applies to the wounded on body-mind-spirit
and could be generalized to peace, just as diagnosis-prognosis-
therapy are lifted from disease theory.
The difference is that violence does damage, visible and
invisible, to the parties in the violent encounter, and to the
relation between them. Rehabilitation becomes a question of the
parties and of their relation. For the first we can use the term
reconstruction, for the second reconciliation. They should never
be permitted to stand in the way of resolution. So let us now say
something more concrete about two resolution approaches.