Cultivating the seeds of peace: Part one
In the first of two articles, John Lampen reflects on the Quaker tradition of conciliation work
Recently in Uganda I mediated a dispute between a wife and her husband. They were poor smallholders and he was a deacon in the church. One of their three goats was killed by a vehicle, but the police refused to proceed without clear evidence. The wife proposed to get a witch doctor to curse the driver with a sickness; her husband, as a Christian, objected.
In our mediation the wife came to accept that her husband could never agree to witchcraft; and he realised that she could not let the matter rest. I asked the husband whether he could imagine a Christian option. They finally worked out an agreement that surprised all three of us: they would go to the driver and tell him that they forgave him. They felt that this was the only way to put their loss behind them – together with a small hope that the driver would be shamed into offering some compensation.
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