Answering the violence : encounters with perpetrators

by John Lampen

Pamphlet, April 2011

Status

Available

Call number

CP 412 c1

Publication

Wallingford, Pa. : Pendle Hill Publications, 2011.

ISBN

9780875744124

Description

As a people committed to peace, Friends have nonetheless, from time to time, sought to build close relationships with perpetrators of violence, with groups and individuals who may be labeled "oppressors" or "terrorists." Why? What part do such relationships play in efforts to end differences and build peace in troubled situations? John Lampen, who has served as a Quaker peace worker in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, draws on his own experiences and the accounts of other peace workers to explore the controversies, risks, rewards, and possible benefits of reaching out in friendship to perpetrators of violence. -- Back cover.

User reviews

LibraryThing member kaulsu
I reluctantly opened this Pendle Hill Pamphlet. One more Quaker paean to peace at the expense of Spirit, I thought. But John Lampen and his wife Diana lived their talk by moving to Londonderry, Ireland to *work* for peace. The courage they exihibited in moving their children and walking between the
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Protestants and the Catholics who had been warring for so long was inspiring. Often using Woolman as his guide, Lampen urges like-minding followers to first see what love can do. He does not advocate mindless, senseless, bullishness. He does not walk in where Angels fear to tread. But he let his life speak in ways that in turn spoke to both sides of the conflict. Learning to listen to both sides is the first step in helping them to listen to each other.
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LibraryThing member QuakerReviews
In this fascinating pamphlet, Lampen discusses the practice of dialogue with the perpetrators of violence as a peacemaking practice. He gives examples of Quaker peaceworkers communicating with perpetrators of violence to increase the peacemakers' understanding of a situation and the possible ways
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to find an accommodation, or to pass on information which might have a positive effect, or to advocate for a particular action, or to build up goodwill to draw on later. Or a peacemaker may go to live in a place of conflict, to reach out to those involved in it and look for possible steps toward reconciliation; this is the ministry of presence. This is the way of love; it may never yield a visible result, but the means of peaceful loving become part of the end, the purpose, and we trust God.
Lampen includes quotes on the process from various Quaker peacemakers of recent decades with experience in N. Ireland, S. Africa, Africa, India/Pakistan, SE Asia, USSR, the Middle East, Croatia, and East and West Germany, as well as John Woolman.
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Call number

CP 412 c1

Barcode

6511
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