You will not hear from most of them any glib anti-Americanism. They may at times have disagreements with aspects of US foreign policy but their prevailing sentiment, as it has been for sixty years, will be one of appreciation of American generosity.
On the night of 14/15 November 1940 much of the Coventry city centre was destroyed. Yet, only six weeks after the bombing the cathedral’s provost, Dick Howard, did a radio broadcast from the ruins asking the British people to say ‘No’ to revenge and ‘Yes’ to forgiveness.
There have been quite a few items in the British media recently about forgiveness. It would seem that either the readiness to forgive is becoming more widespread or that editors are prepared to give the subject more space.
Ten years ago an Irish Republican Army bomb (IRA ) destroyed St Ethelburga’s, one of the few surviving medieval churches in London. Now, it has been rebuilt as a centre of peace and reconciliation.
In November 1942 the Russian philosopher, Semyon Frank, wrote in his notebook: “In this terrifying war, in the inhuman chaos which reigns in the world, the one who first starts to forgive will in the end be victorious.”
From ‘Positive Approaches to Peacebuilding’ published in August 2003 by Pact PublicationsIn 1946 a group of Swiss, at great personal sacrifice, bought the rundown Caux Palace Hotel overlooking Lake Geneva as a place where the warring nations of World War II could meet.
Nothing since 11 September has so shaken public faith in the future than the unrelenting tit for tat of Israelis and Palestinians. Many wonder if they could ever become friends.
When a former British diplomat, Archie Mackenzie, led a British group on a mission to China, he told his Chinese hosts that he wanted the group to be taken to the old ruined summer palace of the Emperor. This sensitivity to the feelings of others marked Mackenzie’s work in his 32 years of diplomatic postings around the world.
It would be easy, particularly after September 11, to feel desperate about the world and to have doubts about the capacity of human beings to live together.
