RECOGNITION AND DIALOGUE: PATHWAYS TO RECONCILIATION1

• Main Author: Herbert C. Kelman
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: sami
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.495.121; http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/nr/rdonlyres/492c9915-fe85-41d6-b745-900bed384cf4/87501/recognitonanddialogue.pdf

This symposium was originally scheduled to take place in June 2008, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Program for Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution. Unfortunately, the event had to be cancelled because Dan had become too ill to participate. In the meantime, I had made other commitments in Israel and so I proceeded with my trip. While in Jerusalem, I got in touch with Dan and arranged to come to Tel Aviv, with Rose, to spend an evening with Dan. I am truly happy that I made that visit, because it gave me the opportunity to say good-bye to Dan. Dan was a deeply valued colleague and friend. He touched my life in many ways, as he touched the lives of so many others. I was, of course, influenced by his pioneering and widely heralded work in reconciliation, both his earlier work, with TRT groups, bringing together children of Holocaust survivors and children of Nazi perpetrators (Bar-On, 1995, 2000), and his work in PRIME with Sami Adwan and other colleagues and students, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian relationship (e.g., Adwan & Bar-On, 2001). But Dan was not only an insightful and stimulating colleague, but also a loyal and empathic friend, with whom I always felt a natural bond at both the personal and intellectual level. I want to devote my remarks to my evolving ideas about reconciliation, which benefited greatly from the work of Dan Bar-On. In keeping with the theme of this symposium, I will look at recognition and dialogue as essential pathways to reconciliation.