Thanks so much for answering with your reflections! I am going to continue to ponder the counterpoints of justice and peace and the healing place of dignity in our context here…and get some feedback from colleagues and participants!

Thank you, Elena,
The intersection of peace (living together with well-being and as little harm as possible) and justice (essential needs of dignity, respect, fairness, equity, contribution, participation, etc.) seems at the core of what we must grapple with as people who want to help constructive social change to happen. In every context, it seems that we must ask not only the peace questions (How are we to live together?), but also the justice question (Who is benefitting?). Then we must do the work of answering those questions in our own contexts. Thanks for the idea of Dignity as a the balancing point between the two, and the Tutu book conversation.

During a session I was co-leading this past Friday at CJP's Community Day, on Formation as Peace Practice, I was reminded again that justice needs can necessarily become focussed on a single pressing social issue in order for significant social change to happen. And that is always dependent on the context where the need is arising. Your examples help me remember that within that context, where justice hasn't always been present, significant work must be done to address harms, trauma, and related narratives in order to also be working toward more justice and more peace in the present.

Thank you for your work!

thanks so much elena! :)

and yes, indeed, that tension is real, very real…

I resonated with many points in this interview. Especially, I would like to mention the challenge of inviting people who are not interested in social justice to consider how justice is also an essential element of peacebuilding. I find this tension in my work… The consideration of justice and dignity has greatly impacted the "church" people in the trauma healing workshops I have lead through out Mexico and Latin America.
On the other hand, one of the heart wrenching cries of the Mayan people of Chiapas has been "¡Ni perdón, ni olvido!" Neither forgiveness nor forgetting. I have been using the Book of Forgiving by Desmond and Mphu Tutu as an entry point to talk about how one can walk both the path of forgiveness at the same time, demanding justice. Dignity seems to be the fulcrum to balance the two.

Thanks again, and I look forward to the next podcast!