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Peace, but not without justice

Sunday, 04 July 2010 00:00

Peace to our nation. Jesus instructs his disciples "Into whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this household.' As we herald our newly-elected and newly-appointed government officials, we pray, "Peace to our nation." And yet as a people, we have conflicting notions of the nature and prerequisites of genuine peace.

During his inaugural address, President Noynoy declared, "Sa mga nang-api sa akin, kaya ko kayong patawarin, at pinapatawad ko na kayo. Sa mga nang-api sa sambayanan, wala akong karapatan na limutin ang inyong mga kasalanan."

Peace na tayo. To President Noy’s declaration, some have retorted, “Let us forgive and forget the sins of the past, reconcile with one another without any precondition, in order to move on as a nation.” Others allege that establishing a Truth Commission to investigate possible crimes of the previous administration is a sign of vindictiveness and not of statesmanship.

I think it is easy for us as a nation to propose peace and reconciliation without demanding justice, until we ourselves are victimized by wrongdoing. Only then do we truly wrestle with impulsive vengefulness and a rational demand for justice.

An illustration may help. A young girl is molested by her uncle. Is the clan to act as if a vulnerable niece had not been violated? Is the clan to continue holding family reunions as though no wrong had been committed? Deadmahan, in order to preserve clan solidarity? Is to forget the offense and to suppress the pain of the victim the Christian moral option? Or is foregoing the offense of the uncle, for the sake of harmony within the clan, a form of complicity with sin and evil?

Peace requires justice. Pope Paul VI exhorts, “Peace is the fruit of justice.” Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae similarly explains, “public peace ... comes about when men live together in good order and in true justice....” In order words, social justice is a precondition for societal peace. Why so? Because peace without justice allows wrongdoing to go unchallenged. Because peace without justice acquiesces to and consequently reinforces exploitation. Because peace without justice signals to the oppressed that victimization ought to simply be tolerated and endured. Peace without justice cannot be the Christian way.

Peace-building. As the psalmist prays, “peace and justice will kiss” (Ps 85:11). Peace and justice, while distinct, are interwoven and inseparable. One implication is that peace cannot be achieved instantaneously by simply replacing allegedly corrupt leaders. Genuine peace will necessitate the laborious task of undoing the structures of inequality and the consequences of corruption. As the Compedium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches, “Peace is built up day after day in the pursuit of an order willed by God.”

And so as we rebuild our democracy and institute meritocracy, we will also have to tear down patronage politics, the bedrock of systemic corruption. We will have to reverse our culture of impunity with a culture of decency and integrity.

Costly peace. All this connotes that peace and reconciliation do not come cheap. The same compendium clarifies, “Mutual forgiveness must not eliminate the need for justice .... On the contrary, justice and truth represent the concrete requisites for reconciliation.”

Epilogue. On July 2, 2010, Bp. Francisco Claver, S.J. passed away. Bp. Cisco, as he was fondly called, was one of the intellectual giants and prophets of social justice of the CBCP. On February 12, 1986, in response to the fraudulent Snap Elections, he drafted the historic CBCP statement clarifying that “a government that assumes or retains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis ... and cannot command the allegiance of the citizenry.” For Bp. Cisco, injustice was not to be tolerated for the sake of societal harmony. The bishops’ collective statement towards the end declares, “The wrong was systematically organized. So must its correction be.” To reverse the ill-effects of wrongdoing is to work for justice. Only then will genuine peace blossom.

Publisher: The Philippine Star
Source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=590132&publicationSubCategoryId=64

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