**7. Repentance, Apology and Forgiveness**

In the discourse of reconciliation, influenced by Christian ethics, repentance is connected to an apology. When the o ffender demonstrates sorrow and assumes responsibility, the victim may feel drawn, if not pressured, to o ffer forgiveness. In South Africa's TRC, clergymen such as Desmond Tutu were criticised for pushing for forgiveness from the victims (Tutu 1999). There is a concern that forgiveness was emphasised much more than justice and accountability (Shore 2012). CiM members linked justice, truth-telling and forgiveness. Rev. D said:

We want justice. We want people to be able to confess, tell us the story, how they go<sup>t</sup> involved, why they go<sup>t</sup> involved and that they are sorry to have been involved, and then those who have been hurt and those who have been inflicted and su ffered and have lost will then say okay, we realise this happened yesterday, so we accept that you are asking for forgiveness.

Perpetrators need to acknowledge their wrongdoing, argued Fr B, and it is expected that the victim will accept the apologies offered by the perpetrators (see also Waziweyi 2011, p. 96). This expectation, however, as we will see below, puts pressure on the victim to forgive without taking into consideration how much the victim feels hurt and how much time he or she needs to heal (Tarusarira 2019). This expectation to forgive should not be another way of saying that the victims ought to forgive, it just means that more often than not victims forgive when an apology has been offered. Apologies well-received by the wronged person can influence a shift in attitude and may inspire forgiveness (Tarusarira 2019.)

Fr B, thus, perceives truth-telling and justice as preconditions for forgiveness because victims want to know for what they are forgiving a person and for that the perpetrator of violence has to describe the wrong they did (see Tutu 1999). Were the victim to forgive without knowledge of the truth, they would remain haunted by unanswered questions, and this can stifle healing. They could remain in what Philpott calls "wounds of ignorance", where the surviving victims su ffer from ignorance about what happened to their family and friends violated during the violence and how that happened, for instance who pulled the trigger that killed one's relative (Philpott 2006). Only truth-telling by the wrongdoer can adequately address this form of woundedness. The characterization of reconciliation by the respondents features "soft" words such as repentance, contrition, healing and forgiveness. However, they do not hesitate to invoke "hard" terms such as accountability, justice and confrontation when need be, thus challenging that religion is always about piety.

What is instructive from the respondents' position regarding forgiveness is that it goes beyond its therapeutic dimension or its implementation as a practice of faith. Forgiveness is generally understood as the "willingness to abandon one's right to resentment, negative judgment and indifferent behaviour toward one who unjustly hurt us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity, and even love towards him or her" (Enright et al. 1998). By connecting forgiveness to justice, Fr B concedes to the abandonment of one's right to resentment, but also leaves room for the victims to exercise that right as well. Mainstream churches would not see the two coexisting. CiM perceives reconciliation as both individual and societal, with the individual embedded in the social dimension (Tarusarira 2019). This is telling considering that often victims are advised to let go and forgive even without having received justice or knowing the truth. To forgive and let go is presented as standing on high moral ground. Some have argued that forgiveness is meant to free the victim from being held hostage by anger and resentment (see Lennon 2009). Thus, to forgive should not be dependent on anything. Zehr (2005, p. 47) has argued:

Forgiveness is letting go of the power the offence and the offender have over a person. It means no longer letting that offence and offender dominate. Without this experience of forgiveness, without this closure, the wound festers, the violation takes over our consciousness, our lives. It, and the offender, are in control. Real forgiveness, then, is an act of empowerment and healing. It allows one to move from victim to survivor.

The respondents challenged the understanding that the victim will transcend their victimhood and psychic preoccupation with a perpetrator. It is a slippery slope on which the focus might shift from the victim to the perpetrator. In the final analysis, forgiveness will serve the perpetrator, who will appear to be wounded and begging to be readmitted into the realm of moral humanity. The burden of rehumanizing the perpetrator falls on the shoulder of the victim (see Saunders 2011).
