Guido Cuyvers - Hate and Reconciliation: Approaches to Fostering Relationships between People and Peace

Hatred is one of the most complex experiences people can have. It requires little imagination to recognize expressions of hate around you and, perhaps, also inside you. Occasionally, following the evening news is enough to realize how hatred also causes major cross-border conflicts between peoples or groups within a country. IS, Boko Haram, Syria, Myanmar, and the IsraeliPalestinian conflict are just a few current examples of this. Furthermore, hate appears to wither relationships between individuals. Family stories indicate how easily material banalities can give rise to long-lasting hatred and conflicts between brothers and sisters. The negative effects of bullying at school and at work are reflected in the pain of the victims. In addition, in recent years, the availability of the internet and social media simplifies remote hate. Hate has many faces and seems to be everywhere, that much is clear.

To symbolize the general human nature of hatred, we introduce the term Erida complex. By this term, we refer to every persons ability to experience hatred and potential to engage in hatred should the circumstances require it. We derive this term from Greek mythology, which portrays the goddess Erida as the goddess of hate. In this book, we derive the term Eridaic, a neologism, to refer to the intentions and actions that are closely related to hatred.

The most important consequence of confrontation with hatred is the degeneration of relationships between people into deserts, as philosopher Hannah Arendt puts it in her work Was ist Politik? (1993). Erida does her job. Hate turns a community into a less and less fertile oasis in which people cannot develop together. Dry ground that forms between people the desert leads to fear of others, of strangers, of the new. That is why people prefer to build bulkheads up rather than look for opportunities to develop a strong community together. That choice deludes them into thinking that they are safe. Hate is also at the root of most major conflicts between peoples with devastating consequences.

Opposite Erida, the symbol of hatred, we place Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace. Erida must not have the last word. Whoever is open to that, can observe many eirenic initiatives both to prevent hatred (for example, anti-bullying programs) and to tackle its consequences in a constructive way (for example, restorative approaches on a small and large scale). That people end up in situations in which they suffer injustice and feelings of hatred from others is often unavoidable. How they deal with that hatred, however, is a choice. Hate does not have to be fate. Whether one contributes with hate to the desertification of relationships or opts for an eirenic approach is the freedom that every person has. That freedom makes hatred powerless.

In this book we refer to the paradox of hate. It is a powerful destructive force and, at the same time, it is powerless against people making the positive choice to transcend it and develop relationships that are a source of peace. In this book, we opt for a nuanced and broad approach to the complex phenomenon of hate. To do this, it is necessary to correctly understand the phenomenon, which is why we start with an investigation into the essence of hate. The questions What is hate? and Where is hate expressed? constitute the core of the first chapter. Then, we analyze the factors and processes that provide an insight into the why of hate. The road that someone follows from experiencing feelings of hate and, possibly, hateful behavior, with radical consequences as a result, is the theme of the third chapter. We call that the way of Erida. Not only the victim and hater are involved but also the bystanders and the community. Hate affects everyone. In three consecutive chapters, we subsequently describe different levels of Eridaic behavior hatred between individuals, between groups and between nations. Opposite the road of Erida is the eirenic road the road to peace. That is why, in the last chapter, we look for the possibilities to constructively deal with hate and to promote peace so that the ground between people remains an oasis, i.e., fertile.