The Heat of Resistance Meets the Cool of Dialogue

Within groups in the peacebuilding community there are differing opinions as to what needs to happen and how to deal with the current authoritarian resurgence. Do we need to heat things up, resist and cry out for social justice or do we need to cool things down and work towards bringing people together in a healing capacity. People are taking different approaches as to what needs to happen.

Shaking Things up With Resistance

In my most recent podcast, Julia Roig spoke of these tensions in the peacebuilding field where some groups want to heat things up through resistance, while others want to cool things down through such means as focused dialogue. We witnessed Senator Cory Booker heating things up in his 25-hour, record-breaking speech with the intention of disrupting business as usual in the United States Senate. There were also  Republican leaders standing up for farmers on the receiving end of the tariff policies in rural America. We are now beginning to see a movement within the Democratic Party as leaders shift from trying to find common ground with Republicans to standing their own ground and articulating their own vision. The barn-burning speech recently given by Democratic Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker is an example of that, as he urged Democrats to stop listening to the over cautious “do-nothing political types,” when Americans need to take urgent action and fight everywhere and all at once.

Rallies have been taking place throughout the 50 states, which include civil rights organizations, labor unions, Federal workers, veterans, and LGBTQIA+ advocates, to name a few. People from all walks of life are having a change of heart and want to be part of a different future for our country — we need to create on-ramps for their acceptance and welcome them into the broadest possible movement. As Reverend C.T. Vivian, aide to Dr. Martin Luther King said: “When you ask people to give up hate, then you need to be there for them when they do.” Government is meant to work for all of us.

So where does a process of political forgiveness fit within all of this, and how do we work through tension and conflict to offer viable pathways for acknowledgement, healing, and reconciliation? Given the political climate we’re living through with the dismantling of our democracy, it’s more important than ever to find ways to come together. How can change and accountability be pursued without alienating each other? How we deal with the pain and harm done to all of us will determine our future together, raising the potential of bringing us closer together with greater clarity and profound healing.

An Historical Accounting

Raising the heat is not about initiating violence. It is about shaking people out of complacency. It is about getting people to recognize harm done and to acknowledge the role all of us are playing. This builds tension between those who want to raise the heat and those who want to cool things off and bring people together. But what about a framework that can do both? It begins with a resistance movement to heat things up so we come out of denial. Only then can we heal anger and hate on the path to forgiveness and societal change. We have seen resistance in civil rights movements that grabs people’s attention. In a justice-seeking framework such as a truth and reconciliation commission, we’ve seen there needs to be an historical account of what has taken place, an acknowledgment of crimes and injustices committed, and which continue to happen, before there can be reconciliation or an agreement of non-repetition.

“When you ask people to give up hate, then you need to be there for them when they do.”  — Reverend C.T. Vivian, aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In a political forgiveness process groups must agree to stop the harm before coming together. In order to do that, there may be a need for resistance as a first step. In a political forgiveness process stories need to be told that provide historical context and a sharing of lived experiences before moving toward forgiveness. There needs to be recognition of the injustice that took place and perhaps acknowledgment of the existential nature which created the conditions for people to do horrific things to one another. People will need to be held accountable for actions taken and then come together in making decisions as to how to repair the community. Only then can new relationships can be formed and forgiveness offered.

Not everyone will be ready to do this kind of work — to share the historical framework that shaped who they are — which not only requires sharing the psychological landscape from which they came, but also being willing to go deep within themselves emotionally, grieving the losses and what they wish could have been, in order to make peace with the past. Deep healing takes time; this work cannot be rushed. Empathy for someone else can’t be given if we can’t get in touch with our own pain. Only after we become aware of our humanness can we understand the humanity of the “other.” It is only then that we will be able to find each other across differences, hear the diversity of lived experiences, and find a way of moving forward together.

SOURCES

Heather Cox Richardson, April 29, 2025, Substack