THERE are, no doubt, kernels of wisdom buried within this book, but they are hardly its most memorable features. The general gist is that when states pursue policies based on revenge, the results are often terrible, and that it is far preferable for them to respond to provocations with forgiveness. If this sounds like advocacy for “turning the other cheek” in international affairs, then that is because it is, based squarely on no one’s having placed such an emphasis on forgiveness before Jesus Christ.
A rather startling consequence is that forgiveness seems to be an imperative that applies largely to Christians and Christian countries: for example, we learn that while the United States should have been forgiving of some of the actions of Colonel Gaddafi, we could not expect Gaddafi to be similarly forgiving of the actions of the US because “Islam . . . does not emphasise the importance of forgiveness as much as Christianity.”
But one ought not to give up hope: we later learn that “While forgiveness is not stressed in Judaism or Islam as much as in Christianity it should not be beyond the comprehension of the Israelis and Palestinians that it is their interests to demonstrate it.” Oh dear.
That said, much of the book reads as if it is less about the importance of forgiveness in the face of wrongs than about the need for “the West” (and in particular the US) to face up to the consequences of its vengeful nature — indeed, there is a mercifully short chapter devoted to the question whether the US is a “vengeful democracy” because it still retains the death penalty, as if other countries did not.
All this might just be written off as a familiar trope, but it starts to become uncomfortable when juxtaposed with current events. Although, admittedly, it was written before the 2022 Russian invasion, we are told that the outbreak of the “unrest” in Ukraine in 2014 “should be seen in the context of the West’s perennial hostility to Russia”; that events in Ukraine “illustrate how unforgiving and unempathetic the West has been and still is of Russia”. The author does not reflect on what this might mean for the people of Ukraine. It goes without saying that Western powers vilified President Putin over the Salisbury poisonings, which, the author seems to think, had nothing to do with him at all.
It seems that China is equally misunderstood, and “forgiveness here means not being harshly judgemental over a state’s policies before fully understanding the reasons for them.” The author admits that, while China may have “overacted” in Xinjiang, the West has been “unforgivingly” critical, “rather than attempting to see where China is coming from”.
Any lingering doubts are surely removed when we are told that “No country has so far solved the problem of dealing effectively with Islamic extremism. Rather than besmirch China’s efforts to do so, the West could encourage it to share its experiences in a cooperative endeavour to solve one of the most difficult problems of our times.” Really?
To be fair, the latter parts of the book contain presentations and examples of “forgiveness” and exemplars such as Gandhi, Mandela, and Robert Schuman. But, quite frankly, all this palls in the light of what has gone before: overall, it is a book that the reader might be best advised to forgive, then possibly forget.
Sir Malcolm Evans is Principal of Regent’s Park College, Oxford, and a former Professor of Public International Law at the University of Bristol.
The Importance of Forgiveness and the Futility of Revenge: Case studies in contemporary international politics
Audrey Wells
Springer £79.99
(978-3-030-87551-0)
Church Times Bookshop £71.99