The idea of reconciliation evolved out of the recognition that there is a need to go beyond the traditional focus on conflict resolution, which basically refers to a negotiated agreement by leaders of the rival groups on mutually acceptable peaceful solution to the conflict. Such agreement symbolizes the formal ending of the conflict. However, in recent years it has become evident that formal peace agreements fall far short of establishing peaceful relations between the former rival societies. Formal conflict resolution sometimes abides only leaders, who negotiated the agreement, or narrow strata around them, or a small part of the society only, which has vested interest in peace. But, in spite of the formal peace agreement, the majority of society members may not accept the negotiated compromises, or even if they do, they may still hold world-view that has fueled the conflict. As the result, formal resolutions of conflicts can be unstable – they may collapse as in the case of Angola, or may turn into cold peace as in the case of the Israeli–Egyptian relations.

Only psychological process of reconciliation that penetrates deep into the societal fabric to be shared by all the segments of the societies that were involved in an intractable conflict can assure and guarantee an establishment of a genuine, legitimate and lasting peace. The outcome of this process is complete reconciliation, which means for the past rivals mutual recognition and acceptance, invested interests and goals in developing peaceful relations, mutual trust, positive attitudes as well as sensitivity and consideration of other party’s needs and interests. Thus, it is clear that reconciliation goes beyond the agenda of formal conflict resolution to changing the motivations, goals, beliefs, attitudes and emotions by society members regarding the conflict, the nature of the relationship between the parties, and the parties themselves.

Reconciliation is not needed in every conflict but only in those, in which the involved societies evolve widely shared psychological repertoire that supports the adherence to the conflictive goals, maintain the conflict, delegitimize the opponent and thus negate the possibility of peaceful resolution of the conflict and prevent the development of peaceful relations. Of special importance in this repertoire are widely shared beliefs (called societal beliefs)1, which often foster the appearance of collective emotional orientations (for example of fear and hatred) and sometimes even are central and become part of societal ethos of conflict. They are formed in the course of the conflict, are disseminated to society members, maintained by societal institutions and supported by collective memory. They fuel the continuation of the conflictive relations and serve as obstacles to the progress of peace making. These beliefs, attitudes and emotions do not change overnight, even when the groups’ leaders resolve the conflict peacefully and sign a peace agreement. They continue to inhibit the development of peaceful relations until they change slowly via reconciliation process, should one take place.

It should be recognized that reconciliation is a long process that begins at the very low point of the conflictive intergroup relations and may last decades. It goes through different phases and one of its first achievements is recognition in peaceful coexistence. This achievement implies acknowledgment of the right of the rival group to exist peacefully and its acceptance as a legitimate and an equal partner with whom disagreements have to be resolved in nonviolent ways. Specifically these components indicate:

Non violence, which means that although conflict and disagreement may still be intact, the involved groups have decided to abandon violent ways of confrontation and choose peaceful means to achieve their goals. It means that the groups are ready to establish mechanisms of negotiation to deal with the list of contentions in order to resolve them.
Recognition in the legitimate existence of the rival group, which means that the two groups have the same right to exist and live in peace and acknowledges the legitimacy of the differences between them.

Equal partnership, which requires recognition in the principle of equal status and treatment of the rival group.

The phase of recognition in peaceful coexistence is important beginning, but of main focus in the reconciliation process are the long term changes in five themes of societal beliefs that were formed during the conflict: Societal beliefs about group’s goals, about the rival group, about own group, about relations with the past opponent and about peace.

Societal Beliefs about Group’s Goals. The first important change concerns the societal beliefs regarding the justness of goals, which underlined the outbreak and maintenance of the conflict. Groups involved in conflict construct beliefs about own goals that provide epistemic basis for the conflict. They present these goals as being of supreme importance and provide for them justifications and rationale. Reconciliation requires change of these beliefs- in essence their abolition, or at least indefinite postponement of societal visions expressed in goals, which caused the intergroup conflict. Instead new societal beliefs about goals have to be formed. The new beliefs have to present new goals for a society, as shaped by the conflict resolution agreement and have to center around the goals of maintaining peaceful relations with the former enemy. In addition, these beliefs have to provide rationalization and justification for the support of the new goals, including new symbols and myths.

Societal Beliefs about the Rival Group. Another determining condition for reconciliation is a change of the images of the adversary group. In times of conflict, the opposing group is delegitimized in order to explain its aberrant behavior, the outbreak and continuation of the conflict, and to justify negative actions taken against the adversary. To promote a process of reconciliation, perceptions of the rival group need to be changed. It is important to legitimize and personalize its members: Legitimization grants humanity to members of the adversary group, after years of its denial. It allows viewing the opponent as belonging to category of acceptable groups, with which it is desired to maintain peaceful relations. Personalization enables to see members of the rival group as humane individuals, who can be trusted, have legitimate needs, aspirations and goals, and are also victims of the conflict.

Societal Beliefs about Own Group. Reconciliation requires a change of societal beliefs about the own group. During the conflict, groups tend to view themselves in one-sided way with self-glorification and self-praise, ignoring and censoring any information, which may shed negative light on the group. But in the reconciliation process, the group must take responsibility for its involvement in the outbreak of the conflict, if that was the case, and its contribution to the violence, including immoral acts, and refusal to engage in peaceful resolution of the conflict. Thus, the new societal beliefs present the own group in a more “objective” light, more critically, especially regarding its behavior in the past.
Societal Beliefs about the Relationship with the Past Opponent. Reconciliation requires formation of new societal beliefs about the relations between the two groups, which were engaged in conflict. During conflict, the societal beliefs support confrontation and animosity. In order to promote reconciliation, these beliefs should change into beliefs that stress the importance of cooperation and friendly relationships. Of special importance is the stress on equality of relations and mutual sensitivity to each other needs, goals and general well being. These new beliefs about the relationship should also concern the past. The new beliefs should present the past relations within new framework, which revises the collective memory and forms synchronized outlook on the past with the view of the past rival.

Societal Beliefs about Peace. During the intractable conflict the parties yearn for peace, but view it in general, amorphic and utopist terms, without specifying its concrete nature and realistic ways to achieve it. Reconciliation requires a formation of new societal beliefs, which describe its dimensional nature, outline realistically the costs and benefits of achieving peace, the meaning of living in peace and specify the conditions and mechanisms for its achievement (for example, negotiation with the rival and compromises), and especially for its maintenance. Of special importance is the recognition that for lasting peace the well being of the two sides is the mutual interest of both parties and therefore peace requires also constant sensitivity and care for the needs and goals of the other group.

The above core mental alterations have to be accompanied by affective major changes of substituting collective orientation of fear and hatred with collective orientation of hope, which is a necessary condition for the reconciliation process.

Collective orientation of hope. The collective orientation of hope arises when the goal of peace is expected in concrete terms, as an alternative to continuation of the violent conflict. The expectation requires planning and activation of concrete and realistic ways that help to achieve peace. Therefore, hope can be metaphorically depicted as the light at the end of the dark tunnel, without it no change is possible. It supplies the energy to make the significant cognitive and behavioral changes that are essential for the process of reconciliation. Hope requires openness, creativity and flexibility, as well as tolerance of uncertainty, which is especially difficult to achieve in times of conflict, because fear and hatred are then dominating emotions. Disconnection from the dominance of fear and hatred is a necessary step to evolve hope in order to unfreeze the beliefs that feed the continuation of conflict, and to form new beliefs functional to conflict resolution and reconciliation.

Process of Reconciliation

The process of psychological change in the course of the conflict almost never begins with the large-scale change by majority of society members. Rather, the slow process of unfreezing and changing the beliefs and attitudes towards the societal goals, the conflict, the adversary, own group and/or resolution of the conflict always begins with a small minority. This minority is often at first perceived by the majority as traitorous and a long process of social influence has to occur before psychological change encompasses the majority of society members.

For our case, of importance is to recognize that the process of reconciliation may begin with leaders or with grass roots, but the effective reconciliation process always has to proceed top down and bottom up simultaneously. This entails that, on the one hand, the psychological change of leaders, especially from the mainstream, greatly influences the society members, but, on the other hand, the evolvement of the mass movement, which embraces the psychological change, affects the position of the leaders. In the long process of reconciliation both processes usually take place. Eventually however the leaders are of crucial importance, since they negotiate the peaceful resolution of the conflict and are in the position to lead the reconciliation process (for example, Begin and Sadat in the Israeli – Egyptian case, or Mandella and De Clark in South Africa). But it is important to note that in all the cases there was a significant mass support for conflict resolution and eventual reconciliation, without which it would be very difficult to carry such moves. Principally, however, the success of the reconciliation process depends on the dissemination of its ideas among the grass roots. This is an essential and necessary process to convince the masses to change their psychological repertoire, from support of the conflict to backing the emergence of peaceful relations and reconciliation.

The latter point implies that reconciliation is not a naturally occurring process, but one that requires active efforts to overcome its obstacles. Reconciliation does not occur spontaneously, but requires guidance, policies and initiated acts. Some of them will be now reviewed.

Methods of Reconciliation

Different methods have been used through the years to advance reconciliation between societies that were involved in intractable conflict and began peace process. Some of the methods are part of the formal policies and some are carried out voluntarily and informally. All however serve as mechanisms to change society members’ motivations, goals, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions in the direction of reconciliation.

Apology. Apology is formal acceptance of responsibility for the misdeeds during the conflict and an appeal to the victim for forgiveness. Through apology the injustices of the past and grievances are addressed and acknowledged and it implies a commitment to the pursuit justice and truth. Apology allows the victims to forgive and be healed so that eventually their negative feelings towards the past enemy will change.

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Establishment of truth and reconciliation commissions is a method that reveals the truth about the past to the people and serves as a mechanism of perpetuating justice. They serve as a vehicle to expose acts of violence, violation of human and civil rights, discrimination and misdeeds done by the formal institutions of the state or by groups and individuals. These commissions are of special importance because in most cases, individual compensation is not possible.
Writing a Common History. This method focuses directly on recreating past that can be agreed on by the groups involved in conflict. The method requires adherence to agreed facts and omission of myths and unfounded stories. It also requires an exposure to untold past of own group, which often consists of own misdeeds, and to the unheard past of the other group. This is usually done by a joint committee of historians from both sides, who work together, collecting and selecting materials, and finally negotiate to establish one agreed account of the past events.

Education. Education provides one of the most important methods for use in the process of reconciliation. Education as a method refers mostly to the use of schooling system for peace education. Peace education comes to construct the world view of pupils (i.e., their values, beliefs, attitudes, motivations, skills and patterns of behavior), which reflects the reality of the peace process, contributes to this advancement and prepares them to live in era of peace with reconciliation.

Mass Media. The mass media can be used to transmit information to a wide public about the new peaceful goals, the past rival group, one’s own group, about the developing relations, and so on. However, first and foremost the media serves as a channel to communicate leaders’ messages about peace and reconciliation.

Publicized Meetings Between Representatives of Both Groups. Publicized meetings between representatives of both groups legitimize the process of reconciliation. Their influence is especially noted when the publicized meetings are carried out between the epistemic authorities of both sides. They indicate that members of the other group are human beings, that it is possible to talk with them, treat them as partners to agreements, trust them and even consider their needs.

NGO’s Work. Non-governmental organizations can help spread the message about the importance of constructing peaceful relations, help establish cooperative and friendly relations with the past adversary or provide economic assistance to the society members and thereby show that peaceful relations have important benefits.

Joint Projects. Joint projects in different areas can foster links between members of the two groups at different levels of society, such as elites, professionals, as well as grass roots. This provides opportunities for personal encounters in which past opponents can form personal relations which, in turn, can help legitimize and personalize members of both groups. Joint projects may also create interdependence, common goals and provide benefits for society members.

Tourism. Tourism builds trust and removes psychological barriers to social relations. Specifically, it provides an opportunity to learn about the past rival’s readiness to form peaceful relations and allows learning about the other group – its culture, history, economy, and so on.

Cultural Exchanges. Cultural exchanges, such as translations of books, visits of artists, or exchanges of films, TV programs or exhibitions provide the opportunity to learn about the past opponent in human cultural perspectives.

The preceding discussion suggests that there are different methods to promote the process of psychological reconciliation and that they can involve different sectors and layers of the society. No single method is best; what is required is a combination of methods. The use of the particular methods depends on many different factors such as the nature of the conflict, the type of misdeeds perpetrated during it, the extent to which one side or both sides were responsible for its outbreak and the misdeeds committed, the history of relations between the groups, the culture of the groups involved, the availability of economic resources, the involvement of the international community, and so on. Nevertheless it is important to note that the process of reconciliation requires establishment of well-defined and unequivocal policies that are supported by the institutions and leadership of the state(s). These policies must be executed in a well-planned manner with the objective of involving as many society members as possible in the reconciliation process. Still, the success of the reconciliation process is never assured or guaranteed. Nevertheless, the success of the reconciliation process is never assured: many different factors influence its outcome. The last section will briefly outline several factors that have a determinative influence on the success of the reconciliation process.

Factors Affecting Reconciliation Process

First of all, the reconciliation process depends on the peaceful resolution of the conflict. Moreover, the resolution has to be satisfactory to both parties in the conflict who must perceive that it has fulfilled their basic needs and addressed their fundamental aspirations.

Second, the reconciliation process depends on conciliatory acts, both formal and informal, by both parties. These acts create and disseminate a new climate of relations among the masses. They set the tone for reciprocity, positive spirals of behavior, or even for the initiation of unilateral positive gestures.

Third, reconciliation depends on the determination of the leaders involved in the peace making and also on the good and trusting relations that they build with each other. Their moves are often met with opposition within their own group in the form of pressure, public mobilization and sometimes even smear campaigns and/or violence- all aimed at obstructing the peace process. Leaders must overcome these obstacles and show great resolve and devotion to the peace process. They must signal to group members that they are determined to advance the reconciliation process successfully despite the opposition.

Fourth, the reconciliation process depends on the activism and strength of those who support it. It requires the involvement of individuals, groups, and organizations in persuading hesitating and opposing group members in the importance of reconciliation.
Fifth, the success of reconciliation depends on mobilizing society’s institutions to support the reconciliation process. This pertains to political, military, social, cultural, and educational institutions as for example the security forces, political parties, school system, mass media, intellectual and cultural community.

Sixth, the reconciliation process depends on the international context. That is, the extent to which the international community shows interest in the particular reconciliation, facilitates it, presses the parties to carry it out and provides concrete assistance for pursuing it with involvement and economic aid.

Conclusion

Years of study of conflict resolution have shown that peaceful resolution of a conflict does not guarantee lasting peace. To cement peaceful relations between the rival sides to an intractable conflict, reconciliation is necessary. The essence of reconciliation is the construction of lasting peaceful relation between former rivals based on genuine support by the majority of the group members. Reconciliation, then, requires the formations of new beliefs, attitudes, motivations, goals and emotions that support the peaceful relations. The above conception suggests that reconciliation is in essence a psychological endeavor achieved through a psychological process.

Reconciliation requires changing psychological repertoire that dominated society members for many years, sometimes many decades and even centuries- mainly abolishing old fears, mistrust, hatred, animosity, delegitimization of the enemy, and often also adjusting group’s longstanding dreams and aspirations. Such change is very long and complex, marked by progress and setbacks. It requires new experiences that can induce the change of the psychological repertoire, transmitting a new message of peace and new image of the former enemy. However, these experiences do not come about by themselves. People have to create them, act upon them and to disseminate their meaning. That is, people have to perform acts that provide the new experiences, such as peaceful gestures, meetings, joint projects, exchanges and so on. These acts supply the information that enables group members to look at their world differently. But changing group members’ worldview requires a large accumulation of new experiences that support the peace making. There is need to form supportive climate that indicates to all society members that new reality evolves, free of threats, dangers and fears. Such a reality is not always easy to form, since in societies engaged in a peace process and reconciliation there is always a potent opposition to the process and small groups may even resort to violence to put a halt to it.

As noted earlier the evolvement of the new reality is an active process requiring the involvement of leaders, elites, professionals, the grassroots, organization, and institutions. This is a major undertaking for the society. Just as in times of conflict the society was mobilized for waging the violent struggle with much resolution and sacrifice, the reconciliation process, too, requires determination and efforts to persuade the opposition in the genuine importance of the reconciliation and its benefits.

Moreover, the reconciliation process requires not only the persuading the members of one’s own group, but also convincing the other side of one’s sincere intentions and goals to build genuine peaceful relations. To do this, groups need to focus on their own efforts, shortcomings, misdeeds and inhibitions and ask what they can do to facilitate reconciliation. This is very challenging requirement, since groups are conditioned to focus on the other group’s shortcomings, obligations and misdeeds and demand that it demonstrate its good intentions, while overlooking their own failings and mal-intentions. Groups usually tend to blame others for failures in the reconciliation process.

The reconciliation process demands forming a new ethos embedded in a culture of peace. This entails a major societal transformation. New norms, values, opinions, symbols, and collective memory have to emerge. Groups have been able to undergo such transformation successfully, as the Franco-German case of reconciliation demonstrates. That process, however, took almost four decades to complete. Individuals and groups always rally sooner and easier to the banner of fear and hate than to the banner of trust and respect the other. But it is only trust and respect that provide hope for better life and it is the duty of humanity to enable groups to follow the path of the reconciliation process. We, as social scientist, can contribute to a better understanding of this process and the factors that influence it. That is our mission to the well-being of human society, to preventing future bloodshed and suffering.