The Challenges of Political Reconciliation (Part 1)

Most nations throughout the world have practiced discrimination against racial, religious, ethnic and ideological groups. Justification for these forms of exclusion has increasingly been discredited by the human rights revolution in the post colonization era and equal rights and non-discriminatory policies are now in focus. However, even as these older practices of exclusion are no longer in effect, they continue to have lasting consequences. Political reconciliation requires the rebuilding of damaged relationships. An absolutely central issue here is that of social trust. Challenges of reconciliation will be described by the speaker, using examples from various countries, including South Africa, Canada, Northern Ireland, and Sierra Leone. Speaker: Dr. Trudy Govier Trudy Govier is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lethbridge. Her interests are in the areas of critical thinking and social philosophy. She is the author of a widely used textbook A Practical Study of Argument (7th Edition 2010), and ten other works including Dilemmas of Trust (1998), and Forgiveness and Revenge (2002). In the Lethbridge community, Trudy has helped to organize public lecture series and Philosophy Cafes, and worked with Amnesty International.