Love and Forgiveness in Governance Research Team

Thomas Hill, Areej Elahi-Siddiqui, Borislava Manojlovic, Kelly Njike and Thomas Ashe

The Difference One Person Can Make: The Legacy of Gandhi

One of the purposes behind the Love and Forgiveness Project is to highlight the impact that one person can make. Mahatma Gandhi is one such person who made a monumental contribution in the areas of love and forgiveness.

Father Xavier Fagba

“We cannot be silent and cower in the face of injustice, but must have courage. To be a Christian is not just about being baptized, and true Christians live a life of love and reconciliation, not bloodshed.”

Father Xavier-Arnauld Fagba is a notable example of a leader who lives out love and forgiveness in the face of trials. As the leader of a Catholic congregation in the Central African Republic town of Boali, Father Fagba has had plenty of opportunities to decide whether to encourage peace or revenge.

Mohamed Mouldi Kefi

Dr. Mohamed Mouldi Kefi is a retired diplomat and Tunisia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during the transitional government of 2011. D.r Kefi is an experienced diplomat with several years of experience in foreign service; he was recalled 5 years after retirement to assist in Tunisia reconciliation effort after the 2011 revolution.

John Lewis

One of the most notable leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement and the U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district. Right from youth, Lewis subscribed to the philosophy, which considered suffering as redemptive. 

Cesar E. Chavez

Cesar Chavez was a Mexican-American labor leader and the founder of the NFWA, the first union of farm workers in America.   Chavez said,“From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.”

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Profiles

Oscar Lopez Rivera

Oscar Lopez Rivera

Oscar Lopez Rivera is a Puerto Rican independence activist, serving prison time since 1981. Rivera was born in San Sebastián, Puerto Rico on January 6, 1943, which is a holiday in Puerto Rico, but he wasn’t registered until January 8th, 1943. “I was five years old when I started school. By the time I started school my sister Clary had taught me how to write my name and the numbers from one to ten. She had also forced me to learn to write with my right hand although I was left handed. I was the youngest and the smartest kid when I started school but I had the habit of sneaking out of the classroom to go with my second cousin to the river. That’s how I learned to swim when I was five. I always stayed ahead of my classmates because my sister treated me as her student. In school I was full of mischief, fights, and pranks. During all the years I was in school in Puerto Rico I never stopped being me—an honor student with a bad boy attitude.”

read more
Jaber Wishah

Jaber Wishah

Jaber is a Palestinian refugee, in the Gaza Strip and one of the most truly remarkable people I have ever encountered.  I first got to know him in 2004 when I moved to Gaza. His story, in many ways, is a typical Palestinian one.  His mother and father were refugees from Palestine, fleeing in the 1948 war.  Jaber was educated in the refugee camps, after his graduation, he worked as a physics teacher of physics teacher in Cairo.  He later became active in leftist political struggles in both Palestine and Egypt.

read more
Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Salem

Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Salem

Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Salem is the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, Saudi Arabia.  In his position, he exhibited love for his country nationals and immigrants. 

read more
Bassam Aramin

Bassam Aramin

Bassam Aramin is a Palestinian peace activist and president of the Al Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue. [1] He was a former Fatah militant imprisoned for seven years for an attack on an Israeli Army jeep.  His 10-year-old daughter, Abir, was killed on January 16, 2007, by an Israeli soldier on her way home from school. However, Aramin did not want revenge; all he asked for was justice. 

read more
Mohamed Mouldi Kefi

Mohamed Mouldi Kefi

Dr. Mohamed Mouldi Kefi is a retired diplomat and Tunisia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during the transitional government of 2011. D.r Kefi is an experienced diplomat with several years of experience in foreign service; he was recalled 5 years after retirement to assist in Tunisia reconciliation effort after the 2011 revolution.

read more
John Lewis

John Lewis

One of the most notable leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement and the U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district. Right from youth, Lewis subscribed to the philosophy, which considered suffering as redemptive. 

read more
Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel was a dissident playwright, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. According to Iva K. Naffziger, “He led his country from the defeat of communism in 1989, to its first free elections in 1990, to its economic revival, and to its reincorporation into the international community—into NATO and soon the EU.”

read more
Francois Nguyen Van Thuan

Francois Nguyen Van Thuan

Nguyen Van Thuan was born into a prominent Vietnamese family with a long Catholic tradition.  His relatives were among the Vietnamese martyrs since l698, including the assassinated Vietnam leader, President Diem.  Father Van Thuan had premonition that he would suffer martyrdom just like his relatives, therefore his arrest and imprisonment by the communist regime did not come as a surprise.    However, while Thuan was in prison, his jailers asked him why he was usually so happy and he replied, ”Because I have faith in my God.”[1] Father Van Thuan was appointed the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and was subsequently elevated to Cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.

read more
Cesar E. Chavez

Cesar E. Chavez

Cesar Chavez was a Mexican-American labor leader and the founder of the NFWA, the first union of farm workers in America.   Chavez said,“From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.”

read more
Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi is a human rights activist and politician from Burma. The daughter of the de facto prime minister of British Burma, who was assassinated in 1947, Aung studied abroad in her early years, obtaining a bachelors degree from the University of Oxford in 1969.

read more

Past Events

Movie screening and discussion – A Long Night’s Journey into the Day
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Diplomacy Room, McQuaid Building
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Day – Film Screening: More Than A Dream
Tuesday, January 21, 2014