Dear Friends,

First of all, I want to express my gratitude for being here with all of you good people, once again. Some of you are well known to me, but maybe most of you are new to me, and also newer to restorative justice than I am. This is exactly how it should be.

When Edit Törzs called me in the middle of the dark winter with the news that the Board had nominated me for the Restorative Justice Award, I was truly surprised, and I remember I had trouble finding my words, concretely I did not find the word «humble». That was how I felt, besides being surprised. I will not speculate more about the reasons for receiving the Award, but take the Board’s words for it, and say a sincere and heartfelt «THANK YOU» to the Forum, and most of all to the Board of the Forum. I really appreciate it very much, and I feel honoured to line up with the former laureates.

What can I offer in return? Receiving the Award has brought me here, so maybe some critical reflections will do? Or maybe just reflections, this time. 

I have taken the opportunity to scrutinize the website of the Forum, and I have found a lot of interesting information there. 

One of the interesting things I noticed, was how the topics of the Conferences of the Forum have changed and developed during two decades. It mirrors, of course, the development of restorative justice itself.

I am really impressed by the topic of This Year’s Conference, how ambitious and daring it is in adressing demanding questions and dilemmas inherent in restorative justice, and in the relation between society and restorative justice.

Some eternal questions have been brought to the table, and I am really looking forward to listening to the presentations and the discussions. 

I appreciate the creativity in the approaches to restorative justice that are mirrored in the program, the invitation to opening up and be experimental and explorative towards the potential of restorative justice -  and its «cousins» -  like for example the Polarity Party, that addresses the challenge of polarisation in society by consciously activating our perceptions in more ways than through language only. 

We know that encounters between people is a powerful tool to counteract polarisation. We also know that verbal communication has its restrictions/limitations, and the tool of language as it is applied in the restorative process, gives an advantage to inborns and to middle class people. To explore more aspects and ways of human communication should be highly valued also in a restorative justice context. 

In these dark days, with a war going on on our own continent, we need to come together to see light and hope, to feel that we are not alone. As Brunilda Pali says in a video-clip from the 2018 conference in Tirana – she comments upon the cycle of violence to be broken – «we need to be able to think that this is possible.» Doing good is not futile. To build and re-build trust, hope and kindness to each other, is a tedious, time-consuming action, as violence is its opposite, with its cruel and scary effectiveness. 

We must continue reaching out to each other, it is a necessity. Are we able to find each other anew, to find common ground as human beings? Even if we don’t understand, to continue seeing each other as human beings? We don’t have a choice, we have to.

I will urge you all – from my heart -  to take the opportunity at this conference, together with all present here, to walk an extra mile to explore and reflect upon (new) ways to continue seeing each other, to listen to each other, to try to understand each other also in the most difficult situations, to do good. 

We have been told to keep distance during more than two years with the pandemic. Digital communication shortens down distance, but at the same time makes us more alone, and keeps us apart. I am convinced that the personal, physical meeting will never be out-ruled by the digital one, and it will continue being superior to it. How can we come closer, how can we strengthen  communication and mutual understanding to counteract de-humanisation? 

The other day I came across something that the world known Chilean poet Pablo Neruda has re-told as an important experience and memory from his childhood. I read it also as a relevant comment to the topic of this Conference, to what restorative justice is about, and I want to share it with you.

It is recalled in the book «The Gift», by Lewis Hyde, with the heading 

«Pablo Neruda’s Greatest Lesson from Childhood»

Playing in the lot behind the house one day when he was still a little boy, Neruda discovered a hole in a fence board. "I looked through the hole and saw a landscape like that behind our house, uncared for, and wild. I moved back a few steps, because I sensed vaguely that something was about to happen. All of a sudden a hand appeared---a tiny hand of a boy about my own age. By the time I came close again, the hand was gone, and in its place there was a marvellous white toy sheep.

"The sheep's wool was faded. Its wheels had escaped. All of this only made it more authentic. I had never seen such a wonderful sheep. I looked back through the hole but the boy had disappeared. I went in the house and brought out a measure of my own: a pine cone, opened, full of odour and resin, which I adored. I set it down in the same spot and went off with the sheep.

"I never saw either the hand or the boy again. And I have never seen a sheep like that either. The toy I lost finally in a fire. But even now...whenever I pass a toyshop, I look furtively into the window. It's no use. They don't make sheep like that anymore."

Neruda has commented on this incident several times. "This exchange of gifts---mysterious---settled deep inside me like a sedimentary deposit," he once remarked in an interview. And he associates the exchange with his poetry. (Exchange poetry with restorative justice, my remark) "I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvellous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that come from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses---that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.

"That exchange brought home to me for the first time a precious idea: that all humanity is somehow together...It won't surprise you then that I have attempted to give something resiny, earth-like, and fragrant in exchange for human brotherhood...

"This is the great lesson I learned in my childhood, in the backyard of a lonely house. Maybe it was nothing but a game two boys played who didn't know each other and wanted to pass to the other some good things of life. Yet maybe this small and mysterious exchange of gifts remained inside me also, deep and indestructible, giving my poetry light."

I think Pablo Neruda’s experience of how human affection can teach us to widen out the boundaries of our being, is a message to us here today, to the conference with the title Justice Beyond Borders.

I Wish You All a Good Conference!