The widespread anger in the West at the release of Libyan bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is not surprising. There is, though, another perspective that has been widely eschewed, for, while tainted by what appears to be a lack of openness on the part of the British Government, the event does spotlight the confusion between what we call justice, and what should be called retribution.

While it’s a rational and nearly always desirable response for the direct and collateral victims of crime to want to identify a culprit in order to achieve some kind of resolution or closure – which is the function of ‘Justice’ – there is very little evidence that harbouring grudges or malicious feelings towards the perpetrator or fostering a desire for revenge achieve anything more than sustenance for bitterness.

It’s normal and understandable that the families of terrorists’ victims should find their lives poisoned by a consuming hatred for those who took their loved ones from them. It is part of prevailing Western culture to nurture – even celebrate – these negative emotions although it is abundantly clear that they can do nothing to restore a lost daughter, son or spouse – and they certainly won’t provide any respite from unhappiness. As part of the greater picture, they can only increase the misunderstanding, tension and aggression that already exist between terrorists and their targets.

However, despite the entirely negative consequences of bearing grudges and seeking revenge, these are seen in the modern western world as proper, macho responses, to be recognised and commended. In this they reflect a C19th American pioneer culture (possibly sustained far beyond its historical context by the seductive influence of the Hollywood Western).

The truth is that the desire for revenge is uncouth, uncivilised and always destructive – at both personal and international levels.

 It would have been far more constructive (though ridiculously fanciful to expect) if after 9/11 George W Bush had appeared on television and told his country that while Islamic terrorists had sought to destroy symbolically the heart of their nation, and taken the lives of thousands of their fellow citizens, they should turn to those terrorists and ask why.

“Why do you hate us? How have we offended you? What has driven you to take such drastic action against innocent Americans? What do you want from us? How can we, the most powerful nation in the world, help you?”

It would have taken a braver (and more enlightened) man than George W Bush to take this stance in the face of his unsophisticated, traditionally xenophobic electorate, although there might have been more support for it than he realised.

Instead, he told the nation he was going to whup the terrorists to avenge the American deaths, and their effrontery; he was going to start a war – two wars, as it turned out – which, eight years on look barely nearer resolution and have undoubtedly recruited 1,000s to Al Qaeda’s camp, including hundreds of Britons alienated by the indiscriminate hatred directed at anyone who might conceivably be Muslim. 1,000s more American (and British) lives have been lost to carry out Bush’s revenge for the lives lost in the Twin Towers, as well as those of thousands of innocent Iraquis and Afghanis.

Perhaps if Bush had had the courage to show understanding and forgiveness on behalf of his country, the impetus for more young Muslims to join al Qaeda would have been neutered; if the US (with Britain) had had the foresight and forbearance to put themselves in a position where they were no longer targets – as Obama is now trying to do in the face of inevtiable knee-jerk oppostion – there would have been no cause for young British Muslims to bring about the deaths and mayhem of London’s 7/7.

Undoubtedly, if Bush had proffered his hand in forgiveness, the neo-cons and the red-necked hillbillies would have hollered that to capitulate in this way would open the floodgates to terrorism. They would not have paused to consider that failures of reconciliation are manifestly fewer than failures of aggression.

It is salutary to consider the supreme and undeniable dignity of Northern Irish Methodist, Gordon Wilson, after his daughter, Marie had died holding his hand beneath the rubble caused by a massive IRA bomb in Enniskillen on Remembrance Day, 1987.

He said, ‘I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life.’

His forgiveness of the IRA terrorists who had killed his daughter helped to lay the foundations for a genuine and profound reconciliation that has led to the decommissioning of IRA weapons, and the participation of Sinn Fein in the Northern Ireland Government, and the beginnings of genuine understanding between the two communities.

To see al Megrahi die in prison can do nothing to restore his victims to those who loved them; to forgive him and allow him to die in his own country would offer them a supreme moral strength and a release from the destructive bitterness of hate, while it could also achieve something real for long term peace and understanding.

Were you to ask me how I would react if one of my own much loved offspring were killed by a terrorist’s bomb, I would answer that I don’t know, but I profoundly hope that I would find the strength and courage to forgive.

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