Introduction Amy’s Magic: Living Reconciliation

Massachusetts Room-Mullins Center
June 27, 2002

Good evening, and welcome to tonight's program. In my last week as Chancellor of the University, I'm really quite pleased to be here with you, in the company of Linda Biehl, Easy Nofemela, and Ntobeko Peni, for this poignant Crossworlds Conversation on "Amy's Magic: Living Reconciliation."

As you know, Crossworlds Conversations are intended to bring to campus voices of distinction in inspiring conversation. Conversants are persons who have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to realize what is of value to life and have renewed their commitment to those values in their daily practices and routines. In these conversations, participants have explored those elements of their lives that sustained their hope and fortified their resolve to be better human beings, no matter the obstacles.

In a time when our world suffers from an unbearable level of violent conflict and social tension, the promise of reconciliation provides a beacon of hope. We are perhaps most familiar with reconciliation efforts at a national level, whether embedded in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in Northern Ireland, or in South Africa's own Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But underneath large-scale efforts at social healing are the intimate processes of personal reconciliation, of individuals building constructive relationships in spite of the pain they have caused each other.

For me, the reconciliation process undertaken by Linda and Peter Biehl with Easy and Ntobeko is an example of how the deepest pain has been transformed into a life-affirming friendship and a partnership in service of others. It is a story about how Amy Biehl's commitment to human rights and human enablement in South Africa enabled her parents to embrace the very people who ended her life and to see in them the same passions for liberation that inspired their daughter.

This is a story that began on August 25, 1993, and continues to unfold, a story of which we now are a part. On March 1, Amherst was one of the last places Peter and Linda visited together. They were here to follow up on conversations started during their visit in November, when they came to campus to discuss "Living Values" and initiate partnerships between the University and the Amy Biehl Foundation. (We had hoped that Ntobeko and Easy could have come with them then, but September 11–among other things–delayed significantly the process of obtaining visas to enter the United States).

So, on March 1, despite obvious physical discomfort, Peter ended a long set of meetings that day by hosting a lunch for the committee that organized the November events. A few days later, he was admitted to the Eisenhower Medical Center in the Biehl's home state of California, suffering from colon cancer. Our prayers could not keep Peter with us, and on March 31, Easter Sunday, he left this life to join his daughter Amy.

I will miss Peter Biehl. I think of him often. All of you who met Peter will understand why. In his reflections on his father's life at his funeral, held on April 26--Amy's birthday--at Washington's National Cathedral, Zach Biehl described Peter's four gifts to him as a son: the gift of laughter, the gift of respect, the gift of humility, and the gift of love. Peter was a remarkable man, and he truly brought these gifts to each moment of his life. He was a joy to be with, the kind of person who, by his very presence, affirmed that we can make a difference and that the world is brimming with light.

Peter's gifts will be remembered by all those he touched, and by no one more than his partner of 38 years, Linda Biehl. Together, they decided to embark on a radical adventure together. Shortly after their daughter's death, Linda and Peter quit their jobs in order to create a foundation to carry on Amy's work in disadvantaged South African communities. For nearly eight years now, the foundation has continued to spread "Amy's Magic"--that mysterious power that brings people together in unexpected ways and overcomes any obstacle to further the cause of human enablement.

Reconciliation for the Biehls has become a central manifestation of Amy's Magic. When the four men convicted of Amy's murder sought amnesty for their offense, Linda and Peter testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in support of amnesty. They harbored no anger, no desire for revenge. In phone calls home she made every week, Amy had prepared her parents for her death, describing conditions in the townships and the struggle for liberation. They understood what led Easy, Ntobeko, and the others to attack Amy as part of their effort to free themselves from white domination.

And yet Linda and Peter did more than understand; they did more than forgive. Amy's belief in restorative justice propelled Linda and Peter to undertake the work of reconciliation. That meant engaging in an ongoing relationship with Easy and Ntobeko; it meant seeing Amy's spirit in them. And for Easy and Ntobeko, it meant understanding their own struggles in a new way, and joining Linda and Peter in the reconstruction of their home communities. Over the past several years, they have all engaged in a process of living reconciliation, a process that is perhaps the most intimately difficult of all crossworlds conversations. And they do it with laughter, with respect, with humility, and with love. They do it in a way that is ordinary. At the conclusion of his article about them, reporter Simon Fanshawe wrote: "When you're with Peter and Linda and Easy and Ntobeko, it just seems the most obvious thing that they are together as friends. Somehow, it doesn't seem strange at all. Because that way, at least Amy's death has given them all a future."

From the outside, for many of us, their reconciliation process is still hard to understand. It may seem far outside our own experience or beyond the reach of our own capacities. For those of us with roots or strong connections in South Africa, there may be different questions about the nature of reconciliation in the wake of apartheid and questions about the pathway to a more just and equitable society.

All of these questions are germane tonight. After all, we are here to undertake together a conversation across worlds. We are here in the spirit of Amy's Magic–and now Peter's Magic--to honor a commitment to living reconciliation. We are here to honor all South Africans who seek to transform the past and create a more humane future. We are here to meet Linda, Easy, and Ntobeko, and to carry tonight's conversation about reconciliation and its daily practice into our own lives and circumstances. Thank you for joining us for this conversation.

Marcellette G. Williams
Chancellor