After some small talk with that day's workshop (from Iraq, Lebanon and more), we all greeted Prince Hassan bin Talal, the Prince of Jordan, and a voice for global sustainability, reconciliation and interreligious understanding, graced us with his presence, along with his wife Sarvath last Monday.
His lack of bitterness toward the white minority made him a global symbol of reconciliation.
Probably the most important findings were that in all the countries we surveyed, First Globals want reconciliation among nations.
"We are interested in the poor, in racial reconciliation, in global poverty and AIDS, in the plight of women in the developing world".
He had just written "Personal Faith, Public Policy," with Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr., an African-American pastor with a church outside Washington, D.C., and, at a conference designed to publicize it, the two argued that the religious right was a coalition and that the way to save it was to broaden the agenda to include poverty, social justice, racial reconciliation, and global warming.
That approach raised both hopes and the Vatican's profile, and it's the formula Francis has used since he was elected in March last year: repeatedly calling for reconciliation in global hot zones like South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Ukraine and Latin America, and dispatching emissaries or launching initiatives when he can.
He became a global symbol of righteousness and reconciliation.
Perhaps the country's reputation-anxiety has its roots in the way the African National Congress made the South African liberation struggle the great moral cause of the late 20th century, and then in the way Nelson Mandela became a global icon for forgiveness and reconciliation.
There are issues of revenue accounting, chargebacks, reconciliation, currency conversion, global regulations and countless other back-office activities that cannot be done efficiently with computer systems and software designed in another age.
