Americans move beyond boundaries.

In June President Clinton called on Americans to engage in `candid conversations' on racial issues. `We must build one American community,' he said, `based on respect for one another and our shared values.' The same month some 300 people met at a conference in Minneapolis, on the banks of the Mississippi, with the theme Choices for Community. They came together in a desire to get beyond the barriers of race and other issues dividing the nation. Included were many from Canada and Mexico and from countries in Central and South America.

At the suggestion of Dave Courchene, an Ashinabe active in community-building with the First Nations people of Canada, the conference began with the lighting of a sacred fire. Underlining the sacredness of life, Courchene, who had lit a similar fire at the Rio environmental summit, said, `There is a divine plan. The great spirit will bring justice and healing to the world.'

The conference was opened by Catholic Bishop Raymond Lucker from Southern Minnesota. `We need to remember as members of the human family and as children of God that any form of discrimination against anyone because of race, age, sex, or economic condition, is evil,' he said. He regretted that the US had exploited people in Latin America and specifically in Guatemala where he had worked, and called for reconciliation, forgiveness and unity.

Such candid speeches and the honest conversations in the many workshops and plenaries and over meals at the University of Minnesota evoked a response from others who had sometimes felt not listened to. Mexican businessman Ari Kahan, a coordinator of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations for his country in Washington, DC, responded to an American who acknowledged US arrogance and insensitivity to Latin America. Such expressions, he said, have the power of `opening up for us a home away from home and to learn to love as ours the land of our neighbours. They can move us beyond the boundaries which are created by past wrongs and by fear.'

Several sessions focussed on the legacy of history and how to heal the wounds in a way that builds trust. Mack Harnden, who organized the first National Convention on Forgiveness in 1993, encouraged the conference attendees to see the relevance of forgiveness in their different countries.

Don Shriver, President Emeritus of Union Theological Seminary and author of An Ethic for Enemies, stressed that the recognition of the wrongs of the past had to be detailed and must extend to what was happening to the descendants of those who were wronged. He pointed out that the descendants of the Indians who suffered at the battle of Wounded Knee were living in the poorest county in the country.

Shriver said he was personally in favour of a bill in the House of Representatives which apologizes for slavery. But any apology had to be backed up by doing something about the continuing legacy of that slavery.

Joseph Montville, who directs the Preventive Diplomacy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, cautioned that any apologies must be entered into with great preparation. The issue of apology was dividing Americans. `The process requires great care not to be thrusting down the gauntlet that implies moral inferiority on the part of those who are not prepared to be part of the process,' he said.

That process was a painful one. `It should start not with a press conference but an explanation,' said Montville. `If lucky at the end of the process there will be forgiveness but don't start off demanding it.'

Baptist minister Paige Chargois described how a Richmond-based multiracial initiative, Hope in the Cities, had launched honest conversations about race, reconciliation and responsibility. She was one of many at the conference who described what they were doing to heal past wounds and build community.

Chargois had deliberately reached out to those whom she most disliked, those who waved the Confederate flag. The result was that she began to see the pain that lay behind their flag and her hatred went. They had undertaken community-healing initiatives together. `We cannot create the future we long for,' she said, `by walking in the opposite direction to those we hate.'