Wounds simply won't heal if they are swept under the carpet.

In many instances violence - which obviously inflicts tremendous trauma on victims - also inflicts trauma on the perpetrator. Radical evil takes a lot of preparation, not just from an organizational point of view, but from brainwashing, psychological preparation and the legitimization of violence.

Wounds simply won't heal if they are swept under the carpet.

We need to sacrifice something. And this is what I find lacking. We want to construct an image of ourselves as virtuous but we don't want to suffer for our beliefs. We want to change the world with a Facebook like. That's not how the world works.

Storytelling is very important. It is through context and relations that we understand the importance of human dignity. The concept means nothing as an abstraction. It's important for us to understand why people do the things they do, including the monsters - the suicide bomber and the war criminal. Understanding is not acceptance. Understanding is exploring the human psyche. If we want to put an end to violence, we need to have the sort of conversation I had with the teenage suicide bomber.

Criminal trials are fundamentally about individual accountability whereas truth commissions are less about the guilt of the perpetrator and more about the suffering of the victim. A criminal trial is only incidentally a therapeutic or cathartic process for victims. But truth commissions, as we saw in South Africa, have the advantage of giving tens of thousands of people the opportunity to tell their stories, and not only does that contribute to healing but it also contributes to reconciliation, especially when perpetrators also come and express contrition.

We must sacrifice something in order to make the world better.