海角大神

Foreign relations are, on one level, fundamentally about getting what a country wants. But President Donald Trump鈥檚 patterns of behavior show another motive as well 鈥� getting what he wants personally.

Economics shapes politics, but as talk of a slowdown grows, people in one Rust Belt state crucial to the presidential election aren鈥檛 seeing it.

This next story touches on grace, too. In Virginia, a governor鈥檚 racist mistake has brought to light what really matters: Is he sincere, and is he honestly trying to make African Americans鈥� lives better?

The intersection of climate and politics in Canada shows how idealism still needs healthy dollops of practicality.

A new wave of African fiction, driven by women authors, speaks to an expanding sense of what history is worth telling 鈥� and Africans鈥� compelling place in it.

In a new book, a former dean of Harvard Law School, Martha Minow, opens with this observation on today鈥檚 society: 鈥淥urs is an unforgiving age, an age of resentment. The supply of forgiveness is deficient.鈥� She wrote the book 鈥� 鈥淲hen Should Law Forgive?鈥� 鈥� because of what she sees as the limits of the law in dealing with the worst of crimes, such as murder, as well as the difficulty in forgiving crimes 鈥渢hat defy conception.鈥�

The book is well timed. On Wednesday in a Dallas County courthouse, a TV camera caught yet another public example of a unilateral act of personal forgiveness to an individual who had committed a heinous crime.

It came from Brandt Jean, the brother of a black man murdered in 2018 by an off-duty white policewoman, Amber Guyger, who just on Tuesday had been convicted of the crime.

At the sentencing hearing, Mr. Jean told the weeping woman that he loved her, did not want her to go to jail, and wanted the best for her. 鈥淚f you truly are sorry ... I forgive. I know if you go to God and ask Him, He will forgive you,鈥� he said.

The judge then granted his wish to hug the killer of his brother. With what seemed like a contrite heart, Ms. Guyger welcomed the hug. It was an extraordinary scene of reconciliation that defies what Ms. Minow calls 鈥渁n unforgiving age.鈥�

In her book, Ms. Minow asks when legal officials can and should promote forgiveness between individuals. A good example was the Texas judge joining Mr. Jean in advising the convicted woman on steps toward repentance and redemption. In addition, the Dallas County district attorney, who was pleased with the 10-year sentence given for the crime, described the courtroom embrace as an 鈥渁mazing act of healing.鈥�

Ms. Minow describes offers of forgiveness as the 鈥渉uman efforts to follow divine example.鈥� Such offers are given with an expectation of 鈥渂reaking the cycle of vengeances鈥� by forgoing the rightful grounds for grievance against those who committed harm. They involve 鈥渃easing to let the wrongdoing count in one鈥檚 feelings toward the wrongdoer, even while maintaining recognition of the wrong.鈥�

In the adversarial setting of a judicial process, Mr. Jean injected forgiveness. In the midst of impersonal punishment, he offered personal restoration. He invited Ms. Guyger to show the care and connection she failed to show during the murder. He offered her spiritual freedom during her years of human imprisonment.

To answer the book鈥檚 titled question, yes, there are times when law should forgive. As Ms. Minow writes, forgiveness encourages people to 鈥減rioritize creating a shared future over holding on to resentments of the past.鈥� The supply of forgiveness is not 鈥渄eficient.鈥� It only needs to be brought out in everyone.