Retribution v. forgiveness

Larry, Matt and I saw Invictus right before the holidays. Very moving. A story I did not know, and very well made. Ironically, yet another compassionate presentation by Clint Eastwood, once the king of revenge dramas like Dirty Harry. Mandela's perspective of course got me thinking about Sylvia's monologue in The Interpreter (as so many things do):

Everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone, on God if they can't find anyone else. But in Africa, in Matobo, the Ku, believe that the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered, a year of mourning ends with a ritual that we call the Drowning Man Trial. There's an all-night party beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat. He's taken out on the water and he's dropped. He's bound so that he can't swim. The family of the dead then has to make a choice. They can let him drown or they can swim out and save him. The Ku believe that if the family lets the killer drown, they'll have justice but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn't always just, that very act can take away their sorrow.