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The Forum: Revenge

Revenge

06/10/2012

BBC Radio 4 - The Forum, Revenge

Is revenge useful? Bridget Kendall and three global thinkers discuss.

Bridget Kendall and three global thinkers discuss revenge, as conflicts around the world give daily reminders of the perils of taking an eye for an eye.

Conflicts around the world remind us daily of the perils of taking an eye for an eye. How deep does the instinct for revenge lie? Can victims of personal trauma find closure by other means? And how does a society overcome a shared sense of injustice?

On the ideas discussion programme, Bridget Kendall is joined by the celebrated novelist Rose Tremain, the Indian essayist Salil Tripathi and the activist Yvette Alberdingk Thijm.

Rose Tremain turns her thoughts to the quality of revenge - a trait missing from her creation, the doctor Robert Merivel. He appears in her latest novel, Merivel: A Man of His Time, which is the sequel to the highly-acclaimed Restoration about the doctor's rise and fall in Charles II's England of the late 1600s. 

The Indian writer Salil Tripathi is currently writing a book about the crimes committed during Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, and the way in which its survivors dealt with its violent aftermath.

And the activist Yvette Alberdingk Thijm talks about her work as executive director of Witness, a human rights organisation which helps victims from all over the world tell their stories by using video technology.

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