Truth and Forgiveness – the path to true reconciliation
The history of the human race has always been tumultuous. With the evolution of the civilized world came capitalism – often pushing self-serving agendas to the fore front and at great cost to society. War mongering for political and financial gain remains a continuing theme in our world today and some of the more heinous events are the harbingers of extreme violence and seem beyond the realm of reparation.
We are a global village today and it’s next to impossible to stay indifferent to world events that challenge the very nature of humanity. Rohingya and ongoing subsequent repercussions, the Syrian genocide and its peoples heart rending appeal to the global community, disturbing whispers of slave trading in Africa – these are occurring in our very backyards and in the present day. The powers that be however are as complicit in their complete silence, as they are, being architects of extreme oppression and inhumane acts that will impact generations to come.
The larger picture is perhaps reflective of a microcosm. With changing traditional structures, scientific strides and technological advances, the human value system is also undergoing a more than subtle change. In this scenario, can our deep-seated wounds ever be healed, and is there hope for reconciliation for present and future generations with our perceived or real oppressors?
Several recent discussions of reparations for historical injustice and mass political violence reject the idea of compensatory justice as being enough for large numbers of individual victims of injustice. Roy Brooks considers the tort model of pursuing compensation from institutions and private parties through legal action, a secondary, morally deficient and relatively unpromising avenue. He advances an “atonement model” of reparations based on the post-Holocaust vision of heightened morality, victim-perpetrator identity, egalitarianism, and restorative justice.
In South Africa citizens are being empowered to come to terms and confront a painful past through the new nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission grounded in a constitutional commitment to the African concept of “Ubuntu,” or humaneness. The TRC has this far heard thousands of reports on human rights abuses that took place during the apartheid era. This is probably the most important step toward offering a basis for individual healing, and promoting reconciliation of a divided society.
On June 6th 2013, foreign Secretary William Hague expressed “sincere regret” for torture and abuse committed by British colonial officers against Kenyans in the 1950s. British commentators have hailed the apology as historic—a fitting footnote to Britain’s messy end-of-empire in Kenya. This has been a long time coming.
So should a nation apologise for the crimes of its past? An article by the same title cites the example of Australian PM John Howard when called upon to offer an apology to Aboriginal peoples for the wrongs visited upon them since British settlement. He maintained that today’s generation cannot and should not be held accountable for the behaviour of their predecessors. The article makes the point that a potential solution to this for those that advocate apology is to acknowledge that the current generation did not do wrong, but their state did. I am inclined to agree with the ethos that no true reparation or healing is possible without the apology that must necessarily follow the acknowledgement of crimes against humanity.
After World War II, a generous handful of German leaders were brought to Nuremberg to legally atone for their wartime crimes. Financial penance followed, and the first major reparations deal between Germany and Israel was signed in 1952 – which reinforces my point that how nations deal with the aftermath of devastation, will set the tone and leave a foot in the door for the future.
This in principle is also true of how the human dynamic works. In my opinion, acknowledgement and remembrance are the basis for the acceptance that precedes forgiveness and are the only path to true reconciliation. This is when true healing begins.
In the words of Swami Vivekanand – “ Everything is ended if you forgive and forget ”
