Forgiveness, asked for and given!

 

J. Roughan 

16 April 2009

Honiara 

At the end of April, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of South Africa, visits the Solomons to help us kick off a most important response to a bloody chapter in our short history. The Archbishop has been closely connected with South Africa's attempts to restore the severely broken relations among people who suffered grievously during the country's Apartheid period not too many years ago.

 

Our own efforts along this line are picking up steam. We are well along the way to establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Already the selection of  a panel of eminent persons is in its final selection phase and hearings where people who have been terribly hurt during our Social Unrest years will soon have their story heard. This review process comes not a minute too soon!

 

However, a major ingredient seems missing. Of course severely traumatized peoples' stories, loss of life suffered and their serious hurts must be publicly known and addressed. And yes, these people, the nation itself, must reach the other shore . . . reconciliation. But the essential ingredient to this whole process, forgiveness asked for and forgiveness granted, must play a much more prominent place than what I've been hearing so far. 

 

Without heartfelt sorrow shown by those who did the terrible deeds of murder, rape, arson, beatings, theft, etc. then getting to the other side, reconciliation, is next to impossible. TRC's work is not a mechanical thing: a deeply wounded person publicly recounts the terrible acts of hurt and destruction and then, somehow, reconciliation, can not be far off. Some say that by publicly revealing the terrible deeds of 1998-2003, then, these stories will highlight the "causes of violence and human rights abuses . . . and through its work to promote national unity and reconciliation". Reconciliation doesn't and can't happen that way!

 

May I suggest that TRC members view the Bougainville documentary film shot only a few years ago? It offers a vision of what happened to our Melanesian neighbor and how it responded to the terrible events of the ten year civil war on that almost destroyed that island. The film records the torturous and painful  journey of one militant's search for forgiveness for his killing of a Bougainville Chief who had a wife and several small children. One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the repentant killer's attempts to finally bring closure to that terrible chapter of his life and achieve reconciliation with the family whom he had so wretchedly hurt.

 

The film follows the militant's search for the murdered man's bones and once finding them in the shallow grave they were originally thrown into are then dug up. It shows how the militant and his friends cleaned each of the murdered man's bones, reverently wrapping them in special cloth and then carefully laying them in a small coffin. Only when this act of remorse had been fully accomplished did the militant dare approach the murdered Chief's widow and his children seeking forgiveness.

 

When the slain man's bones were presented to his wife and children, of course there was great weeping and tears of sorrow. But out of that heart wrenching moment, the beginnings of reconciliation were born and carried through. In Bougainville custom, this act of public sorrow called for a public forgiveness by the slain man's wife and children. The obligatory feast, exchange of shell monies and other acts became quite secondary to the whole exercise of public sorrow, act of repentance and final reconciliation.

 

Our own TRC will certainly be hearing victims heart rending stories of the many atrocities that took place during the Social Unrest years. It will  prove easy to point fingers at those who did the awful acts of murder, rape, arson, beatings, etc. But simply making public what has up to now been deep kept in the hearts of those who were terribly affected is simply not enough. As the documentary film referred to above makes clear, the vital and necessary next step must be a sign of remorse, sorrow and shame of what the killer has done.

 

Of course such painful signs of sorrow go far beyond what TRC can demand and for sure no monetary compensation, strings of shell money or public feasting can accomplish. True forgiveness asked for and forgiveness offered lies beyond legislation. Forgiveness, true forgiveness,  comes only from the heart. This then is why the nation will achieve long lasting reconciliation only when both parties walk across the forgiveness bridge to arrive at a meaningful reconciliation.