Last week we Americans experienced a national, collective convulsion of desperation and pain and feeling victimized and feeling justified, only that collective experience tore us more apart than bringing us together. (see earlier post below) Those who supported the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh won, though you'd hardly know that as the narrative continues to emphasize a sense of injustice. Those who opposed his nomination feel disenfranchised, as if their concerns did not matter. The false dichotomy between due process (innocent until proven guilty) and #metoo (listening to survivors of sexual harassment and abuse) continues to be assumed and perpetrated.
So, as an American living in Africa 25 years, I offer a glimpse of the way this continent has shone in matters of truth and reconciliation. Two of the places on this continent which have seen some of the most horrific violence and sorrow in my lifetime are South Africa and Rwanda. In both, the survival of one group was posed as threatened by the presence of another, and the solution was to fight to the death over presumed limited resources. Years of injustice and smoldering imprisonment, death, suffocating poverty, in one; weeks of all-out slaughter in the other. How to recover? So many acts of hate carried out on such a large scale by so many average people overwhelmed the criminal justice capacity. So South Africa set up their "Truth and Reconciliation Commissions", and Rwanda set up their "Gacaca Courts" (justice amongst the grass). Neither were perfect, but both were attempts to allow for restoration in the process of justice, and not just retribution. Both took as fundamental the need for the community to be the basis of justice, the importance of all sides being able to tell their story and be heard, the opportunity for forgiveness, and for some form of reparation.
In America in 2018, we are floundering for ways to look at the truth about our slave-holding racial-injustice past (and present) and our objectifying exploitative approach to sexuality, without crumbling into a litigious, court-clogged, angry mass. I don't know how Dr. Ford feels now, but certainly many of the #metoo stories seem to have been told in a sense of relief that one's experience can be uncovered, heard, with an attempt to understand. If the stakes were lower, perhaps Judge Kavanaugh could have listened and even if he truly believed himself to be innocent of this particular night's events, he might have at least acknowledged her pain and the way his high school and college behavior could have hurt several women. In South Africa and Rwanda, some cases still were so grievous as to require criminal prosecution, and that is needed in America too. But we have such a vast backlog of sexism and racism that we need some fresh ideas.
So . . . let's tell stories. Truth. That can come in personal narrative, or fiction, or art. And let's react to them with compassion, questions, empathy, repentance. Africans, I find, are not as worried about punishing as they are about holding together the fabric of community. The idea is not so much to identify, isolate, shame or imprison a particular person who did wrong as much as it is to restore relationships.
So, as an American living in Africa 25 years, I offer a glimpse of the way this continent has shone in matters of truth and reconciliation. Two of the places on this continent which have seen some of the most horrific violence and sorrow in my lifetime are South Africa and Rwanda. In both, the survival of one group was posed as threatened by the presence of another, and the solution was to fight to the death over presumed limited resources. Years of injustice and smoldering imprisonment, death, suffocating poverty, in one; weeks of all-out slaughter in the other. How to recover? So many acts of hate carried out on such a large scale by so many average people overwhelmed the criminal justice capacity. So South Africa set up their "Truth and Reconciliation Commissions", and Rwanda set up their "Gacaca Courts" (justice amongst the grass). Neither were perfect, but both were attempts to allow for restoration in the process of justice, and not just retribution. Both took as fundamental the need for the community to be the basis of justice, the importance of all sides being able to tell their story and be heard, the opportunity for forgiveness, and for some form of reparation.
In America in 2018, we are floundering for ways to look at the truth about our slave-holding racial-injustice past (and present) and our objectifying exploitative approach to sexuality, without crumbling into a litigious, court-clogged, angry mass. I don't know how Dr. Ford feels now, but certainly many of the #metoo stories seem to have been told in a sense of relief that one's experience can be uncovered, heard, with an attempt to understand. If the stakes were lower, perhaps Judge Kavanaugh could have listened and even if he truly believed himself to be innocent of this particular night's events, he might have at least acknowledged her pain and the way his high school and college behavior could have hurt several women. In South Africa and Rwanda, some cases still were so grievous as to require criminal prosecution, and that is needed in America too. But we have such a vast backlog of sexism and racism that we need some fresh ideas.
So . . . let's tell stories. Truth. That can come in personal narrative, or fiction, or art. And let's react to them with compassion, questions, empathy, repentance. Africans, I find, are not as worried about punishing as they are about holding together the fabric of community. The idea is not so much to identify, isolate, shame or imprison a particular person who did wrong as much as it is to restore relationships.
Our friend Greg posted a photo of this painting this week, and I found it powerful, and keep thinking about it. The artist is Titus Kaphar, and he just received a MacArthur Fellowship to support his work. I think it captures the essence of getting behind the facade to the complexity of racial and sexual injustice that we would rather paint over and not acknowledge, to the layers of reality upon which our stories are built. Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man who did much good; he was not a perfect man who did all good.
Happy Columbus Day? Indigenous People's day? Ugandan Independence Day? Moi Day? It's a big week in October as many countries celebrate their stories. One group's tale of salvation is another group's tale of loss, and both are true. We can have complicated, deeply layered stories that require listening to one another. Let's stop letting ourselves be divided into camps that must choose sides, let's learn to embrace a bit of discordance. Let's hold onto the sinner-sufferer-saint mix that characterizes us all (thanks Serge for that language) and not turn each other into flat caricatures of heroes and victims.
One of the best ways to raise kids who can think this way? Good literature, stories from diverse points of view, getting behind the eyes of someone else. So while you're at it, remember to go to the library or buy a good book this month . . . that's partly a plug, but it's actually true!
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