Belfast Telegraph
5 September 2009
WHY WE MUST FORGIVE THOSE WHO HURT US
By Religion Correspondent Alf McCreary
The ceremony in Poland this week to mark the outbreak of the Second World War was memorable, in that former enemies appeared to be reconciled.
However, there was an element of the “blame game”, with the Polish President Lech Kaczynski claiming that Poland had been “stabbed in the back” by “Bolshevik Russia.” Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, said that “it was time to move on” and that history “was complex and not painted just one colour.”
This raking the past, so well- described by the late Lord Fitt as “whataboutery”, is familiar to all of us in Northern Ireland. Even forty years after the start of the Troubles we still have to endure “rioting for rioting’s sake,” as happened this week.
It seems difficult for people on all sides to confront their own demons from the past. Recently the Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Dromore Harold Miller, who generates more thought-provoking headlines than most of his clerical colleagues, called on Protestants to examine their own consciences and ask if they too had contributed to the Troubles. He made it clear, however, that whatever people had done, or not done, there was no excuse for terrorism.
This was a reasonable question, but it was met with noticeable hostility in some quarters, and the feisty Church of Ireland Gazette, which remains a breath of fresh air in this sometimes dusty Church, printed a number of letters challenging as well as supporting the Bishop.
The Gazette, in a follow-up editorial, stated clearly that “Protestants still need to examine themselves over bigotry and rank sectarianism. So does everyone in Northern Ireland.”
Quite so, but this is not as easy as it might seem. The furore which was caused earlier this year by the Eames-Bradley report of the “Consultative Group On The Past” “had many good suggestions, but it was virtually torpedoed just above the waterline by a recommendation that there should be a £12,000 “recognition payment” to all the families of the victims of violence.
Lord Eames has admitted that this may have been a mistake, though Dennis Bradley, surprisingly, is still in favour of such a payment. The Eames-Bradley document is still listing badly in a choppy sea, and it needs a political lifeboat very quickly.
The challenge remains for all of us. How do you actually forgive, if not quite forget, the injuries of the past? Over the summer I have been looking at a couple of highly-interesting books which might provide us with a clue.
Brian Lennon, a Jesuit who has worked in some of the Northern flashpoint areas, argues in his book So You Can’t Forgive? that you or I might not be as forgiving as Senator Gordon Wilson who said that he bore “ no ill-will” to his daughter’s killers.
However, as Lennon points out, we are not all a Gordon Wilson, but he adds “A story like his, if heard properly, can be an encouragement...if he went the road of forgiving, who knows what we might be able to do in time-if we want to.”
Another host of useful insights into forgiveness are contained in Michael Henderson’s timely book No Enemy To Conquer. This wide-ranging publication focuses on forgiveness in a global context, but there is refreshingly hard-headed assessment of Northern Ireland.
Henderson points out that the “profound changes” here have not been achieved principally through forgiveness or repentance, but rather through a combination of some hard-liners softening their views, economic packages and development, and also persistence by the American, British and Irish Governments.
He also warns that the political advances need to be underpinned by those who can build relationships and trust, in order to help heal the deep bitterness that remains.
All of this is a tall order, but the challenge has to be faced by you and me and not just by “somebody else”. There are a few people whom I still find hard to forgive, even though forgiveness would free me from that burden. On the other hand if forgiveness was easy, we would all be doing it. Nevertheless, we must keep trying. Otherwise, our “whataboutery” will come back to haunt us again.
(“So You Can’t Forgive” by Brian Lennon SJ is published by the Columba Press; Michael Henderson’s book “No Enemy To Conquer” is published by Baylor University Press.)
