To choose forgiveness is outrageous - as is the finest imagination. Forgiveness flies beyond logical reaction. It's a kind of reckoning; a robust response to bleeding. It runs a course on lines far deeper than conventional, worldly mores. Its path is jagged. The journey to it enfolds the torture of self-purification, even as it beckons towards the light.
In Australia the chasm between Aboriginal peoples and colonisers has yet to be broached. In South Africa, by contrast, the political has become uniquely personal. Forgiveness is the alchemy that has transformed South Africa from a time bomb to a byword for new hope. From one of the century's bleakest conflicts, the ambition to forgive is reborn of both secular and spiritual parents. It's the fruit of insight wrenched from the pain of a leadership that escaped brutality by refusing to be brutalised. When I visited South Africa I had the chance to discuss these issues with Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other leading figures.
On a crisp blue morning we sailed across an azure harbour from Cape Town to Robben Island, the world's most infamous high-security prison. Here a regime was engineered around the peculiar obsessions of apartheid. Conditions were devised to break the spirits of the strongest political prisoners. I had read stories of men buried up to their necks in hot sand while warders urinated on their heads; of prisoners sent to break stone in the lime quarry where the glare caused many to go blind.
Lionel Davis, a 'coloured' man imprisoned on Robben Island between 1964 and
1978, welcomed us through the razor wire and watchtowers. His one-time neighbours
now sound like a role call of South Africa's new aristocracy -? Mbeki, Sisulu,
Kathrada, Mandela and many more. The degradation of prison life followed the
logic of apartheid. 'They wanted to divide us,' Lionel said. 'Coloureds and
Indians were given a quarter loaf of bread with margarine, blacks were not
given bread. Blacks were forced to wear shorts, continuing the idea that an
adult black male was a boy, while we wore long trousers. Beatings were common;
in the bitter winters we spent years sleeping with just a mat on the bare
floor.'
Today Davis remembers Robben Island less as a place of oppression, than the
crucible of its transformation. Mandela remarked later: 'The physical assaults
were not the most painful experience, it was the psychological torture that
we suffered. But jail had its advantages. In jail you could stand away from
yourself and look at your record and be able to say; "If I get another
chance, this is the role that I am going to play".'
Lionel glanced with distant affection at his former home. 'We didn't call
it a prison, we called it "the university" because we turned it
into one. We educated ourselves, each other and gradually even some of the
wardens.' Lionel took his cell and its isolation as the spur for an inner
journey. Prison became a melting pot from which a new vision emerged ?as if
the island's intense confrontation fired a process of purification.
'I wasn't born with prejudices,' Lionel said. 'When I was caned by police
after a misunderstanding with a white woman I became even more anti-white.
Having to live through apartheid I saw the wrongs around me and laid it at
their door. But by becoming politically conscious and respecting others' views
here in prison, we dismantled our prejudices. Now I'm not "anti"
anything when it comes to people.' Lionel's choice to forgive his captors
rather than to burn with righteous anger is precious enough in individual
experience; how much rarer in political life where appeals to fear and hatred
rather than forgiveness are the common currency. The process of reconciliation
that has been instituted in the new South Africa has many critics. How has
the attempt fared, and what kind of an example does it offer to the world?
In attempting to understand the possibilities for forgiveness in situations
of bitter political conflict, I had the chance to learn from the contrasting
situations in Australia and New Zealand. In Melbourne the Aboriginal Reconciliation
Convention was billed as a step towards reconciliation at a tense juncture
in race relations, but many Aboriginal leaders said they were being asked
to compromise for the sake of 'progress'. They felt that to 'swallow their
pain' and remain silent in the face of continuing provocation would be a kind
of collective betrayal.
The Prime Minister John Howard arrived at the convention with a warning: the
government intended to advance with curbs on Aboriginal claims. When he rose
to give his main address much of the audience stood, too. Then many quietly
turned their backs. It was an extraordinary moment. The Premier, clearly insulted,
said that if they would not do business with him they would face a far more
hostile future in the form of the extremist White Australia parties. Clearly
the early steps towards reconciliation have yet to be taken.
The aspiration of the meeting was laudable, but dialogue was impossible. Many
Aboriginal people felt they were merely dealing with the ingrained hatreds
that had rationalised their dispossession for generations. Since so little
has been done to acknowledge the genocidal effects of colonial policy, many
feel they must at least bear witness to it. The Premier asked how was he personally
or white Australia in general to be held responsible for the actions of previous
generations?
In New Zealand the recognition of diverse histories is more advanced. Here
the British signed their one treaty with an indigenous people. When the Treaty
of Waitangi was drawn up over 150 years ago many Maoris felt it conceded too
much but the framework it established is proving useful today. In the revival
of Maori consciousness, this neglected treaty has become a crucial reference
point, like an impromptu constitution.
As more Maoris asserted the injustice of their losses, a tribunal was set
up to hear how the Treaty of Waitangi has been broken. At Tribunal hearings
in the Kaipara district, the good-humoured approach of either side was remarkable.
In each community there was a shared understanding that both Maori and Europeans
seek to settle the historical score. Russell Kemp, a Maori leader in Kaipara,
set the tone: 'We don't seek any kind of triumph here. It's justice, justice
is all we ask for'.
Having a legal framework like a treaty within which disputes can be resolved
is a great advance on the Australian impasse. But a legal solution can only
go so far. As Martin Luther-King famously remarked: 'We can't legislate to
make you love me -? only to stop you lynching me'.
The Buddhist ideal of forgiveness suggests a truer path to reconciliation.
For Buddhism, coming to terms with abuse, violence and hatred is quite separate
from seeking justice, or at least is in no way conditional on it. The Dhammapada
says:
'He abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me' -? in those who
harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.
'He abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me' -? in those who
do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease. Not at any time are enmities
appeased here through enmity but they are appeased through non-enmity. This
is the eternal law.'
To feel the full effects of enmity is (for most of us) an essential phase,
but to continue to 'harbour such thoughts' and respond with hatred is to suffer
a loss of our shared humanity. But how can the victims of various kinds of
hatred speak out effectively without becoming consumed by it?
How remarkable that the figures who have addressed this most effectively emerge
where bloodshed had looked most likely. In South Africa, Mandela, Tutu and
others have come to understand that both oppressor and oppressed are dehumanised
by the experience. Mandela said: 'I am often asked how it is that I emerged
from prison without bitterness. The question is intended as a compliment.
Nevertheless, millions of South Africa's people spent an even longer time
in the prison of apartheid.
'Some were imprisoned by the apartheid laws in a condition of homelessness
and near despair. Others were imprisoned in the racism of the mind. These
are places where some still languish. In such circumstances, personal bitterness
is irrelevant. It is a luxury that we, as individuals and as a country, simply
cannot afford ?- any more than we can afford to listen to pleading from the
privileged. Instead we must insist with quiet resolve on a firm policy of
undoing the effects of the past.'
Back on Robben Island it was clear that something extraordinary had happened. After years in jail, Davis has moved back to the island with his (white) wife Barbara and their son Leon. A small community of former prisoners and prison wardens have returned to help run the prison -? now fast becoming a top tourist attraction. In their willingness to live together, they are achieving an elegant triumph over the past.
Many political prisoners found a way out of the cycle of hatred by turning
their prison cells into monastic ones. 'I wanted South Africa to see that
I loved even my enemies while I hated the system that turned us against one
another,' said Mandela. Below the agitation for rights by Mandela and Tutu
lay an understanding that to move through the abyss they had to lead by offering
more of themselves. They came to see forgiveness as a guiding force. With
it they imagined what would have been unthinkable for many of their supporters.
The South African democratic miracle was thus brokered on a bold new experiment.
The policy which emerged was: to forgive and not forget. Unlike in Australia,
the past would be honoured and in so doing a way to move on personally and
politically could be opened. 'If it's retributive justice you want,' Tutu
insisted, 'then we've all had it'.
Under the new dispensation, perpetrators of crimes committed under apartheid
could apply for amnesty from an independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(trc). It was both a practical and ethical way out, offering a future for
perpetrators and a forum for victims. 'Without this, there would have been
no negotiated settlement; the whole country would have gone up in flames,'
Tutu said. I remember seeing the passions in Natal, Cape Town and Johannesburg
around the first free election in 1994. Then violence subsided and there was
a sudden moment of unique optimism. Incredibly, the will to make this formula
work seemed to capture the collective imagination.
When we first met, Desmond Tutu ('The Arch', as he's affectionately called)
started with a prayer. Then the passion. 'With no amnesty provision, we would
not be sitting here;? the security forces just wouldn't have allowed it. Yet
they needed us. They may have military power but some realised, too, that
what they maintained was immoral, unjust, evil.'
All South Africans had to feel confident that the new government would weigh
justice with reconciliation and reject a culture of revenge. 'After World
War II there were clear victors and losers. But Nuremberg was seen as the
imposition of victor justice. We learnt from Chile, Argen-tina and Germany.
We weren't prepared to indulge in collective amnesia of our horrendous past
and finally we agreed on amnesty not amnesia.'
For many, the trc hearings across the country have been significant. An agony
of questions haunting bereaved families could at last begin to be unravelled.
'Hearings offer a chance for those who were despised to tell their story.'
Tutu said. 'Some carried a 20- or 30-year burden of anguish and this process
helps to rehabilitate their civic and human dignity -? sometimes just to know
they can bury a disappeared child.'
But the trc has critics. Many victims still seek justice. Many perpetrators
continue to enjoy the fruits of office. Only those who fear imminent prosecution
seem bothered to make an amnesty application, and as long as they can establish
a political motive and show they acted under instruction, they can escape
punishment. Can victims truly forgive when the perpetrators so rarely show
remorse or, like former state president PW Botha, deny knowledge of apartheid's
excesses?
These remain crucial questions for people like Nkosinathi Biko, son of Steve
Biko, the Black Consciousness leader murdered in police custody in 1977. His
family appealed against the establishment of South Africa's trc, arguing that
it would deny justice to bereaved families. At the amnesty application of
Gideon Niewoudt (one of the police officers involved in the beatings that
resulted in his father's death) Nkosinathi Biko was a dignified figure amid
the heightened emotions around him. 'The question of amnesty is sensitive
because it is immediate. This man may be offered amnesty within a few weeks.
Perhaps a month later I may walk past him. I might not have come to terms
with the loss that he has put me through, so there's a painful gap between
the two things.'
In that gap Biko maintained his clarity without surrendering to bitterness.
He saw it as 'our attempt to build the spiritual foundation of what needs
to happen to remake this society'. But on this day of testimony, it hurt.
'The loss is almost complete. Nothing can bring my father or any of them back.
His death stole my youth and forced me to grow up faster than I should have;
but it was meaningful ultimately and is a source of healing in many respects.
This gives meaning to his sacrifice.'
Together we sat through the kind of testimony that makes one wonder what the
human form is capable of. A reedy voice in the thick silence, Niewoudt spoke
with a neutral coolness of how he applied his expertise in refining the assaults
on Steve Biko. How would I respond to hearing about such an assault on my
own father? Nkosinathi said, 'I like to believe that my sense of healing is
reasonably removed from the outcome of the hearings'. It's just as well. The
trc, in its appeal for forgiveness, bypasses demands for justice. In so doing
it has been severely criticised as providing an escape-route for murderers
and is lambasted in the Afrikaner press for being pro-anc.
George Bizos, counsel for the Biko family, focused on the contradictions in
Niewoudt's testimony. His story had altered significantly since the 1977 inquest
that exonerated him and all others implicated in Biko's death. At no point
did he look at Bizos or any of the Biko family. His answers seemed tailored
to fit the criteria for granting amnesty but his eyes appeared lifeless and
impenetrable. Niewoudt insisted on his political motives throughout the assaults.
Bizos: 'What political objective did you have to achieve by hitting Mr Biko
with a hosepipe on the back?' Niewoudt: 'I acted in the interests of the State'.
Nkosinathi Biko looked closely at Niewoudt. 'I sit there going through a roller-coaster of emotions but his face is largely expressionless; he's largely indifferent to pain. Perhaps even 20 years later he doesn't realise the level of pain he may have caused.'
The trc cannot insist on apologies. To do so would throw up further problems.
Those who show remorse may be accused of faking it. Those who don't appear
callous. The key, as many other bereaved families emphasised,
is to understand that true forgiveness is unconditional. For Nkosinathi Biko
there are days when it still rankles. 'We have not said that they must hang,
as many in other conflicts have. We're not even talking about that here. But
I have seen nothing of the spirit of reconciliation from Afrikaners who come
for amnesty to the trc. Many don't show the gestures that may help them come
to peace with themselves.'
So far the unvengeful nature of many of those persecuted in South Africa has been extraordinary. A significant proportion of the black majority seems to be moving towards forgiveness despite the refusal of many former opponents to acknowledge their crimes. No one I have spoken to said that they can forget, but forgiveness -? that's an inspiring possibility. Laughing excitedly, Tutu said: 'Forgiveness is not abstract or woolly. It comes when we recognise our relatedness, what we call ubuntu. It's warm and welcoming and means "I am because you are".'
The transformation now playing out is both personal and political. Having won the argument for reform, many South Africans are advancing on something much more radical: leading by forgiveness. For those who choose it the struggle is not always neatly resolved. It is a continuing process of opening the heart; it's often difficult and painful but it offers a full release from suffering. The government has blessed a way forward that reaches far beyond a secular settling of scores.
It is a unique development in a century marked by entrenched hatreds. For those who feel able to follow their example, the likes of Tutu and Mandela have forged more than a path out of hell. They emphasise that it's within everyone's power to forgive. In so doing they offer a supreme challenge; to understand the effects of our actions and transform conflict by transforming ourselves.
For decades the South African resistance dreamt of justice as well as freedom.
By seeing the limits of justice, they offer the world a new model and an opportunity
in victory that few imagined they would be asked to consider: in the heat
of success to forgo revenge and forgive.
It is an outrageous move borne of a remarkable imagination. Ultimately it
means meeting hatred with love. 'That's fine for them. Not everyone can be
a Tutu or a Mandela,' I was sometimes told, but if a man who has suffered
as much as Mandela refuses to become embittered, how much more easily should
we find it within our hearts to imagine peace in our own communities, families
and nations?
Most of us find it hard to forgive because it forces us beyond our ordinary
sense of ourselves and even the comfort of familiar hurt. What degree of pain
and which qualities will it take to work the alchemy of forgiveness in our
own lives? True forgiveness is a path to freedom. How ready are we to take
it?