I was perusing through our blog when Holly's entry of "Senseless" caught my eye. It was a story of an unfortunate event ending in the mob killing of a brother to our friend. It caught my eye today because I was in a village listening to people give stories of difficult life events and how they persevered through them. An old woman said, "My daughter was hit by a car and killed. When I heard the news I ran to the roadside and found a large mob beating the driver who hit my daughter to death. I broke through the mob and stood in protection of him saying, 'don't kill this man over what he has done to my daughter.' The mob released him. Later, when my clan members demanded that some kind of payment be made, I said, 'let him go, I have forgiven him.' My clan said that if the very mother of this girl can forgive, then we should also try to forgive."
I road a motorcycle down a long, winding, red dust road to find the parent support group meeting today. I sat with my heart in my throat as they "testified" one after the other, as to painful life experiences they have endured and the miraculous ways they have shown resilience.
I'm writing this blog for the sake of the great hope that exists here. Too often we see the looming evil, and remember it, instead of recognizing and remembering the ubiquitous goodness and strength in humankind.
Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Hopeful Skeptic
by Holly
Cautious optimism characterizes the mood around the peace process for Northern Uganda. That is how I feel anyway. In general, I consider myself a naturally hopeful person, but I want it so desperately for this place that it hurts to allow hope too much liberty—the obstacles to any meaningful peace mean a high risk of disappointment.
We all follow carefully the daily developments in newspapers that unreliably print shadows of truth. We listen to Kony and Otti on the radio. They both apologized “for everything” on two different days within the past weeks on an Acholi broadcast. And I dared to be thrilled at such watershed statements. At the same time, their voices sounded hollow and the words echoed off of so many atrocities. If they were sorry for the abductions, truly, than why do they still refuse to release the women and children?
Otti has said his “wife and children” are part of him and they will all go home together. The women and children are a shield, a bargaining chip, they are still useful—and they are evidence that though they might be “sorry” they aren’t willing to make things right, not yet.
The irony of having men who have committed some of the worst crimes against humanity raising issues that are actually of legitimate concern and are real political grievances of people in the North is sometimes overwhelming and borders on the absurd. A cartoon in the paper depicted new seats being added to Parliament and Kony sat in one of them with a bloodied machete. A nameplate on the table in front of him read: “Minister of Child Rights.”
I read an editorial this morning (by Charles Onyango-Obbo in the Daily Monitor) He says, “If you ask those of us, who support dialogue to end suffering, but are opposed to these pacts with the devil, what creative alternative there is to that, we don’t have an intelligent answer. That’s the real tragedy of Uganda.” I join him, and many others in the fear that, “sleeping with the devil” could produce some very ugly children.
When I passed through Gulu on the way home from Kitgum on Friday I had a drink with the Public Relations Officer for the UPDF in Northern Uganda. I got the party line, or the military line, instead of the medias interpretation of it. He told me the meeting went well with Dominic Ongwen, (one of the ICC indicted) he said Kony was lying when he said they’d been shot at after the cease-fire by the UPDF. He told me about the one abduction that has taken place since the cease-fire. I asked him if he was hopeful about peace. “Honestly,” he said, “It’s hard to tell, I say it’s still a fifty/fifty chance.” I’ve talked with him before—it’s his job to put the best foot of the military forward, and he does it well. So, I was disheartened by his prediction, if he says fifty/fifty, I’m guessing the UPDF is thinking and planning for thirty / seventy—or worse.
Still, hope finds ways of asserting itself. While we were in Kitgum there were hundreds of rebels walking, sitting under mango trees, waiting for others to join them and then continuing. Presumably they were going to the assembly points. They weren’t hostile. They weren’t causing trouble. They were “friendly.” I don’t know whether to let myself get excited or not. It is so delicate, fragile, and precarious. There are so many variables and so many unknowns.
Right now, Angelina, the Chairperson for CPA is moving with a team of others on a National Reconciliation team. The team is meeting with leaders all over the country and while they discuss and reconcile with each other they are gathering consensus around the messages they want to send to the government, the UPDF, and the LRA and to ordinary people in Uganda. She consulted me just before she left on the most recent leg of her journey to Bunyoro. We discussed the dangers of “unconditional forgiveness,” that can encourage impunity and conceal the truth. We discussed the need to convince the ICC that the crimes which have been committed against humanity—not only the people of Uganda--could somehow be redressed in a local context, in the interests of peace, through Roco Wot and Mato Oput. Angelina is admirably reckless with her optimism. While it strengthens my heart, my mind finds some safety in skepticism that guards me against the disappointment that may come.
Cautious optimism characterizes the mood around the peace process for Northern Uganda. That is how I feel anyway. In general, I consider myself a naturally hopeful person, but I want it so desperately for this place that it hurts to allow hope too much liberty—the obstacles to any meaningful peace mean a high risk of disappointment.
We all follow carefully the daily developments in newspapers that unreliably print shadows of truth. We listen to Kony and Otti on the radio. They both apologized “for everything” on two different days within the past weeks on an Acholi broadcast. And I dared to be thrilled at such watershed statements. At the same time, their voices sounded hollow and the words echoed off of so many atrocities. If they were sorry for the abductions, truly, than why do they still refuse to release the women and children?
Otti has said his “wife and children” are part of him and they will all go home together. The women and children are a shield, a bargaining chip, they are still useful—and they are evidence that though they might be “sorry” they aren’t willing to make things right, not yet.
The irony of having men who have committed some of the worst crimes against humanity raising issues that are actually of legitimate concern and are real political grievances of people in the North is sometimes overwhelming and borders on the absurd. A cartoon in the paper depicted new seats being added to Parliament and Kony sat in one of them with a bloodied machete. A nameplate on the table in front of him read: “Minister of Child Rights.”
I read an editorial this morning (by Charles Onyango-Obbo in the Daily Monitor) He says, “If you ask those of us, who support dialogue to end suffering, but are opposed to these pacts with the devil, what creative alternative there is to that, we don’t have an intelligent answer. That’s the real tragedy of Uganda.” I join him, and many others in the fear that, “sleeping with the devil” could produce some very ugly children.
When I passed through Gulu on the way home from Kitgum on Friday I had a drink with the Public Relations Officer for the UPDF in Northern Uganda. I got the party line, or the military line, instead of the medias interpretation of it. He told me the meeting went well with Dominic Ongwen, (one of the ICC indicted) he said Kony was lying when he said they’d been shot at after the cease-fire by the UPDF. He told me about the one abduction that has taken place since the cease-fire. I asked him if he was hopeful about peace. “Honestly,” he said, “It’s hard to tell, I say it’s still a fifty/fifty chance.” I’ve talked with him before—it’s his job to put the best foot of the military forward, and he does it well. So, I was disheartened by his prediction, if he says fifty/fifty, I’m guessing the UPDF is thinking and planning for thirty / seventy—or worse.
Still, hope finds ways of asserting itself. While we were in Kitgum there were hundreds of rebels walking, sitting under mango trees, waiting for others to join them and then continuing. Presumably they were going to the assembly points. They weren’t hostile. They weren’t causing trouble. They were “friendly.” I don’t know whether to let myself get excited or not. It is so delicate, fragile, and precarious. There are so many variables and so many unknowns.
Right now, Angelina, the Chairperson for CPA is moving with a team of others on a National Reconciliation team. The team is meeting with leaders all over the country and while they discuss and reconcile with each other they are gathering consensus around the messages they want to send to the government, the UPDF, and the LRA and to ordinary people in Uganda. She consulted me just before she left on the most recent leg of her journey to Bunyoro. We discussed the dangers of “unconditional forgiveness,” that can encourage impunity and conceal the truth. We discussed the need to convince the ICC that the crimes which have been committed against humanity—not only the people of Uganda--could somehow be redressed in a local context, in the interests of peace, through Roco Wot and Mato Oput. Angelina is admirably reckless with her optimism. While it strengthens my heart, my mind finds some safety in skepticism that guards me against the disappointment that may come.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Betrayal and Reconciliation
Over the past two months, Holly and I have had 5 break-ins. One of which left us feeling very vulnerable with the message of “You Must Die” written on our wall outside. Fortunately, Josh was staying with us and heard the thieves in our attic and was able to scare them away.
The mastermind behind all of these incidences turned out to be our very good friend and person responsible to watching our house when we’re away. For nine months we had developed a close relationship with him and considered him a trusted friend. The most recent break in was on the day that Holly’s sister Tina arrived. We came home to notice that some of the bricks above our window were a slightly different color of blue. I also noticed that some plaster on the wall was broken and dust remained on the chair below. Someone had removed bricks, repainted them, and cemented them back in place. I went to the back of the house where I found freshly washed clothes. However, on one piece of our friend’s clothing I found a spot of blue paint. My stomach dropped, I wanted to cry. How could our friend have done this? Later that night he called us and confessed what he had been doing, and wanted a chance to make things right between us. The Lango words for reconciliation are “Roco Wat” which means being in “right relationship”.
Although angry, hurt, and a bit fearful, we tried our best to put into practice what we teach; reconciliation. We extended grace toward our friend and forgave him. Holly went to the Scriptures and read Matthew chapter five. Toward the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he talks about turning your other check, not resisting your enemies; that if you cloak is stolen, also offer your tunic, that if forced to walk a mile, walk two. We wanted to put these words into practice.
When one considers the tremendous injustices that our friend faces, being born into an incredibly poor family, having been abducted and forced to kill, Holly and I wanted to be a part of giving him “a way out”, and we decided to pay for one year of his education at an agricultural school. We have come to love our friend, and see a wonderful heart in him. It seems as if this is a critical time in his life where he could continue to make bad decisions, or turn his life around and live out of his talents and loveliness.
I know that forgiving him and even seemingly rewarding him may sound strange. But our faith doesn’t ask us to judge our enemies, it asks us to love and forgive them, over and over.
The mastermind behind all of these incidences turned out to be our very good friend and person responsible to watching our house when we’re away. For nine months we had developed a close relationship with him and considered him a trusted friend. The most recent break in was on the day that Holly’s sister Tina arrived. We came home to notice that some of the bricks above our window were a slightly different color of blue. I also noticed that some plaster on the wall was broken and dust remained on the chair below. Someone had removed bricks, repainted them, and cemented them back in place. I went to the back of the house where I found freshly washed clothes. However, on one piece of our friend’s clothing I found a spot of blue paint. My stomach dropped, I wanted to cry. How could our friend have done this? Later that night he called us and confessed what he had been doing, and wanted a chance to make things right between us. The Lango words for reconciliation are “Roco Wat” which means being in “right relationship”.
Although angry, hurt, and a bit fearful, we tried our best to put into practice what we teach; reconciliation. We extended grace toward our friend and forgave him. Holly went to the Scriptures and read Matthew chapter five. Toward the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he talks about turning your other check, not resisting your enemies; that if you cloak is stolen, also offer your tunic, that if forced to walk a mile, walk two. We wanted to put these words into practice.
When one considers the tremendous injustices that our friend faces, being born into an incredibly poor family, having been abducted and forced to kill, Holly and I wanted to be a part of giving him “a way out”, and we decided to pay for one year of his education at an agricultural school. We have come to love our friend, and see a wonderful heart in him. It seems as if this is a critical time in his life where he could continue to make bad decisions, or turn his life around and live out of his talents and loveliness.
I know that forgiving him and even seemingly rewarding him may sound strange. But our faith doesn’t ask us to judge our enemies, it asks us to love and forgive them, over and over.
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