Friday, October 22, 2010

Is there another side to the story?

I recently read a newspaper article about Steven Slater, the Jet Blue employee who quit his steward job in a rather dramatic fashion. After an encounter with an over-eager passenger getting luggage from an overhead bin he uttered a ‘profanity laced tirade’ into the speaker system, activated the slide, grabbed a beer and slid down the tarmac to freedom. What I found fascinating about the story was the initial public reaction and then the new details that emerged.

First, Steven was the frustrated employee who got a gash on his head by an over head compartment when he tried to stop a rude passenger from opening it before it was safe to do so.

Then he was a hero who gave the bad passenger a piece of his mind after her actions had cut his forehead open. This was the part that got the most attention in the press as people cheered his antics and praised him for being so dramatic and gutsy.

Then slowly another story found it’s way in the less visible places in our newspapers. Steven already had a gash on his head when he started the trip and had been snippy to a number of customers throughout the trip. What emerged out of that was that Steven seemed to be carrying some ‘baggage’ onto the plane from something that had happened prior to his shift.

Who knows the whole story. There inevitably is a lot more. Had Steven planned his dramatic exit earlier? What was going on in his life that he had an open gash on his head? What was going on for the woman who opened the overhead bin earlier than what was safe?

What this story does point to is a number of aspects of human nature and conflict.

First, we want a neat world in which there are heroes to praise (the hard working employee who stands up for himself), and villains to hate (the rude obnoxious passenger, and the employer who doesn’t protect employees). Complicating the picture by having heroes also be villains, and villains be struggling human beings just isn’t all that compelling, and gets buried inside the newspaper rather than the front page.

Second, we want to justify bad behaviour as a response to the bad behaviour of others. We are 100% responsible for our actions and our reactions. This is when it is difficult to live our RJ principles.

How would the world change if we believed there were no heroes and villains, that there was always two sides to every story and that bad behaviour is never justified?

by: Jan Schmidt

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Invitational Forgiveness

What does it mean to let go, to deliberately put an injury in the past and relinquish all sense of grievance and injury? We may think immediately of the concept of forgiveness but this concept is all to often so loaded with religious baggage that it quickly becomes an another difficult burden rather than a potential for release. The last thing we want to hear when suffering under the real or imagined injuries done to us is that we are somehow obligated to forgive and just let it go. Yet in the midst of a world where imperfect people constantly rub up against each other in various imperfect ways, there has to be some way of changing our feelings and attitudes toward those who wrong us so that we can all continue to live together.

One of the best recent non-religious definitions of forgiveness comes from the writings of Trudy Govier, a philosopher and a professor at the University of Lethbridge. In her 2006 book, Taking Wrongs Seriously: Acknowledgment, Reconciliation and the Politics of Sustainable Peace, Govier challenges some commonly accepted stereotypes of forgiveness and presents a form of forgiveness that can be very inspirational for the work of restorative justice.

Govier defines forgiveness as bilateral, unilateral or invitational. Bilateral forgiveness is the form of forgiveness that comes to mind most readily. The wrongdoer renders an apology with a plea for forgiveness, the appropriate remorse is shown and on this basis forgiveness is offered. But what if the wrongdoer refuses to acknowledge the wrong or what if the specific wrongdoer is unknown and can never show the appropriate remorse? Does this mean that forgiveness and letting go can never happen? As Govier notes, forgiveness that is dependent on the attitudes and actions of the wrongdoer may never provide the kind of release and closure the victim needs.

On the other hand, forgiveness can be solely an act of self-repair and self-healing, something that bears no relationship to whatever the wrongdoer may or may not do. This is what Govier defines as unilateral forgiveness. This may be a useful therapeutic tool but does nothing to restore relationships and reconcile hurting people to each other.

Another option is what Govier terms as invitational forgiveness. This can be done unilaterally and does not depend on the actions or words of the wrongdoer, but it is done in such a way that it invites a response. Instead of the traditional path from acknowledgment to apology to forgiveness to reconciliation, an invitational forgiveness may move in the other direction from the offer of forgiveness toward a greater acknowledgment of their actions by the wrongdoer(s). Govier points to Nelson Mandela’s forgiveness of South African white society as one of the best known examples of this type of forgiveness. By his actions and words, Mandela invited South Africans to engage in a deeper reflection and acknowledgment of the harms of apartheid society. The offer of forgiveness was given not just as a precious gift but as a challenge.

How can this idea of invitational forgiveness shape the practice and the study of restorative justice? How do we offer forgiveness and encourage forgiveness in a way that creates space for deeper reflection and acknowledgment by those who hear it?

Friday, October 8, 2010

Reflecting on forgiveness

It always seems such a dignified event to attend the Sol Kanee Lectures on Peace and Justice at the University of Manitoba sponsored by the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice at St. Paul’s College.

This time the visiting guest from South Africa, Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, presented an hour-long lecture on Narratives of Dialogue and Healing: Stories of remorse and forgiveness in the aftermath of mass trauma and violence.

Gobodo-Madikizela describes herself as an engaged global citizen. She served on the Human Rights Violation Committee of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as coordinator of public hearings in the Western Cape. She facilitates private encounters between perpetrators of gross human rights violations and their victims. From this experience she focuses her research on the role of forgiveness in the aftermath of mass trauma and violence. Her credentials are impressive; her work already spans the globe.

At the very last minute a victim friend (and I am truly sorry to describe her that way because she is more of a survivor than victim) came along with me and two other colleagues.

After an amazing musical number entitled Lipstick and War by Norma Sibanda, Gobodo-Madikizela began her lecture by defining forgiveness. She challenged the thought that any atrocity could be considered unforgiveable. She encouraged us to open our moral imaginations to believe that when we can engage with the “other”, no matter who the “other” might be, there can be hope of reconciliation. She said that forgiveness needed to start with remorse. She was all about dialogue.

She was brilliant, her words and stories inspiring, easy to listen to. As Nelson Mandela has said, “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named goodness and forgiveness.”

Later my friend and I had a cup of decaffeinated coffee in my office to debrief. We closed the door. “What do you really think?” I asked her.

For my friend, forgiveness means survival. She has just learned over the summer that when she forgives she can breathe more easily. For her, to forgive has meant healing and a new lease on life.

We agree that theory is great for finding the right words, but the reality of it is that we not only need words, we need to survive. Our personal atrocities aren’t politically motivated; they are slightly different than the ones described earlier. So, as another good friend always reminds me, we need to make it more than theory. We need to apply this to our personal lives. We need the stories of others to challenge us to re-examine our own.

Neither of us have a hope of an apology or any show of remorse from the person who has murdered our love one. Can we still participate in forgiveness therapy? If not how do we survive?

I know Gobodo-Madikizela, who is all about dialogue, would have enjoyed the long and intense discussion behind closed doors as both of us defined again for ourselves how we will survive.

On a level of simple personal survival, understanding and forgiveness are crucial... whether in an intimate personal relationship or on a global level.Edward Albert

Wilma Derksen