So much pain – so much hope.

Together for 3 days we told and embodied the stories of the depth of human degradation and the heights of beauty, which characterise the human family.

We included Palestinian and Israeli; black and white South Africans; a Rwandese political exile, native, African and white US citizens, a Bosnian married to a Guatemalan; a former child soldier from Cambodia; a second generation survivor of the holocaust and a former member of the Hitler youth, an Eritrean Ethiopian; a cardiologist turned writer from Sarajevo, peace activists from both communities in Northern Ireland.

After the first two or three people had introduced themselves, said what compassion and social healing meant to them, and laid on the table a personal symbol of compassion, I felt it was enough to digest – but there were still three days to go.

Whilst we met and sought to encourage the healing of the world, the air was polluted with the sabre rattling and jingoism of the Bush administration as it seeks to dragoon even the most doubtful into war.

Under the umbrella of “Compassion and Social Healing” we came to the Boston Research Centre to reflect together on our experience of social healing. Judith Thompson brought us all together to be part of a form of participatory action research for her doctoral studies. It provided a unique opportunity for social healing practitioners and activists to “mine” wealth together and share wisdom, doubt and hope, which we have received from a hurting humanity.

About 25 of us came to the dialogue - many of us the survivors and carrying the marks of genocide and crimes against humanity. In varying way all of us had sought to transform our private pain into social healing. At the beginning we all introduced ourselves and were asked to share what it was in our own life’s journey which made this dialogue on compassion and social healing matter to us.

The deepest and most painful experiences came when groups of two shared from different contexts. Although both peace activists Yitzak Mendelsohn and Zoughbi Zoughbi brought the present pain and divide of the Israeli Palestinian conflict into the room. Whilst Yitzak suggested to Zoughbi that he had now become an oppressor, back home the Israeli army was busy destroying Yasser Arafat’s compound in revenge for the latest suicide bombing. With South African ears I could not help wondering if truth was in the middle or was there a terrible injustice at the root of the conflict. Even whilst individuals struggled to reconcile, could there be peace whilst Israel continued to occupy Palestinian territory.

Coming from Northern Ireland, Maureen Hetherington and Richard Moore who had been blinded as a schoolboy by the British army modelled the process of reconciliation between the Loyalist and Republican communities in Northern Ireland. It was clear that Richard lived life to the full and had no time for regrets or revenge.

The dialogue, which took place between Mary Rotschild, the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor and Gottfried Leich who had belonged to the Hitler youth was deeply poignant and full of wisdom for all. Mary said that she realised she could not change the history of what had happened but she could change her own relationship to that history. There was no reason for this generation to feel guilty about what a past generation had done but they could accept responsibility for creating something different and ensuring that the past is not repeated. I wanted to weep when Mary spoke of how both she and her mother wanted a mother but both got a child. “It is the same poison that kills you which can also heal you” The same principle as in inoculation.

Mary told us that when a German who had participated in the SS told her that he was sorry that it was a form of emotional restitution. The relationship between perpetrator and victim bridged the abyss of the death of six million people dead. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Mary told Gottfried that she believed he had compassion for her but lacked compassion for himself. She also conceded that she had within her an attitude of entitlement, which she did not like. There are many potholes to fall into for those of us who have been victimised as there are for the relatives of victims.

Undoubtedly we could have spent the whole weekend reflecting upon and deepening the learnings from the exchange between Gottfried and Mary.

Dumisa Ntsebeza and I formed a dyad to relate some aspects of our own life stories of imprisonment, torture and bombing in South Africa and to celebrate the triumphs and shortcomings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We spoke of the energy we seek to use for healing and rebuilding the nation rather than pursuing those who have hurt us and of this process, which to an unprecedented degree had enabled a society to confront a horrific past within the same generation. At the same time, the failure of the state so far to implement final reparations is jeopardising the moral integrity and credibility of the whole TRC process.

Ruth Yellow Hawk and Pat Clark helped us earth our dialogue within the experience and ongoing pain and racial discrimination suffered by Native and African Americans. Pat shared her experience as a member of Murder Victim Families Against the death penalty. Ruth told us of her heritage from diverse cultures including those of the First nations of the USA and how she has worked practically with notions of restorative justice.

Joseph Sebarenzi from Rwanda and Arn Chorn-Pond from Cambodia brought us face to face with the terrible reality of what genocide means to an individual survivor. These stories seared us as we listened to them. Both stories confronted us with how individuals can be both perpetrators and victims at the same time. Surely the one who kills another is a perpetrator no matter how young they are. Yet when a child is threatened with death if they don’t kill, their victimhood is prominently clear for all to see. Inevitably the journey towards healing and wholeness will be lifelong and some may never succeed to exorcise the demons.

Both Joseph and Arn told us of their own experiences of individuals who acted with kindness and compassion during an evil time. It was appropriate that we also heard from Svetlana Broz from the former Yugoslavia who stopped caring for the physical heart to record the stories of those whose hearts meant they acted as “Good people in times of evil” as her book is also called. She focused on those who transcended their ethnic background to act with compassion during ethnic conflict.

We benefited from insights drawn from Buddhism shared by Sulak Sivaraksa from Bangkok although his emphasis on the need for spirituality was not as integrated with or related to the rest of the dialogue as it might have been.

At the completion of the dialogue there was a public presentation and discussion. Appropriately the imminent threat of war between the United States and Iraq became the focus of the discussion. In the face of blinding and unquestioning patriotism and the rapid erosion of human rights within the US what is the role of the ordinary citizen in saying No to war and Yes to compassion and social healing. Is it enough to be kind to those around you when the leaders of your country are determined to go to war. How do we have compassion for leaders hell bent on doing evil? Our anger and moral outrage can mobilize us but it needs our vision of social healing motivated by compassion to keep us in the struggle for justice.

Our time together helped us to experience (as one participant put it), that our “extended family” includes the whole human community. We imprinted one another with the pain that we had suffered and inspired each other and gained new hope by the ways in which we had transformed our private pain into public gain.

Fr Michael Lapsley, SSM

Boston 24 September, 2002