Reprinted from The Common Good, no 3, Lent 1997

www.catholicworker.org.nz

 

Healing of the Memories of South Africa

Fr Michael Lapsley

few nights ago I visited a friends house in early evening. She was watching television. “Are you not watching the programme about the commission for Truth and Reconciliation?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “it is too painful.” As South Africans, how do we respond to the reality of what we have done to each other in the past? Some would say, “Let bygones be bygones.”

During the last few years of apartheid rule the government talked frequently of the need to forgive and forget. It became a kind of incantation repeated in such a way that it sounded like the eleventh commandment.

I believe that South Africa proceeds on two pillars. The first pillar is that of reconstruction and development. It is the task of providing jobs, housing, water, electricity, education and health care to the nation, particularly to the black majority who have never enjoyed these facilities.

The second pillar is that of coming to terms with the past. Both pillars are entwined. People who are filled with hatred and a desire for revenge will not build a beautiful society. If people do not experience a better life, they will become increasingly cynical about how little they have gained for all the sacrifices they made.

South Africa could have taken the route of pretending the past had not happened. It could have sought to bury the past. History is full of attempts to bury the past. No society has yet succeeded. The generals of the old order were particularly keen that the slate should be wiped clean without telling us what was on the slate. Shredding machines were in great demand when it became clear that power was going to change hands in South Africa. At the negotiating table, the generals indicated that unless there was amnesty there would be no negotiated settlement. What the generals had in mind was that there should be general and blanket amnesty. The negotiators for the African National Congress (ANC) resisted an agreement to the specific form of amnesty but did accept an amnesty for political offences arising out of the conflicts of the past.

The Truth Commission

Today in South Africa there is the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation with 17 Commissioners. It is led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, recipient of the 1984 Nobel peace prize and president of the All Africa Conference of Churches. The commission has initiated a process of helping South Africa to find out the truth of its past. It was set up to:

*                establish as complete a picture as possible of gross human rights violations

*                establish the fate or whereabouts of victims and restore their human dignity

*                grant amnesty

*                compile a report and make recommendations so our past does not repeat itself.

Every night on South African television the nation watches and listens as relatives of victims and survivors tell the story of what they have undergone. Never again will it be possible for the South African public, and in particular the white community, to say: “We didn’t know.” Some people, like my friend, watched for a while but found it all too painful. For many people what is portrayed on television provides a mirror which confronts them with their own story.

South Africans are finding that the process of establishing the truth about their own history is scary. They are also finding that helping people to become reconciled is far from easy. However, it is an important process if we are to put the past behind us and move forward without becoming prisoners of pain, anger, hatred, bitterness or a desire for revenge.

The Truth Commission (as it is popularly known) only hears cases of gross human rights violations which took place between 1960 and 1993. They define these as severe ill-treatment, torture, murder, and attempted murder. However, every South African has a story to tell about the apartheid years. It is the story of what we did, what was done to us, and what we failed to do. Any of us might say: “I know I should have stood for the truth but I was too scared. What would have happened to me if I had spoken out?”

Letter bomb

In April 1990, I lost both my hands and an eye when I survived a letter bomb attack at my exiled home in Zimbabwe. The prayers and love of people around the world was the vehicle God used to enable me to make my bombing redemptive: to bring the good out of the evil, the life out of the death. I realised that if I was consumed by anger, hatred, bitterness and desire for revenge, that these feelings would destroy me. I would be a victim forever.

Ever since the talk of a Truth Commission began in South Africa I have been concerned more about those who would not appear before the Truth Commission than those who would. While the Truth Commission was debated in our parliament, the public discourse was peppered with reference to spiritual categories. There was talk of truth, reconciliation, justice, forgiveness, remorse, repentance and reparation. It was fascinating to observe that it was the political rather than the religious leadership which made the running in this discussion.

My participation in the struggle for liberation had taught me that the spiritual categories like faith, commitment and sacrifice were fundamental to the fight for justice in South Africa. On my return to South Africa after 16 years as part of the exiled community, I was seeking to discover ways in which the inherited wisdom of faith communities could be brought to bear in the new task of healing the memories of the nation.

 

Partial transcript of evidence given by Fr Michael Lapsley, S.S.M. to the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation

opened the English magazine and in the act of opening the magazine was the detonating device for a bomb. One of the extraordinary things was that I, and the doctors don’t know why, I didn’t become unconscious. I didn’t go into shock. The ceiling of three rooms blew out and there was a hole in the floor. I can still remember what happened, the actual explosion is still with me. I remember pain on a scale that I didn’t think a human being could ever experience. I remember going into darkness, being thrown backwards by the force of the bomb, the exact angle saved my life that I opened it, I opened it on a small coffee table. If I had opened it on a table like this, it would have killed me, because it would have knocked out the heart or knocked off the head, but because I was opening it down at a lower angle. It blew off my hands. I lost an eye, my ear drums were shattered. I think perhaps the most extraordinary thing of all was that I felt the presence of God with me. I felt also that Mary who had watched her son being crucified also understood what it was that I was going through. I remember calling out for an ambulance, calling for the police.

I suppose in a way my years as a Chaplain of the ANC, the people I had to bury over the years also helped prepare me. I think I had long realised that it was only through sacrifice that freedom would come. I suppose I had faced the possibility of my own death, but I had never faced the possibility of major permanent disability. So I was taken to the hospital. For a variety of complex reasons I didn’t receive treatment for about six hours and remained in pain for that period and in darkness. I guess for a little bit of the time after I came round after the operations I thought maybe it would have been better to have died when I realised I had no hands. I had never met another human being with no hands. I didn’t know whether life would be life, in any meaningful sense. They didn’t know whether I would ever see properly again. I’d lost one eye, I couldn’t see properly out of the other, I couldn’t hear properly because my eardrums were shattered. I was burned extensively, I had a broken arm and a vast number of other injuries.

But, I had also travelled the world for years in the cause of the struggle against apartheid and one of the effects of that was that (when I was bombed I became a focus of evil, because there is something very personal about a letter bomb which supposed to kill me). However in the response of people [to the bombing] all over the world I became a focus of all that is beautiful in the human community, our ability to be tender, loving and compassionate. I think that is what enabled me to take that situation and make it redemptive, to bring the life out of the death, the good out of the evil. I spent a month in hospital in Harare and then I was flown to Australia where I spent three months in an acute hospital in Sydney and then another three months at a rehabilitation hospital. Then I returned to Zimbabwe to joblessness. The Bishop who was supposed to employ me said, “Well, you are disabled now, what can you do?” I remember saying to him, I think I can be more of a priest with no hands than I ever was with two hands. So that is more or less the account of the bombing and the experience. I should also say that I was as helpless as a new-born baby for three months. There was literally nothing that I could do for myself but I also said to myself that my struggle now is a struggle to get well, a struggle to return, a struggle to live my life as fully, as joyfully, as completely as possible, and that would be my victory. I also realised that if I was filled with hatred, bitterness, self pity, desire for revenge, that they would have failed to kill the body but they would have killed the soul, and I would be a permanent victim. And today I would say that I see myself not simply as a survivor, but I am a victor over the evil and hatred and death that apartheid represented, a sign of the triumph of good.

I want to conclude with two other points.

I want to talk about responsibility, and also what I would ask of the Commission. In my mind, there was somebody who obviously typed my name on an envelope, a woman or a man who typed my name on that bomb, also somebody who made it, who created it. I have often asked the question about the person who made it, the person who typed my name. What they tell their children that night that they did that day? How did they describe it, when they said, “How was your day today?” What did they say that they actually did on that day. So of course, that person has a particular responsibility, but I believe responsibility increases the higher you go up the chain of command.

To my mind I have always been clear that the person I hold responsible ultimately for my bombing is FW de Klerk. The reason I say that is that remembering I was bombed on April 28th 1990, on the eve of the first talks between the ANC and the Government. FW de Klerk was Head of State. The Death Squads remained part of the machinery of the State. They were there within the machinery of the State. He knew about them. I know that for a fact. At a Conference some time ago, I spoke to Van Zyl Slabbert and he said “I, (Van Zyl Slabbert), went to de Klerk and told him about the Death Squads.” So he cannot say he didn’t know, and so I hold him politically and morally responsible for the attack on me. I am not saying he gave the command, I’m not saying he even necessarily knew about my particular bombing. He may have, but I am saying that because he knew the death squads were there, and they were part of the machinery of state, he did nothing to dismantle them. I hold him responsible.

I would also say that there is a sense in which — I know the Archbishop often speaks about the question of forgiveness — in a funny sort of way for me forgiveness is not yet on the agenda and the reason I say that — I have said that I am not filled with hatred, bitterness or self pity, or that I want revenge. I think that what I believe in is not retribution. I believe in restorative justice, not retributive justice. For example, if FW was to come to me or the person who made the bomb was to come to me and said: “I am sorry for what I did and I want your forgiveness and this is what I am now doing in the way of reparation, not to me personally, but to our country and our people, these are the kind of things I am doing to heal our land,” then of course one would say: of course, yes, forgiveness, there would be no problem about that. But I have not heard from de Klerk one word of remorse. I have heard not one word of acknowledgement of evil at all and I have heard very few voices coming from that community of perpetuators showing any sign of remorse or sorrow or willingness to make reparation. Perhaps what makes many survivors cynical is that we see rather Golden Handshakes, we see immense benefit coming from what in fact they have been party to, and I think that is particularly galling to many people.

One of the things I have been thinking , even this morning is, do I want to meet the person who made the bomb? The answer is, it depends. I don’t know if I could cope with somebody who doesn’t care. I don’t know if I could cope with somebody for whom there is no issue, who is so dehumanised that it doesn’t matter that you make letter bombs. But if there is somebody who is trapped by what they have done, by what they have been party to, then I would love to meet them. I think we could have a very interesting conversation, where we could begin to discover each other’s common humanity. Of course if somebody said: “I was sorry,” I would want to ask them what they do for a living now. Do they still make letter bombs? I am not sure what that would mean. But again if that person has sorrow, and is living their life in a new way, I would love to be able to say to them, of course, of course, I forgive you in that context.

...The point I am making when I say that I can’t [forgive] is that it is difficult to know. And I think sometimes in a strange kind of way and I think I have seen this, watching this process, that for the families, the mothers, the spouses, friends, in some ways it is harder than for the survivors. And I think that when we talk about the concepts of forgiveness, I think it is much easier for the survivor than for the relative of the one who has died. And I think even if I had lived, the pain that others go through in their helplessness, that pain is often much greater. And so yes, I was supported very profoundly and very deeply by all those families.

...But the Archbishop has been a good teacher and I believe in very old fashioned concepts of forgiveness and it seems to me that in the Christian context, forgiveness is a package deal, and we often, in South Africa, make it something glib, cheap and easy. It seems to me that the Christian understanding of forgiveness is about confession, it is about amendment of life, it is about remorse, it is about reparation,

it is a whole package. Yes, I would support amnesty but that doesn’t deal with the package. Amnesty’s a legal thing. One of the first things that the Archbishop said at the beginning of this Commission which he conceded was a very hard pill to swallow was that someone could come before this Commission and have no remorse and yet get amnesty. So the legal provisions have been dealt with but the moral issues remain unaddressed. They remain unaddressed for the person who seeks amnesty unless they address those wider issues and I think we need to have a moral climate in the country where we are able to say beyond the narrowness, in one sense, of the Commission, to be able to say to the country that there has to be sorrow, confession, amendment to life and reparation is the people who did it are going to be free. There is an irony in a sense in which with no hands and one eye, I am much freer as a person that the ones who did it to me. So I say to them and to all those South Africans in the end, who supported apartheid, your freedom awaits you, but there is a whole process to go through which can never be reduced simply to the legalities of amnesty.

Desmond Tutu: I in a way give thanks to God for what happened to Michael. He speaks about forgiveness in a way that he probably knows his Archbishop who is about to leave, doesn’t always agree. But he is an icon, a living example of the kind of thing that we are trying to help be incarnated, be enfleshed in our country. I give thanks to God for you, Michael, and I also give thanks for the experience through which you went, because you can talk about crucifixion and resurrection because it is real, it is in your body. You should see when he celebrates the Eucharist, I have sometimes stood next to him and I got a little worried whether he was not going to overturn the Chalice or something, and there is an incredible kind of hush in almost every service that I have been with you, because people somehow feel that they are in touch with goodness. In an awful situation somehow they are aware that they are in touch with light in darkness, that they are in touch with life in death, and somehow they know goodness is going to triumph over evil.

 

Michael Lapsley, currently the Director of the Trauma Centre, Capetown, was in Napier during January to see his mum.