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Forgiveness
Forgiving the Unforgivable: From Hatred to Empathy
#charlestonshooting
Posted June 19, 2015
June 19, 2015
I was deeply moved by hearing relatives of the victims of the Charlestown church massacre addressing the accused perpetrator Dylann Roof. Their words of pain, loss and sorrow were profound. Their forgiveness seemed superhuman. “To err is human; to forgive, divine,” wrote Alexander Pope three centuries ago, but forgiveness and grace in the face of such brutality seems so far-fetched as to seem unreal. These inspiring individuals, steeped in their religious tradition, have become an example of a transcendent response to hate: love and mercy.
Some call it “Christian forgiveness”, but I don’t think forgiveness has a brand. People from varying religious traditions, atheists and secular folk alike have found that returning hate for hate only makes the situation worse. “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” as Gandhi put it. The Buddha said
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,”
--in those who harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,”
--in those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.
Hatred does not cease by hatred,
but by love alone does hatred cease;
that is the eternal law.”
Raisuddin Bhuiyan was shot and maimed in Texas by Mark Stroman, a self-confessed “American terrorist” who vowed revenge against Muslims in the days after 9/11. Stroman killed two other men, and is now on Texas’ death row. Incredibly, Bhuiyan publicly forgave Stroman and has been publicly campaigning to have him spared the death penalty. Bhuiyan’s incredible character and journey are chronicled in The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, and you can find out more at his nonprofit organization, World Without Hate here (be sure to watch his video here) .
But as powerful and wise as forgiveness can be, it is a process, not a one-time act. It’s important not to take what’s called a “spiritual bypass” around your suffering. Calling for forgiveness can be like putting the band-aid of denial on deep misery and trauma, and can itself re-traumatize. Healing requires a deeper understanding of the contours of the problems that we face, both our inner life and the outer world, and taking action. (The Mayo Clinic does offer some great advice on forgiveness here.)
To do this, we have to delve deeply into the roots of hatred. I suspect that the accused young man had a lot of problems in his life, and like many American terrorists, felt extreme isolation, smallness and paranoia about events, forces and changes larger than him. There has been a proliferation of hate groups in recent years, as the Southern Poverty Law Center has meticulously documented and fought against. Director Richard Cohen writes:
“Since 2000, we've seen an increase in the number of hate groups in our country — groups that vilify others on the basis of characteristics such as race or ethnicity. Though the numbers have gone down somewhat in the last two years, they are still at historically high levels. The increase has been driven by a backlash to the country's increasing racial diversity, an increase symbolized, for many, by the presence of an African American in the White House.”
I am grateful for the leadership and long experience of the Black community, from the President to community organizations. As the President said, “But let’s be clear: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.”
Forgiveness is certainly letting go of grudges, bitterness, resentment and hatred, good for our own mental health. It’s also a softening of the barrier we place between self and other.
Evolutionarily speaking, as biologist E.O. Wilson has pointed out, we think in terms of in-group and out-group and are limited by subjective awareness. As long as we are defensive with our group affiliations (racial, religious, national, gender), hatred will be inevitable. Defensiveness occurs on the individual, synaptic level (the amygdala’s reactions to threat), but is propagated and reinforced by sociocultural forces that surround us – from movies and pop culture to neighborhoods to, yes, social media. Dylann Roof’s Facebook page seems to have been littered with evidence of hatred. He supposedly made racist, hateful statements that were taken as “jokes”. By passing up the opportunity to talk to him about his views, society passively reinforced those views. I wonder if some people actively reinforced his hatred. Some would say society as a whole is at fault for what happened, since most of us must bear some responsibility for not doing enough to combat hate and violence.
Perhaps that’s where we need to start – with the trigger between our ears. We could all ask ourselves these questions:
- Whom have I hated?
- Do I promote an in-group vs. out-group mentality?
- What are the boundaries of my group?
- How might this attitude lead to harm – for myself, for my group, for other groups?
- What can I do to minimize the dangers inherent in my/our mentality?
- How can I change my mentality from subjective awareness to intersubjective awareness? In other words, how can I bring empathic understanding to the situation?
What are your thoughts?
© 2015 Ravi Chandra, M.D. All rights reserved.
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