Forgive, not forget

In December, US News & World Report published an article on 50 ways to improve your life in 2005. The last one was "Forgive". The article told the story of how a white aid worker was killed by a mob of black men in South Africa, after which her parents moved over there to continue her work, even eventually employing two of their daughter's killers. This is amazing to me, all the more so for all the revenge fantasies that played out in my and other Americans' heads after 9/11. You know the type, where you were on one of the airliners being hijacked, and like Todd Beamer and the others on Flight 93, you stand up and attack the evil men who are about to kill you and everyone else on the plane because of their twisted beliefs.

People don't talk about this much, but it was a common reaction, possibly fueled by the Dirty Harry, Arnold Schwarzenegger mentality that has suffused violent entertainment over the past 20-30 years. Or maybe it's simply an innately human failing, the belief that causing others pain is useful for assuaging our own in the face of tragedy. After all, you don't see a buck in the forest attacking a hunter dragging its mate back to the pickup truck. It's a consequence of intelligent thought that we realize vengeance is even possible, one of the things that indeed separates us from other animals.

Some proponents of the death penalty argue that even though there is little or no evidence that executing people is a deterrent to violent criminals, it should still be done in order to do justice to the victims' families. Leaving aside the growing evidence that innocent Americans have been executed by the state for crimes they didn't commit, this is an Old Testament mentality unworthy of Christians, and since rejected by the Jewish faith as well. I don't know enough about other religions to comment on their stance, but US News points out a couple of suggestive passages - the angel Gabriel telling Mohammed to "set aside vengeful anger", for instance.

I have not lost someone to this kind of crime, so I'm not speaking from experience. The article notes Jesus Christ's "radical forgiveness", an apt description, and one that seems impossible to embrace. After all, what would have happened if there had been no military response to 9/11, or the invasion of Poland, or any number of other things? There's truly no way of knowing, but one suspects there would have been more death, more suffering, and on and on. But there was all of that anyway. Would the people have abandoned their leaders if they were told to forgive and embrace their attackers? Almost certainly. As an interviewee puts it, "To ask a victim for radical forgiveness can be unrealistic and morally unjustifiable." To offer it, on the other hand, is grace.