Sorry ! …

Posted on | octobre 22, 2012 | No Comments

For several years and almost decades, it seems that asking for people's forgiveness has been a very fashionable, indispensable exercice... even if the "hurt" people didn't ask for anything, or didn't really feel offended ... Of course, the "offenders" could or should  have felt humiliated, ashamed and guilty if directly responsible for, or victims of the actions which were then denounced ...  

 I remember reading Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice where he denounced the evil deeds done by some white men and asserted that "the White heroes were dead", since everybody had been able to judge that instead of being heroes, they were villains. He wrote that all white people, and especially young white people, should feel guilty for what their elders had done.  

GUILTY ! The word was hammered through a whole page. As a European young woman, I remember I couldn't feel "GUILTY" for what some "bad white Americans or even Europeans had done ... I was really feeling "ashamed of them and for them" but didn't agree to accept responsibility for what I hadn't done or agreed with, for what I had not even been able to speak against... Eldrige Cleaver "agreed" with me , when he added :“the sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of the children - but only if the children continue in the evil deeds of their fathers.” I was determined to fight against this oppression based on the colour of the skin and have done so ever since, with all my strength.   

I felt some situations and inequalities had to be judged as unbearable and corrected, fought for (or against!) ... Equality, and Justice should be enforced with and by peace and I have always been a great admirer of Martin Luther King Jr.'s actions because I think he had chosen the most brilliant - and courageous - way to fight againt inequality : non violence.   

 In some other fields, apologies seem to have flourished too. According to some, German young people should apologize to the families of the people the nazis exterminated ...Catholics should apologize to Protestants they persecuted long ago and to Jewish people they haven't protected enough ...  

Some other people advocate the uselesness of such apologies, explaining that no excuses can be granted for such horrible and crual deeds and that the villains ' "heirs" could neither measure the importance of the offence, nor accept the guilt when they are "innocent" of everything ...   

Taking full responsibility for an offence you personally didn't commit, without sharing the blame with anyone else, and without presenting mitigating circumstances (such as the historic context, the heart-rending choices some people had to make etc)is an action that very few people can make ...  

Thus, the idea of collective responsibility was born ...  with

the paradoxical notion of being "responsible" but not "guilty" ...

a concept I think hypocritical ...

On the contrary, a subtle distinction is made by C.S. Lewis:

"There is all the difference in the world between forgiving

and excusing. Forgiveness says “Yes, you have done this thing,

but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you,

and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.”

But excusing says “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it;

you weren’t really to blame.” If one was not really to blame then there

is nothing to forgive.

In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites." 

   

 

There are things I have done.
There's a place I have gone.
There's a beast and I let it run now it's running my way.
There are things I regret that you can't forgive you can't forget.
There's a gift that you sent you sent it my way.
So take this night and wrap it around me like a sheet.
I know I'm not forgiven but I need a place to sleep.
So take this night and lay me down on the street.
I know I'm not forgiven but I hope that I'll be given some peace.
There's a game that I played.
There are rules I had to break.
There's mistakes that I made but I made them my way.
So take this night and wrap it around me like a sheet.
I know I'm not forgiven but I need a place to sleep.
So take this night and lay me down on the street.
I know I'm not forgiven but I hope that I'll be given some peace.
Some peace, some peace ...

 

We all know that without "peace" and a quiet conscience it may be ...

quite impossible to live !

Thinking about theses concepts again and again, I couldn't help remembering a very famous and emotional passage of the book Love Story by Eric Segal. I  have commented this passage with generations of students being somewhat amazed at the change in the concept of "frogiveness" they expressed as time was going ....

 

 

It's the moment when Oliver is leaving the hospital, after Jenny's death. Oliver's father coming to support his son at last, faced him and told him : "I"m sorry!" Oliver then remembered Jenny's words : "Love is : not ever having to say you're sorry ... ", thus excluding his father from his grief ...

Commenting on this sentence by Jenny, letting students give their opinions and how they understood it, has always been quite challenging and the session was always very animated ... : the debate was mainly on "hurting on purpose" or "hurting unwillinly" , responsibility for what you have done (or not done), said, (or not said) ...

The debate also consisted in finding whether it's easy or not to ask for forgiveness ... and whether sincerity could be tested and asserted ... It IS quite difficult to some people to say they're "Sorry" ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w142CaROC0&feature=fvwrel

Well ! I may be an idealist (I must be an idealist !) as my students told me ... but I still try not to hurt (those I love of course, but even those I don't particularly know ...)and when I happen to do it, I don't hesitate to ask for their forgiveness ...

Am I a dinosaurus ?    

  

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