Where does guilt and forgiveness lie?

I have been trying to think why I was so disturbed when I heard that Professor Jonathan Jansen pardoned the Reitz students. They had supposedly urinated on food and videoed the cleaning staff eat it in a mock initiation rite.



He explained that the university shared their guilt as it had long been an institution which had allowed racism. It is a university which traditionally served the conservative white Afrikaans student. Even post-1994 the residences have been segregated. Without doubt it has not confronted racism which is rife on the campus. Prof. Jansen also explained that part of his pardon was to encourage reconciliation.



However, I think that Prof. Jansen faulted on a number of levels. I agree that the university has responsibility in what has happened. It is a shared responsibility which extends to all South Africans, and to a large extent more to white South Africans - we all bear responsibility for the world we have created. But this does not take away the responsibility of the individual. The students are also partially responsible for creating a world in which cruelty and racism exists. I struggled with this concept when working with men who had tortured. They understood it better than I did, and when I indicated that I thought we as a society were guilty of atrocities, they would say that it may be true on one level, but we had not attached electrodes to a suspects genitals. Prof. Jansen can apologise for the institution and to some extent for society, but he cannot take on their individual guilt. We can only apologise for being part-creators of such a world. The students are still, individually responsible for their role in the creation of a world in which people are degraded and treated cruelly. On this level, the call for them to show remorse makes sense - we need to see them accepting responsibility for their actions, acknowledging the harm they have done and demonstrating remorse.



We regard to forgiveness: Prof. Jansen does not have the right to forgive them their actions; this right belongs to the victims of these young men. He only has the right to acknowledge their remorse if it is there, but he has to direct them to the people they have harmed. He can, if he chooses, acknowledge the lack of protection offered the victims by the institution he represents and ask their forgiveness for not ensuring that they were treated with dignity. He can also, if he chooses, apologise to the students for an institution which did not insist that they acknowledge the humanity of all people.

Inviting the students to continue studying risks implying that their behaviour did not matter. It also implies that the dignity of those they injured is of no importance. The only way this could have been ameliorated would have been with a public recognition by the students of the wrongness of their behaviour, clear remorse and a commitment to restitution.

Traumatised or not traumatised?

Everything goes through periods of being fashionable. Or to sound smarter about it, we construct our worlds through language. And one of my current pet hates is that everyone is traumatised by everything. Stoicism and fortitude have disappeared, these are no longer fashionable words. When last have you heard them? If someone dares say that they are not traumatised by an armed robbery or by whatever, they are clearly mistaken. Everyone knows they should be traumatised which means that they are in denial or suppressing their true feelings. Our society has decided that when we have bad experiences that we have to receive trauma counselling.

An entire industry has arisen around this belief; numerous institutions provide training in trauma counselling. Numerous NGOs owe their continued existence to their providing trauma counselling. When some disaster happens somewhere in the world, the mental health professionals are there, providing trauma counselling. The psychologist who suggests someone is fine and would be better off without any intervention from the mental health industry is regarded as either incompetent or blunted by his or her experiences.

In reality the entire concept is bizarre. When you have had a bad experience, the last thing you need is a stranger asking about your emotional reaction! You need to know that you are safe, you need food, water, warmth, whatever you have lost and you need comfort, preferably from your own family or community. You definitely do not need do-gooding strangers who do not know you, who are not part of your community and who will disappear from your life as soon as they have either done their little bit or been attracted to some other disaster.

There are a number of studies now that indicate that early interventions by mental health professionals can cause the problems they were designed to prevent. They, in general, do more harm than good. These studies confirm that people who have had bad experiences need their families and friends during stressful times. Most people will be fine following dreadful events; around ninety per cent of people will experience no long-term symptoms.

It is not only that everyone is supposed to be traumatised when experiencing something bad, we as a society appear to have strange ways of dealing with really terrible events. Every time there is some truly horrific incident on the news and the sound bit ends with: "They are receiving trauma counselling" I have to wonder what this says about our society. We do not have to worry further about the type of society we have created - they are receiving trauma counselling. They will be fine, no matter how horrendous the event - they are receiving trauma counselling. We no longer have to think about shattered lives - they are receiving trauma counselling. We have no further responsibility, we have created the structure to deal with horror - they are receiving trauma counselling.

A special graduation

I graduated on the 5th October at Unisa (a distance learning university in South Africa). I generally do not go to graduation ceremonies, but this time decided I had better, largely because I have demanded so much time from my family the last five years.

It was so special. I did not expect to enjoy it, but I did. It was a graduation ceremony situated in Africa with colour and ululating and shouts of appreciation. Unisa attracts people who would not otherwise be able to study, so there were people in their forties and fifties and sixties getting first degrees. It was apparent that every person had a story and the audience appreciated it. Every graduand was applauded for their achievement which had clearly come with struggle and many difficulties. This was not a routine awarding of degrees to young, privileged people who had spent the last few years attending classes and studying; these were degrees awarded to people who had struggled to pay the fees, who held down jobs, who had families and had to study in snatches of time, often spreading the degree over many years. I felt immensely privileged to share the acknowledgement of their success.