-----Original Message-----
From:
Trudy and Rod Bray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
RecOzNet2 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:
Sunday, 12 March 2000 3:01
Subject: Re: [recoznet2] has the
man no shame!!!!!
Karen,
I don't know why you are so defensive about your age. There are many
young people on the list. Some younger than you are.
You ask why an apology is necessary and how it will make reconciliation
work. An apology is only a part of reconciliation but a very necessary part.
Let me pose you a scenario:
You are married and have children. You
live with your extended family on a very productive farm and everyone gets
along pretty well and have enough to eat.
Then, some people you've never
seen before come onto your farm and begin shooting your family. Your husband
and 2 of your 5 children are killed right in front of you.. Most of your
extended family, your mother and father, aunts and uncles are killed. Some
of the men come and rape your two young daughters and bash your young son.
Almost all the people you have known and loved all your life are dead and
you have no one to comfort you or to help you. They take your farm and
everything on it and leave you a small plot to live on but only if you work
the farm for barely enough food to live on. You have no choice because you
don't want your children to starve to death so you work for the people who
took everything you loved from you.
Eventually, your two daughters give
birth to a child each but they look different from your family and before
long, the people you work for tear the the children away from your daughters
and leave with them. You are grief-stricken for your daughters and the loss
of your grandchildren, you are angry but helpless to do anything about it.
Your son has never been the same since his bashing and is sullen and refuses
to do anything except destroy everything he touches. You can't reach him no
matter what you do and you fear for his life. Your daughters become distant
and begin drinking to forget what has happened to them and one morning you
find one of them dead. She is 18.
The years pass and you are now getting
old. The people who took everything from you are dead and their children are
now in charge. They still make you work hard and give you a little extra now
and then.
Then, one day they come to see you. They want everything that
has happened to be forgotten. They now want to live as equals. They offer to
give you a bit more land so that you can grow things for yourself and have a
bit more to eat. Of course, you will no longer get anything extra from them.
Also, the conditions attached to this land are that everything is to be done
as they instruct. You cannot follow the practices of the past. They offer to
educate your new grandchild but insist on choosing what is taught and only
in their language.
They want to go forward as if nothing has happened
and they want you to forget what their parents did to you and your family
and not live in the past. They refuse to apologise because they don't feel
responsible for what their parents did even though they know what their
parents did and they are growing rich on what the farm produces. They cannot
even bring themselves to tell you that they are sorry for what you have
suffered....
How would you feel, Karen? Would you forgive them and go forward as if
nothing had happened? Would you think you now had equality?
Would you
betray the love of your children and parents and their deaths and agree to
forget so that they could feel better?
Trudy
Karen wrote:
> Tim,
>Just because he doesn't believe in saying sorry doesn't mean he doesn't believe in people living as >a nation united!!
>There is no need for a sorry - how will it make reconciliation work?
>Can anyone even answer that question?
Karen
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of tdunlop
Sent: Saturday, 11 March 2000 9:09 AM
To: RecOzNet2
Subject: [recoznet2] has the man no shame!!!!!
Trudy wrote:
Howard is saying nothing new but I think the time has come for
people to ask him to prove his 'commitment'. So far, all his actions
have proved the opposite. --- Trudy
Trudy,
Not just his actions, but his words. I can't believe anyone at all can take him seriously on this. I can't believe he has the nerve to come out of a meeting and
say, once again, that he's committed to reconciliation. It's only a week ago on 3AW that he said: "What baffles me about this (reconciliation) issue is that I'm
expected to repudiate my own personal beliefs; I'm told that the only way I can show leadership on this issue is to do something I don't believe in."
The game was up the moment he uttered this, for once, truthful comment - he doesn't believe in it. But still, his comment about being committed to
reconciliation keeps popping like an unflushable turd. Bit like the man himself.
I'm flabbergasted.
Tim
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