Villo Naleo
Memories are variable to a great extent and they only approximate. They are partial for we have no control over our memories. Like a computer chip, some memories could be retrieved but some refuse either to commit into storage or retrieve, no matter how hard we try. Remembering is something we do willfully or even otherwise. We all have the power and ability to remember, we also have the obligation to remember truthfully.
This Article is a reflection resulting from my readings on Miroslav Volf’s work on memory and forgiveness. I have taken two incidents that occurred on the same date i.e., the 5th March 1995 and 5th March 2015, to convey the memory of wrongs suffered in different ways. In no way there is justification for the act committed. But the intention is to remember the two incidents so as to heal and forgive.
On 5th March 1995, a convoy of 16 Rastriya Rifles (RR) was going from Bishnupur (Manipur) to Dimapur (Nagaland). The convoy had 63 vehicles with five officers, 15 JCOs and around 400 jawans that stretched over five kms. When the convoy came across the AOC and BOC (thickly populated kohima town) area one of the convoy’s truck tyre burst. The RR personnel started shooting immediately. Not knowing that it was a burst from one of their own truck’s tyre, they started shelling 16 inch mortars and some 1,207 rounds of gunfire lasting for almost three hours.
I was in Agri colony (Kohima) that day. One of the mortars landed below our house and hit a family. A boy was thrown several meters from the ground bombarding him above the firewood stand, killing him instantly. That horrific day ended killing 7 civilians and injuring around 20 people, to top that, the RR jawans did not allow people who were injured to be taken to the hospital for which some of them died on the way.
Last year, on 5th March 2015, a mob barged into Dimapur central jail and dragged out a rape accused, parading him naked on the way and lynched him. The accused was Syed Sarifuddin Khan, a used car dealer in Dimapur, who hailed from Karimganj district of Assam. He had been living in Nagaland for 8 years. He was married to a Naga woman for 4 years and had a three year-old daughter. With regard to this crime, several high profile individuals, groups, NGO’s, student bodies both national and international, have condemned the act of lynching. Several concerned individuals and activists have stated enough reasons and logical explanations on how justice could be tried and served.
The intention here is, how do we truthfully remember these two incidents so as to heal and forgive? There is neither greater sin nor lesser evil in these two unfortunate incidents. The act of the mob in Dimapur and the act of the RR jawans on that particular day in Kohima are equally evil; we condemned it and termed it as barbaric, cold-blooded, xenophobic, savage, heinous, nefarious and so on. The victims of these two incidents, people killed on 5th March in Kohima and the accused Syed Khan who was lynched, in Dimapur could be termed as unfortunate.
Although their contexts are entirely different, they remind us about the need for God’s redemptive act and reckoning human fallibility in a larger story. It is not just a group of people who were fascinated with morbidity and nasty intentions that committed such inhuman acts, but the greater story is how evil our human mind can get, when we forget who we are and how we have been saved from our wretchedness.
What if every Indian soldier treats every Naga man as a national threat? What if we all look at every rape accused with impunity and think they need to be lynched like Syed Khan? Although we might all agree that good people must not suffer, bad people must be tried and punished for their acts.
This reminded me of a saying; “Bad men do what good men dream about.” Perhaps these two situations speak tons about our frail human efforts to do justice and protect the innocent. This does in no way rob away our sense of chivalry and loyalty to women and nation. But the greater picture is, we in a morally ruined world, seek to heal ourselves by harming others; we denigrate others and extol ourselves; swelling with energy and confidence we armed ourselves with self-righteous rage and ruin people’s lives. In the process of doing justice, we commit injustice and our memories become a sword than a shield.
As Christians, besides remembering truthfully, we must also remember so as to heal. But we can do the latter only by integrating the memories of our wounds within the larger story of God’s redemptive act. We were once perpetrators and murderers, we were once considered darkness but now we are in the light. But God proved his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). Though He was sinless, he became the “sinful” for our sake, he was guiltless but he became the guilty, he wronged no one, but was crucified for the wrong of ours. Christ identified with the wronged and perpetrators of wrong. He took the burden of guilt and shame, the wages of sin in his death.
Thus the thought of being a perpetrator, murderer, wrong doer, the accused and guilty itself is a way to remember the act of God who acted on our behalf. Nevertheless, the thought that we might have not wronged any person, could mislead our minds and make us self-righteous even more easily.
Forgiveness requires remembering. For Christians, forgiveness involves three parties (takes place in a triangle), the wrong doer, the wronged person and God. To understand this we need to understand God’s forgiveness. God’s forgiveness is unconditional. In Jesus Christ, God has forgiven us; regardless of the kind of sin we have committed. The sacrificial work of Christ is unlimited to all human being on earth. The Bible tells us exactly how God deals with a sinner, when we recognize the power and proximity of God’s forgiveness. This is how it goes: God does not ‘reckon sin’ (Rom. 4:8), He covers sin (Psalm 32:1), He puts the wrongdoing behind the back (Isa 38:17), God removes our transgression (Ps. 103:12), God blots out our sin (Isa 43:25), God sweeps away our sins ‘like mist’ (Isa 44:22) and He does not even remember our sins (Isa 43:25).
God also not only forgave us but since we are created to imitate HIM, he also demands forgiveness from us (Mat. 18:32-33). Forgiveness is a special kind of gift. When we offer forgiveness we seek the good for another, not our own good.
Several times we have a misconception that God is an implacable judge. If God were an implacable judge, then God would deal with wrongdoing by punishment. Of course punishment for any offense anybody has committed would be befitting and the wronged person will be satisfied. Or we could be right thinking, there is nothing vengeful about the expectation of a punishment equivalent to the injury. But if we insist on punishment, not only do we miss the integration of the wrongdoer’s contribution into the community, but we also leave punishment an unsatisfied mechanism. Because to punish midlevel offenses like stealing and cheating would be befitting, but to punish individuals who are responsible for genocide and dreadful carnages like Hitler, Stalin and Lenin, punishment would leave us unsatisfied. And there would be no befitting punishment as we magnify the criminal act, thus punishment alone falters before the enormity of such crime. Therefore punishment is a very rough and wholly inadequate thing for dealing with wrongdoing.
God condemns everything that is condemnable but He is not an implacable judge. If He were, He would not only condemn and punish but would also be a destroyer of creation, not its lover. Jeremiah pleads; “Correct me, LORD, but only with justice-not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing” Jer. 10:24.
The world is sinful. That is why God doesn’t affirm it indiscriminately, but forgives indiscriminately. God loves the world. That is why God does not punish it in justice. God does not just condemn and then forgive. God also condemns in the very act of forgiving. Forgiveness is not just an emotional healing, it goes beyond emotion healing. To forgive means to forgo a rightful claim against someone who has wronged us. To forgive is not to press charges against the wrongdoer. When we forgive, we forgo the demand for retribution.
Justice requires equivalent repayment, although not in the same kind. But forgiveness cuts the tie of equivalence between the offense and the way we treat the offender. Leo Tolstoy stated: by forgiving a person, one swallows evil up to oneself and thereby prevents it from going further; Gandhi realized; “only the strong can forgive”: John Paul says “punishment in any way undermines forgiveness” and Martin Luther finally concluded, “I think Christ took all the punishment upon himself. None of it can be justly doled out to anyone anymore.” These great icons of non-violence opted to forgive than to claim punishment.
Since we are all created to be like God who gives and forgives, we also must imitate him in giving and forgiving. One primary thing that involves in forgiveness is condemnation, when we forgive we do not disregard the offense or pretend it did not happen. We condemn the act and then move to recognize the reality of sin and ready to do the act of forgiving. The world is in need of forgiveness and not punishment, to forgive is the first act of healing and to be forgiven is the final act of healing where the end of memory is realized. Thus, when we forgive, we give what they (perpetrators) do not deserve and we also imitate God in forgiving.
