Devon DickLAST WEEK, there were news items that deaths in St. Catherine were related to revenge for homicide over illegal sand mining while simultaneously the Mead-Haven Ministers' Fraternal launched a timely forgiveness campaign with its primary focus being on revenge killings.
The Mead-Haven Ministers' Fraternal that has membership from 16 different denominations, has placed a causal link between revenge killings and forgiveness. The fraternal is claiming that an unforgiving spirit fuels revenge killings and a dose of forgiveness could help to reduce the murder rate.
In Jamaica, reprisals accounted for 32 per cent of the murders in 2002. The major motivation for murders is the need for revenge. Revenge is a strong emotion affecting our national psyche.
The movie industry glorifies revenge killings. It would not be uncommon to hear a movie audience cheering when the hero rains fists on the villain. Rabbi Harold Kushner in Living a Life That Matters, highlights some things about revenge, 'It is a thing that a lot of people are drawn to. It is natural, instinctive, not something we have to learn. It resembles justice, but is unlike justice in important ways. It is undesirable'. Revenge is the act of taking matters into our hands and finding pleasure in hurting the person being punished. Someone said that revenge is like wrestling in mud with a pig and getting filthy - but with the pig loving it. Unfortunately, revenge is often the way most Jamaicans choose to resolve conflict not realising its destructive nature and that there is even a more productive and satisfying solution.
Concomitant with refraining from revenge and embracing forgiveness must be a good justice system. The police must apprehend criminals; the courts try them and the juries willing to sentence evildoers. The court system must engage in swift and appropriate justice. Jamaicans must eschew revenge and allow the legal system to decide whether a person deserves to be punished and if so to what degree.
The world has seen that South Africa under the enlightened leadership of former president Nelson Mandela chose the path of forgiveness rather than revenge. They established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission because the government realised that with the thousands of acts of brutality and murder committed by hundreds of soldiers, police and government officials that trying to bring the guilty parties to trial would tie up the courts for years, rekindle bitter feelings and divide the nation. So the commission was designed for victims to tell their story and for perpetrators to confess their crimes and show remorse in order to benefit from amnesty. This alternative to revenge and even a legal system has helped to heal a nation. If it can happen in South Africa, healing can occur in Jamaica.
Forgiveness is vital to the restoration of law and order. On Sunday, at the launch of the community-oriented policing project for Grants Pen that was held at The United Pen-tecostal Church, Mrs. Becky Stockhausen, Executive Director of AmCham, said that the PERF report claimed that the major problem facing policing was the fact that the police did not trust the people and vice versa. For trust to be restored, there has to be forgiveness. For there to be national unity, there needs to be forgiveness. For there to be a gentler, kinder and more compassionate society, the foundation needs to be built on forgiveness. It is therefore surprising and unfortunate that the word 'forgiveness' is not a regular word used in the vocabulary of our politicians.
Therefore, the Mead-Haven Ministers Fraternal, in placing forgiveness on the national agenda, is encouraging us to discuss the importance of forgiveness for national development. There are some commendable features of the programme such as the telephone hotline 755-2807, which is monitored 24 hours a day, where persons can call to learn more about forgiveness and share their experience in forgiving. It would have been better if they had installed a toll-free line so that every Jamaican could get free advice. The website at www.golocaljamaica.com/forgiveness provides an avenue for the dissemination of information and for questions to be asked and answered. The 30-sec dramatised messages for radio and TV should be able to reach the young and vulnerable.
However, where the rubber meets the road is in the face-to-face engagements with persons who are prone to revenge. This is going to be a tall order for the Fraternal and the nation as persons, especially the young, are not thinking pardon and truth. Recently, I spoke to the boys at a primary school on the topic of 'my brother's keeper'. I defined a brother's keeper as one who stands up for and speaks the truth on behalf of a friend on whom lies have been told. The majority disagreed and said that that person is an informer. The message of forgiveness is going to be a hard sell.
Let us pray during this Lenten season that a focus on forgiveness will resonate with our people and that it will result in less revenge killings.
The Rev Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church.
