Paramilitaries and paraplegics

I went to the most amazing panel discussion today on Remembering, Forgetting, and Forgiving. The morning sessions were led by a woman from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Danish man who is a student of the Holocaust, and man whose 12-year-old son was killed in a 1993 IRA bombing in England.

I didn't attend the morning sessions but did go to the afternoon panel, which included two people who had lost their legs in sectarian attacks. One was a woman who survived the Abercorn Bar bombing of 1972, which killed two and injured 130, mostly women and children shopping in downtown Belfast. No one was ever caught, however the IRA is widely blamed. The other was a man who was at home with his family in 1992 when a Protestant paramilitary group burst in and held them hostage, ultimately opening fire and permanently damaging his limbs and organs. A third panel member had joined a paramilitary group at age 14 and by 17 was in prison for murdering a Catholic man. He spent 13 years in jail.

The conversation turned on what it means to be a victim, what it means to forgive, what it means to get on with your life, knowing your killers are at large or that your victim's family still is grieving. It was beyond powerful. The session concluded with the South African woman saying how Northern Ireland and South Africa are similar in that the anger, bigotry, and hunger for revenge is being passed down the generations--meaning the ugliness of the past can flare up if people like those in the room don't do the hard work of helping people in divided communities build bridges.
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