A politics of inner peace?

The result of the US election may show a swing away from the aggression and materialism of the Bush years. We can perhaps have hope. Maybe it is just a swing of the pendulum rather than a transformation of the world, but maybe, just maybe, there is an appetite for real change. The question is, if we really could remake the world what kind of world would we make?

Political parties everywhere have pat answers to this kind of question. “More justice and fairness”; “More freedom”; “More security”; “More prosperity”; “More discipline”; and so on. No party would dare to say: “More inner peace”.  But what if that were the objective? After all, it’s not a stupid objective however remote the chance of achieving it may seem to be. What would it be like if political choices were driven by the inner lives of people everywhere, rather than just by material needs? You could argue that is precisely what happens in theocracies and they are generally not great role models! But what if, more than that, people understood that their happiness depended crucially on their inner skills, their ability to create and maintain inner peace? And political choices reflected this? What if, in other words, society put at the top of its priorities the fostering of happiness by giving people the means and opportunities to expand their inner skills and nourish their spirits?

Of course everyone would still need good food, clothing, shelter, security, healthcare and recreation. Material needs would not disappear. But they would not be the sole end of desire and therefore they would not be the sole end of policy. Political activity might stick with economics and be relegated to the lowly status of organising or regulating material necessities. But if it followed the shift in people’s focus it would have the chance to rise above left against right, poor against rich, strong against weak, one faith or nation against another. It would not pit justice against freedom or regard economic power as the only good. It would recognise that because happiness depends on the inner life, each person needs above all to be empowered to develop the inner skills with which they face the world.

Many people, from classical times onwards, have talked and written about the dream of a society shaped by the path from suffering to happiness. The dream has even been realised for short periods in small communities, though usually tangled up with particular religious beliefs or utopian ideologies. Usually too it has depended on charismatic leadership and eventually succumbed to frailty or ambition. Does it have to be so? Could there be a politics of inner peace or a society based on the nurturing of the inner life? 

Probably not, most will reply, or why hasn’t it happened? The odds are so much against it and there are so many difficult questions to answer. How would such a society defend itself against those within and without who simply wanted to take its resources, for example? But if we ask the questions, answers might be found and it is surely possible people could accept that living happily as masters of themselves matters more than particular patterns of consumption. 

I’m not talking about a Utopian blueprint or about perfecting mankind, such enterprises always end in disaster. It is just about exploring a new direction, removing fears and persuading people that inner peace might be in their interests. People will find their own way forward from there. If there is the smallest chance, isn’t it worth bending our efforts to see how it might work? And if not now, when ideologies of left and right are both in disarray, when will we have a better chance? This could be the real “middle way” in politics and the time has come to start thinking and talking about it. 

Forgiveness

I doubt if there’s a person alive who doesn’t have something they have struggled to forgive. It can be something relatively small though still hard to deal with, like an injustice at work or a cutting remark by a “friend”. It can be an emotionally devastating blow like a lover’s betrayal or the ending of a relationship. Or in fortunately rarer cases it can be a life-shattering event like the murder or careless killing of a loved one, all the way up to the loss of family and community in war or genocide.

Most of the time we feel that our forgiveness should depend on two things. First, the gravity of the offence matters a lot and we all have some things we would consider to be unforgivable. Second, the offender has to show some sign that they are sorry, maybe even keen to make amends if that is possible. If the offence is grave and there is no sign of remorse forgiveness is not only hard, it may seem utterly pointless.

But a growing body of evidence suggests that this very natural attitude may be a mistake, or just not in our own best interests. At the Forgiveness Project, founded by Marina Cantacuzino, people who have suffered major traumas are invited to contribute their stories to a website (www.theforgivenessproject.com) and to a touring exhibition to raise awareness of forgiveness issues. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a patron and enthusiastic supporter, as was the late Anita Roddick. The stories told are often harrowing, involving such things as the loss of limbs in bombing atrocities, the murder of children or siblings, or the ruin of lives through childhood abuse. Some of the victims of such crimes have experienced life-changing encounters which have shifted their consciousness and attitudes. Many have not: they have come to the decision to forgive through a long and difficult process of grief and hatred which leaves them spent and looking for another way forward.

There are many lessons to be learned from this impressive collection of first-hand evidence. One thing which is very clear is that no-one should be said to have a duty to forgive. The decision to do so is very personal and if someone can’t forgive or isn’t ready no onlooker has any right to criticize. To expect or insist that people forgive major wrongs may even add to their suffering, giving them another burden - guilt - to carry when they may already be at breaking point. Like grief, which has long been known to follow its own course allowing no short cuts or detours, the road to forgiveness may be long and difficult and there is no duty to reach the end or shame in not getting there. So, why even try?

There are two answers to this question, each important in different degrees depending on the circumstances. The first is the external effect of forgiveness which is most obvious in violent conflicts like wars, insurgencies or vendettas. Sometimes it is just necessary to break a cycle of hatred and revenge which only forgiveness can do. If one killing follows another, tit for tat, there can be no end to suffering on both sides, no possibility of peace. Someone has to stay their hand sooner or later. An eye for an eye, as Ghandi said, and the world ends up blind. This is very difficult to put into practice, because we all believe that crimes should be punished but this external, public form of forgiveness involves foregoing punishment. In fact, I prefer the word “pardoning” for this act: what we do is to make a conscious decision not to seek to punish, take revenge or retaliate. This is hard enough in itself but it isn’t quite the same thing as forgiveness. A victim may forgive a perpetrator held in prison but still see the necessity for them to be detained. On the other hand, we may still feel resentment, even hatred, but we might see the practical sense of not doing anything about it in order, for example, to bring a cycle of violence to an end.

The greatest recent example of this pardoning process was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in South Africa after the apartheid regime ended. In a move of political brilliance, let alone moral courage, the Mandela government decided not to seek to punish or exact revenge for the crimes and excesses of the apartheid era, crimes which were many and heinous. They saw that retribution would only unleash a new wave of violence and bloodshed, creating new resentments and hatreds to replace the old. So they devised the Commission, under which victims, their families and the public could reach the often hidden truth about crimes committed in the name of the state but without the perpetrators being condemned provided they cooperated fully.

Pardoning may be a vital step both personally and politically. But the real reason why forgiveness makes sense is an internal one. If we cannot forgive, we continue to feel the pain of the original hurt and in a sense we continue to be victims. The Buddhist writer Jack Kornfield tells of an ex-POW who is asked by an old comrade whether he can yet forgive their cruel captors. “Never” is the reply. Then, says his friend, they still have you captive, don’t they? This is the real point of forgiveness, that it removes the thorn in our own side, the hatred or anger we feel when we think about the incident which destroys our own peace of mind and therefore prevents us from being happy. If we have lost a loved one the hurt may never leave us completely, but the more we can let go of anger and hatred the less they determine our present and our future. Forgiveness is thus an ultimate form of self defence. Like all forms of self defence it needs skill, greater skill depending on the greatness of the hurt done to us. This is another good reason why no-one should insist on forgiveness or criticize someone who cannot forgive: forgiveness may just be beyond your strength and skill right now, even if you see the point of it.

The stories on the Forgiveness Project website affirm again and again how different people find this skill in different ways, some suddenly, most gradually. These people are the great forgivers, people who have mastered a difficult skill. A constant theme is of coming to realise that perpetrators have stories of their own, a history which explains their actions. Explaining isn’t the same thing as excusing, of course, and forgiveness doesn’t necessarily imply friendship. If you survived an attack by a lion, you could imagine understanding what prompted the attack and letting go of any resentment towards the beast. But you might not be in a hurry to expose yourself to more leonine attacks.

So if you are the victim of a wrong, large or hopefully less severe, how can you learn from the “great forgivers” and how might you go about freeing yourself from the natural grief, anger or hatred you feel? Here is one possible way to approach it. The first step is to be aware of what you are feeling and to accept that this is a consequence of the wrong, just as much as, say, a physical wound. Whether it’s grief, shame, fear, anger, even jealousy - it’s there and you can’t ignore it. This is not a trivial matter and professional help may be needed even to get to the point of understanding your own feelings.

Don’t pressure yourself to let go and forgive, you can only do that when the time is right. It may take months, even years for strong feelings to subside and the only skill that will help is patience, with yourself and your feelings as much as anything else. When it feels right you may be able to move on and begin to examine the incident and the perpetrator. What sort of a person would do that, what would they have to be thinking and feeling? And how could anyone come to think and feel like that? The greater the wrong the harder it may be to imagine an answer, but there always is an answer because there was a person like that who did what they did. They themselves may rarely understand what drove them and their lack of understanding may prevent them from feeling or expressing remorse, but why does it matter? This process is part of your inner life, your inner journey, and doesn’t depend on them, which is why insisting on remorse before forgiveness puts the power in the wrong hands.

This second stage may take years or it may come in a flash of insight - both experiences are to be found in the Forgiveness Project. Some people found it useful to imagine how they would feel if a loved one were in the position of the perpetrator, led down a similar path by mistakes, misinformation or lack of self control. The point is not necessarily to understand another’s motivation accurately, as a psychiatrist might, but to offer yourself new perspectives, the more the better, which give you alternatives to being trapped by the past. 

There will come a time when you feel able to let go of your anger, your hatred, resentment or whatever it is. Then you can truly forgive, which means that you can let go of the past and the anger it generates in the present. When you reach that point you will be free to live in the present and find your own inner peace.