Healing Wounded History

Reported in the Guardian: at a press conference yesterday Senator Walker rejected the suggestion that the States of Jersey owed an apology to the victims of child abuse on the island.

Compare that with some quotes below. If Jersey is to achieve closure, it must begin with an apology to the victims for the appalling negligence on the part of the Jersey goverment in the past for the fact that these homes could be set up and operated in such a way, without safeguards. How many years will the victims of abuse have to wait before such old wounds are addressed? Part of the process of healing wounded history is for representatives in the present to take responsibility for the past, and that is the step that still needs to be taken towards reconciling peoples and healing places.

"We have waited nine hundred years for this, ten more minutes won't make much difference." These were the words of a rabbi from a synagogue in Bosnia Herzegovina. My friend John Presdee and his wife Yvonne, having been gripped by the power of apology, were leading a walk of reconciliation down the Crusader route on its 900 anniversary. They had been called by the Lord to visit mosques, synagogues and orthodox churches to confess and apologise for the murder and destruction they had received by Western Christians during those times of appalling suffering. Of course they were not apologizing for Jesus, only for what Christians had done in his name. However, when they met the rabbi, John had forgotten to bring his written apology and so he asked the rabbi to excuse him while he went and fetched it from his hotel room. That was when the rabbi reminded John that his community had been waiting for so long for this to happen.

The Australian government has made a formal apology for the past wrongs caused by successive governments on the indigenous Aboriginal population. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised in parliament to all Aborigines for laws and policies that "inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss".

On 9 December 1999 Liverpool City Council passed a formal motion apologising for the City's part in the slave trade. It was unanimously agreed that Liverpool acknowledges its responsibility for its involvement in three centuries of the slave trade. The City Council has made an unreserved apology for Liverpool's involvement and the continual effect of slavery on Liverpool's black communities.

TONY BLAIR has moved to heal one of the greatest wounds in Anglo-Irish history by criticising Britain for allowing a million people to die in the Great Famine. In the strongest statement by any Prime Minister on the disaster, Mr Blair said that the Government of the time "failed their people" while the famine ravaged Ireland between 1845 and 1850. His statement, read out to a weekend concert in Co Cork marking the 150th anniversary of the tragedy, was hailed last night by John Bruton, the Irish Prime Minister.Mr Bruton said: "While the statement confronts the past honestly, it does so in a way that heals for the future. The Prime Minister is to be complimented for the thought and care shown in this statement."

George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a service in Limerick Cathedral, apologized for 800 years of English domination in Ireland. His words were received with applause because his congregation recognized that an old wound was being addressed.

Book of the Blog:

Russ Parker - Healing Wounded History