Message to all friends of the Institute

"There are two strong feelings which human beings share - anger against
injustice and hope for a better world"

I heard these words this weekend on Al Jazeera in an interview by David
Frost with legendary retired British Labour MP, Tony Benn.

I had been thinking about what I might say to you all before the end of 2008
and how I might frame my own experiences this year.

2008 was a very full year for the Institute. There were a number of
highlights It was the year we opened our office in KwaZulu Natal coordinated
by Mpendulo Nyembe and assisted by Thuthukani Shazi and later by Naomi
Anthony from Melbourne. We published the report on our 2007 conference:
Reflecting on the Journey to healing and wholeness: Toolkit for Facilitators
which has been very well received.

My own personal blog has recently been added on the Institutes's website.

It was also a year of shame for South Africans when attacks took place
against foreigners.living in our midst. Already working with refugees we
have sought to contribute practically to the fight against xenophobia. One
group of wounded victims attacked another group of wounded victims. A sign
that our own past still infects the present.

Motivated by revenge, our venerable liberation movement fired the president,
just a few months before his term ended, and dented our international
reputation. Now we have the birth of a new political formation called the
Congress of the People. As I travel the world I have been asked countless
times to explain the current situation in South Africa - I recalled how
during the negotiating period in the early 90's, we used to say that if you
were not confused you had understood nothing.

Many South Africans no longer look to politics as a source of hope

Together with my colleague, Thulani Xaba, I was in the US for six weeks
including the time of the Presidential election. It was an exciting time to
be there. Barrack Obama's election has brought renewed hope and joy to
millions of Americans and countless others across the world.

The US had become the pole cat of the world; a place occupied by the
apartheid state for many years. People of goodwill across the globe are
hoping and praying that the Obama presidency will begin a new chapter of
building a multilateral world committed to negotiations rather than war.
Time will tell

We are inching our way towards opening a new office in New York and
developing old and new partnerships across the US including work with abused
women and war veterans.

Australia made world headlines, when their Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd made
an unequivocal apology to indigenous Australians - an example the US and
others would do well to emulate...

After the US, I was privileged for the second time to listen to the often
painful stories of the Sami (the reindeer people) in the northern part of
Sweden. After a stopover with the St Ethelburgas Centre for Reconciliation
in London, I spent several memorable days in Luxembourg with ACAT -
Christian Action Against Torture as part of the celebrations of the 60th
Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Last week I spent 3 days in Harare - with all the signs of a disintegrating
failed state. Like all unjust situations of great suffering and oppression,
there is a class of beneficiaries. Horrible situations bring out the worst
and the best in human beings. Spreading cholera and frustrated soldiers
rioting are ominous signs of what may still happen in Zimbabwe.

Hopefully the day will soon dawn when Zimbabweans can begin to rebuild their
country. A key element must include addressing their layers of woundedness,
lest the cycles of hatred and violence continue across the generations: "the
elders have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge"

May 2009 also bring the people of Fiji a step closer to the return to
democracy.

Many years of unfettered greed in the financial markets is having its "come
uppance" with great suffering for many millions of people across the globe.

The financial collapse together with the consequences of climate change, has
brought into stark relief our interdependence as a human family

All the great faith traditions encourage us to value ourselves and have
compassion to others.

In 2009 we are planning a youth conference focussing on leadership and
preparing young people to live in an inclusive society. All going well 2009
will see the Institute not only doing work in South Africa but also in
Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Australia, Uganda, Canada and
the US.

On behalf of all of us at the Institute for Healing of Memories we thank you
for the opportunity to journey together yesterday, today and tomorrow.

May this time of celebration be a time of renewal for each of us.

Let our anger against injustice inspire us to act and may we all
increasingly become signs of hope for a better world .

15 December 2008

Institute for Healing of Memories
Director: Fr. Michael Lapsley SSM

Visiting Zimbabwe December 1 to 4 2008

We arrived in Zimbabwe on Monday evening from Johannesburg. I was accompanied by Brother Samuel Monyamane, SSM, a member of my community who is also a healing of memories facilitator. Along with a significant number of passengers, our luggage did not arrive. A number of people told us that this is a regular occurrence. Because the plane cannot refuel in Harare they have to carry enough fuel for the return flight. To keep the plane lighter, a percentage of the luggage is deliberately left behind.

There was a constant refrain from everyone we met from the moment of arrival that things are bad, life is very difficult and getting worse by the day.

Our media in South Africa told us that the cholera epidemic is on the border with Zimbabwe and that there is now a health crisis in that part of South Africa. Only when we arrived in Zimbabwe did we learn that there is already cholera in the high density suburbs of Harare.

We learnt that there in many parts of Harare there had been no water in the taps for the last 7 months and in some places for the last seven months and two years in others.

Fear was expressed that when the rainy season comes the lack of hygenic sanitation could lead to a very rapid spreading of cholera with devastating consequences in a malnourished population

Our first meeting was with Fr Paul Gwede, of the Harare Diocese of the CPCA under Bishop Bakare. He is the parish priest of Waterfalls and has also been asked by Bishop Bakare to focus on projects. We had met briefly once before when I was a speaker at the Christian Counsellng Centre
He has a vision of setting up a Centre/Institute for human security. Because of the conflict between Bishop Kunonga (who has the support of the police) and the Anglican church, his congregation meets in the local Methodist church

Paul expressed interest in being involved in future healing of memories work in Zimbabwe.
We promised to send him a DVD.

We were joined by Christina Anderson, a storyteller married to William Anderson, the country representative of UK's Christian Aid in Zimbabwe who had assisted us in a workshop with the majority of the Angican Dioceses in Zimbabwe in December last year.

Several people told us that on the day of our arrival soldiers, frustrated that they cannot draw significant amounts of their own money from the banks had begun to riot and loot. It was suggested that this was an ominous sign of what may lie ahead for Zimbabwe in the not too distant future. Outside every bank we saw hundreds of people queuing for many hours (without safe water to drink) in soaring summer temperatures.

On our first evening we were invited for dinner by the Swedish ambassador, Sten Rylander and Kirsten a member of staff of the embassy focusing on conflict resolution. I had met him a couple of weeks previously at a Human Rights seminar in Lulea in Northern Sweden. He has been much pilloried for his outspokenness about all that has happened over the last few years in Zimbabwe. Sweden was very active in supporting the liberation struggle and has remained committed to development in Zimbabwe. It was good to get the perspective coming out of diplomatic circles, particularly someone with more than twenty years of experience in the region.

The main focus of the second day of our time in Zimbabwe was a memorial service for Hugh McCullum, an extraordinary Canadian journalist. Hugh had died in Toronto a few weeks previously. Both Sr Janice McLaughlin, a Maryknoll sister, and I had known Hugh well and we were both in New York at the time of his death. We both opted to be at the Harare memorial He and his partner Rebecca Garrett took me to the hospital the night I opened a letter bomb back in April of 1990. My visit to Zimbabwe was deliberately timed so I could be present to lead the memorial service for Hugh. It was a simple but poignant event which took place at the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) where Hugh was employed on two separate
occasions. Some of the staff had been profoundly shaped as young writers and journalists by Hugh whilst some had joined more recently but were exposed to his vast journalistic and research output on a wide variety of issues affecting Southern Africa.

We began the event by playing the same DVD which was played at the Toronto memorial service of a recent interview of Hugh by Rebecca with a particular emphasis on the profound impact of the Biafran war and its underlying effect on Hugh's life and outlook We also read excerpts from the Globe and Mail obituary. Several staff members of SARDC spoke. Munetsi Madakufamba, Deputy Director,of SARDC spoke and also produced a cd with a collage of photos set to music. Justin Gope a well known Zimbabwean artist was present but did not speak. Professor Reg Austin spoke of the witness Hugh provided of someone living out their faith in society and of people like Hugh who had come from other quarters of the globe and made common cause with African people. Val Thorpe and Sr Janice spoke of their friendship with Hugh. I shared my own experience of both Hugh and Rebecca and all they meant and still mean in my life.

One of the people we met at the memorial was an old friend Val Thorpe with whom we met the following morning. She raised the possibility of doing healing of memories with a group of women who had suffered from political violence.

The final meeting of our short visit was with 3 members of the leadership of Zimbabwe Christian Alliance lead by the Revd Useni Sibanda. We began to explore the possibilities of a long term relationship.
We left them material including our dvd of the healing of memories process which they could use to prepare people for a workshop

We have proposed a full healing of memories workshop in February followed by a day of strategic planning to see how we can take the process forward.

Zimbabwe and Harare in particular remains a place of great contradictions. Staying as we were at a 3 star hotel you are sheltered from the increasingly grim life experienced by most Zimbabweans.

On the day of our departure we heard about the abduction of Ms Jestina Mukoko by Zimbabwean security forces from her home in Norton Harare in the morning of 3 December 2008, at approximately 5:00 am. Jestina Mukoko is the Project Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), an organisation monitoring and documenting violence and human rights abuses across the country through a network of peace observers.

As we left Zimbabwe we were also told that not only is there no medecine in the hospitals but school are closed.

For those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see there are all the hallmarks of a failed state with immense and increasing suffering for most of its citizens.

Those who have dared to speak out and resist the Mugabe regime have been treated mercilessly and brutally.

I was reminded of the words of Bertolt Brecht. "Woe is the land that has no heroes, Nay, woe is the land that needs heroes". To be a decent human being in
Zimbabwe today requires heroism

Tribute to Hugh McCullum by Father Michael Lapsley,SSM
Director of the Institute for Healing of Memories, Cape Town, South Africa
In 1983 I came to Canada on a joint SWAPO - ANC speaking tour.
That was when I first met Hugh McCullum. He was Editor of the United Church Observer and also the Chairperson of CANSAS which was a Canadian Solidarity organisation during the darkest day of apartheid

When Rebecca Garrett and Hugh moved to Zimbabwe we immediately became firm and close friends.

On April 28th 1990, Rebecca and Hugh hosted a welcome and farewell party for me.. I had just returned from another speaking tour of Canada and was about to relocate to Bulawayo. Shortly after returning to my house from the party, I opened a letter bomb. Hugh and Rebecca took me to the hospital. They helped to save my life.

At the time of the bombing I was wearing a cross of horseshoe nails which somehow disappeared.
Whilst I was in hospital Hugh and Rebecca brought me a small Coptic cross which I have worn every day since.

When I returned to Zimbabwe, from hospital treatment in Australia, it was to Hugh and Rebecca's home. When I returned from exile to live in South Africa, that farewell party was also at their home.

I have no doubt that other speakers will pay tribute to Hugh's extraordinary contribution as an advocate for Africa and all her people. Dare I suggest that it was in Africa that Hugh was most fully alive.

Thank you Hugh for all that you did in your life, in multitudinous ways, to make the world a fairer and more just place.

Thank you Hugh for all that you meant in my life.
I am a better person because I knew you.

Today I thank God for your life and pray that you rest in peace.

I pray for consolation for all who grieve your passing.

ends

St Ethelburgas Centre for Reconciliation London UK November 2008

Obama, Healing of Memories and Hope

I started to cry during the speech of John McCain accepting defeat and congratulating Barack Obama as the President elect of the United States.

The tears continued as we watched Obama speak. Obama said "tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope."

And he continued:

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one thats on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. Shes a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her could n't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that shes seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we cant, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when womens voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made"

The impossible had become possible

If you had said to me two years ago that it would be possible for an African American to become the President of the United States, I would have said "Dream on, not in the US."

I have been in the USA since September 29 accompanied by Thulani Xaba, one of our faciltators from KwaZulu Natal. We began in Kansas city, spent nearly a month in New York went to Minneapolis, then to Los Angeles and finally flew to Oakland in California on election day

After watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech before a rapturous crowd in Chicago we drove to where we were staying, passing numerous street parties and ecstatic people, dancng in the street.

In California the overwhelming joy was mixed with great pain for many as many of the same voters who supported Obama had voted to reverse the right of same gender loving person to marry. More

than 18000 people had already committed matrimony under the new provisions and are not sure what will be the status of their marriage certificates. How terrible that rights which have been given are then taken away.

I remembered another election when the world stood still – 1994 – South Africa's first democratic election when Nelson Mandela became the president.

1994 was the second time I voted – the first time was in Australia, in December of 1972 – on a ticket of taking Australian soldiers out of Vietnam.

Now a black person was finally becoming president of the United States. McCain, Obama and Bush made reference to the history of slavery in their speeches immediately following the election victory.

Perhaps finally the US is edging towards acknowledging its past but there is still a road to be travelled both in relation to slavery and to Native Americans.

I have a sense that what has happened in the US has brought healing of memories more on to the world stage than ever before.

3 days after Obama's victory we began a healing of memories workshop at the Wright Institute – a Psychology Graduate school in Berkely, California. The events of the previous days provided a frame for the workshop. Noone was in any doubt about how the nation and its past had affected us as individual

During the final liturgy our colleague Steve Karakashian read the following letter from Alice Walker to Barrack Obama.

Open letter from Alice Walker to Barrack Obama

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,