After the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the end of white minority rule in South Africa, the Truth & Reconciliation Commission Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up in 1995 by The Government Of National Unity to help deal with what happened under apartheid. While one of its tasks was to investigate human rights violations its main purpose was to promote reconciliation and forgiveness on both sides by a full disclosure of the truth. The power of a process like this is that it enables all parties to be heard and their testimonies documented. It is a principle of Restorative Justice What is restorative justice? | Restorative Justice Council : That people value feeling heard more than being agreed with. This ‘witness to testimony’ is the platform for reconciliation – the hard bit is getting all parties in the room.
Closer to home and much more recent is the case of Jacob Dunne Jacob Dunne – The Forgiveness Project who fatally punched a man in 2011 in an unprovoked attack on a night out in Nottingham. With the remarkable encouragement of his victim’s parents and using restorative justice he began to transform his life. There is a celebrated radio series The Punch BBC Radio 4 – The Punch, Nothing Was The Same Again and a book that has now been turned into a play Punch – Nottingham Playhouse
But I digress – kinda.
Back in SA the Commission was chaired by the then Archbishop Desmond Tutu who brought a simple ritual of great power to the process: When the task of bearing witness to tales of trauma became too much for some of the people present, the Archbishop would break the hearing and lead everyone in song and dance. This simple act of community re-established human connection, re-set the nervous system and through movement and deep breathing kept the mental, emotional and spiritual energy flowing. This meant people were able to better assimilate the horror of what they were hearing/recounting without going into overwhelm. This is now enshrined as good practice for organisations such as Home – The Trauma Stewardship Institute.
I sometimes use the South African story when I’m working with prison staff who – in the course of their normal duties – will witness trauma. For senior staff this can be enshrined in the ritual that is the start of day briefing when they all come together to report what’s happened in the last 24hours and what they expect to happen in the next.
Accounts of assault, self-harming and god forbid what’s called ‘death in custody’ are standard items on the agenda and seem to feature with depressing regularity given that our prison system is chronically creaking Inside the prisons crisis – Russell Webster I wonder at the levels of de-sensitization that humans can be unwittingly subject to and I wonder at the human cost of that ‘cos as coping strategies black humour and intra-team ‘banter’ will only get you so far.
So I’ve learned to highlight it by stealth through a story – and typically the room goes quiet as the pennies drop for a few people.
And then you are reminded that there’s such a thing as a Law of Unintended (& Unexpected) Consequences when you start this story to a group in an English prison and the large white Afrikan ex-pat prison officer in the room reveals himself.
‘Cos that was a hoot and a half, that was – especially as he helpfully left you and everyone else in the room in no f**king doubt about where he stood on Desmond f**king Tutu and his b***ard Truth and f**king Reconciliation Commission.
While the curious-logical part of me was wondering “so how are you here then?” the somewhat unnerved-emotional part was wondering how the f**kin’ hell I was going to re-establish rapport at the start of a session that had unexpectedly and spectacularly gone to sh**.
While we didn’t exactly hug and kiss at the end there was a considered handshake and an apology of sorts which I took to indicate that there was a thinking-feeling human being in there too that just didn’t like being taken by surprise.
Me too, fella.
