Why We Need a Language for Ethical Power

Last week the Jewish Community in Cape Town couldn't get enough of Peter Beinart. Though he is a controversial figure in Zionist circles who has spoken out against Israel's occupation of the West Bank, he was invited to speak from morning to night. On January 23rd at the Albow Centre Zionists who had come to heckle  found themselves charmed. Why? Well he is a brilliant speaker and a very erudite Jewish scholar. He also made a point of showing himself as a supporter of the existence of a Jewish state and a proud Jew before he explained his position about the crisis of Zionism. Furthermore, he is one of our own - his parents were Capetonians and when he wryly revealed that his most virulent critics were members of his own family, he pretty much had us in the palm of his hand.

That evening some members of the audience fully expecting to get heated at hearing another self-hating Jew, found themselves inexplicably calmed and soothed by Beinart's rootedness in Jewish religion and culture as well as his sensitivity to the priorities and fears within the Jewish community.

He made one really potently illuminating point: Throughout Jewish history we have seen ourselves as victims and this is part of the problem in Israeli politics today. Our festivals - Purim, Pesach, Hannukah - have as their theme: We were attacked, We survived, Let's eat! It is a language of victimhood. We don't go on to relate the stories of how our ancestors did battle afterwards and slayed multitudes in revenge, for instance. We lack a language to talk about the ethical responsibility of Jewish power. This lack is reflected in Israeli politics too. A country that has the fifth largest army in the world and is a global arms exporter still sees itself as needing to behave with impunity because of its Holocaust history. He made a plea for a broader panoply of images than just those of Holocaust victimhood or of military triumphalism.

Can you think of any? Do you know of any countries (or philosophers) that have a language to talk about the ethical responsibilities of power? Do any of these ever practice what they preach?

Worcester Peace Train

I mentioned Deon Snyman and the Worcester Hope and Reconciliation Process in my last post. At the "Engaging The Other" conference in early December he talked about a whole group of survivors of the Worcester Shoprite bombing planning to visit one of the perpetrators, Stefaans Coetzee, in prison in Pretoria. Well, they didn't waste any time!

Sarah Crawford-Browne writes:

"Deon is on an incredible journey with 40 survivors of the Worcester bomb - 24 Dec 1996. They left this morning (29 Jan 2013) on a Peace Train to go from Worcester to Pretoria to meet one of the perpetrators.  I'm putting up the updates on the Restitution Foundation Facebook page as they travel.    And we invite you to join the Peace Train -- there's an event on the page... or to share a posting so it does go viral and strengthens the hope in our country!  This is a partnership between the Worcester Hope and Reconciliation Process (they called Deon the father of WHRP today!) and Khulumani. 

This newspaper article shares a little of the story...  - as does a video about Ms Olga Macingwane who was the first to make the journey in 2009, following which other survivors requested the opportunity to meet Stefaans. 

Engaging the Other

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

We don't often read or hear Good News in South Africa these days. So the conference I attended at the University of the Free State (UFS) in early December made a welcome dent in the prevailing atmosphere of pessimism. Engaging the Other: Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Repetition - the third of the post-TRC conferences organized by Professor of Psychology, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela since 2006 - brought together stories of transcending violent histories from all over the world. It was at the first of these conferences that many of us were deeply moved by the presentation from the German psychoanalysts of PAKH who are the second-generation offspring of survivors and perpetrators of the Holocaust. It was also then that David Gerbi, a Libyan Jew, performed his extraordinary autobiographical play about "Making Peace with Gaddafi".

Jonathan Jansen

Six years later, Pumla has moved to Mangaung (formerly Bloemfontein) as have quite a few Cape Town academics drawn by the charisma and transformational energy of Jonathan Jansen, the Rector, who was appointed when UFS was rocked by a racist scandal in 2008. Three stories from South Africa impressed me.

The University of the Free State
The first undoubtedly was the story of UFS itself and what Jansen has been able to create in 3 years.