I have revisited our collective past in this blog. My piece some time ago about the ransacking of the Curia was such an example. I plan to re-visit other unsavory incidents in the future. I am not the only one. Others have done the same.

Different reactions greet such pieces. I group them in this way.

“In praise of collective (pretended) amnesia” approach. There are those who say that we should not remember unpleasant incidents. Let’s forget even if we are not able to forgive, the exponents of this trend say. The past? Let us pretend that no unpleasant incidents happened in the past.

“Your side did worse” approach. When these persons read of anything they don’t like they react by jotting a list of bad things the other side did. “Whatever we did” they reason out “you did worse.”

“We are the victims” approach. Others go on a trip of partial and selective remembering and forgetting. They project themselves as virgin victims. They were on the receiving end of the stick of history.

Forgetfulness is no forgiveness

I believe that these approaches will get us nowhere. Each and every one of us as individuals has our own past and personal histories. We harbour hurts, anger, disappointments, betrayals etc. If we sweep them under the carpet or hide them in the proverbial cupboard they will grow and fester. Then, when least expected, they will come back to haunt us and cause havoc.

The way forward is facing our dark moments in the face; and the darker they are the quicker one has to face them. We have to face ourselves warts and all. Sometimes we can do this alone. At other times we need help. That’s the way things are.

The same is true about us as a country. Putting things under the collective carpet or pretending that we forgot is not a solution. Forgiveness is not possible if there is forgetfulness!

Dr Klaus Vella Bardon kindly sent me the Longford Lecture delivered by Archbishop Desmond Tutu some years ago. The much loved Archbishop said:

“Mercifully, we don't possess a fiat by which we can declare "let bygones be bygones" and they dutifully become bygones and go and lie down quietly. They have an uncanny capacity to return and haunt us. An unexamined and unacknowledged past finds all kinds of skeletons emerging from all sorts of cupboards to bedevil the present. Just ask General Pinochet. As Santayana declared hauntingly: "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

Ugly things from our past

Many ugly things have happened in our recent past and there still is a lot of suffering and pain as a result. Let me, from the recent past, make a very partial and short list of dark stains on our collective consciousness:

The politico-religious controversies of the Sixties. The murder of Karin Grech and Raymond Caruana. The organised violence during several political public meetings, especially in the 1980s. The bombs that were planted in so many public and private places including the bomb placed on the door step of the Archbishop’s residence at Mdina. The shameful goings on, including systematic torture, in the Police Headquarters. The ransacking of the Curia. The use of broadcasting as a brain washing apparatus.

I am sure that the list can be, and should be expanded.

What should we do about it?

We have to face the hurts that haunt us. We have to face them together as one people. We can’t face them as one group against another. We can’t face them as one group accusing the other. That would be disastrous. We have to face them together but we have to face them honestly and in truth.

In our soul searching we should be guided by the words of wisdom that were written by St Joseph Moscato, a doctor from Naples who died in 1927: “Love the truth; show yourself to be what you are without embarrassment, without fear, without paying too much attention to what they might say about you.”

What should we do to face these and other shameful events?

A number of countries, for example Chile, in Nicaragua, in South Africa and in East Timor had set up Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to remember the past, re-live it vicariously and heal themselves.

These Commissions traded truth for an amnesty. You say the truth and then you are forgiven. It was a period of public confession and reconciliation. It hurt a lot. Some could not take it. But on the whole it was considered as an exercise which helped healing and reconciliation.

Desmond Tutu writes:

“We were exhilarated by many examples of victims forgiving the perpetrators in a display of remarkable magnanimity and generosity of spirit. It was not just black South Africans who did this. Many white South Africans did as well.”

Are we mature enough?

What happened in Malta was not on such a grand and horrible scale as what happened in South Africa and the other countries where such commissions were set up. True. Perhaps this method is not adaptable for our country. This is possible. But we need to find a method to exorcise ourselves from the demons we hid in our cupboards.

Unless we face the hurts of the past and heal them we will continue to be influenced negatively. We need to exorcise these demons and heal these hurts.

Any ideas how we can do this in a mature way?

Till next time I wish you all good bye and good luck.