Of Subtexts and Silences

Inspiration from the margins

Loiyangalani, Turkana

Christ the King Cathedral: (aka) Eldoret IDP Base, Jan 2008

A question that exercises the text:What does it mean

to be human?

• In the family• in the world• in Kenya/Your country/In Africa• among ourselves• in life• in death• In the imagination of others• In personal imaginings

Exploration of question in story

As if the answer is framed by our relationships, the

evidence in the character of those relationships

Beyond the surfaces

Archetypal human-human break

Genesis 4:9-12, New International Version (NIV)9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your

brother Abel?”“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s

keeper?”10 The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen!

Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its

mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a

restless wanderer on the earth.”

Aspects of ‘Moral Trauma’ and its consequences

• Denial• Cover up/Silencing/Acts of erasure• Replacement with a lie/another story/Perception management• Guilt, Shame, Escape from Self/Distorted identity subject to

constant redefinition, revision• Blame the victim (the irresponsibility of the other, the

existential wrongness of the other)• Markedness/ ‘Cursedness’, Hauntedness• Multiple voices of Accusation• Exile/Displacement• Restlessness• Ceaseless inner conflict, outer manifestation of conflict• The deed possesses the Offender (your hand…), in body, in

memory, in consequential existence, in choices, passed down

• Relativisation/mockery of the notion of ‘evil’• Disorder in families (offender and offended) and other

relationships--conflict); disorder in society• Demand for Accountability (whether desired or not)• Witness (By Life itself) • Resignation to, full embrace of a culture of ‘evil’—the Lie

(People of the Lie:’ people who are evil attack others rather than face their own failures’ Scott Peck.-- Always someone ‘other’ to blame for consequential moral disorder)

• Loss of conscience/loss of soul (essential beingness)• Erosion of moral/ethical infrastructure• Reliance on ‘Perception Management’ to construct image and

message• A horror that ‘possesses’ both offender and offended (society)• Moral woundedness• The wounded/offended other: Demands

acknowledgement, demands atonement (justice), demands to be heard, seen, recognised, sought out, engaged with at site of offence.

• Remedy can be through encounter AND confession. Difficult Goal: the readmission of truth

Denial

Pyramid of denial

Reconciling broken social ties

• (Edward Tick) “My best understanding of what we call “PTSD” is that it is an identity disorder and soul wound that has its readjustment to life, but no healing. I believe, though, that if a veteran makes the difficult inner pilgrimage to discover the sources of the suffering, and works hard to give meaning to the wounding, and finds ways to reconcile and forgive, then healing is possible.”

• How do you invite forgiveness, compassion, atonement restitution? (By a” willful descent into [inner, physical] hell”. Community, if re-emerging is not the same as before. Another name sought, which carries the event/experience and its realisation).

Story• Permits exploration of ‘What ifs’• Suggests other story dimensions; the idea of multiple

strings that weave a nation’s story. Can be perceived as a threat to an official narrative of the nation

• Archetypal character of story; enables a safe channel to engage with difficult questions, allows for disturbing subtexts to re-enter society imagination

• Vicarious restitution, transformation, regeneration• Vicarious restitution• Witness

Witness Art: Guernica