FOREWORD

Our leading articles in this edition of The Link pay tribute to our Founder, the. Revd. Dr. Colin Wicker, whose foresight and resourcefulness brought the S.U.F. and The Link into being. Many of us who worked with Colin over the years admired his professionalism, and his colleagues have expressed their appreciation of his work. However, there was another side to Colin, the family man, the husband and father, off duty and at home, exuberantly living life to the full with his wife and children. In his funeral eulogy, his younger son, Paul, with great affection and humour allows us a glimpse of his father in the domestic setting, very much 'the man of the house' but whose foibles and idiosyncrasies do not escape the critical scrutiny of the junior members of the household.

The search for meaning in our day to day existence has occupied thinkers for thousands of years; our essay on this topic takes a historical view of this pursuit.

Our reactions to cataclysmic events, actual and envisaged, usually reveal us as we really are, denuded of pretension, evasion and affectation. Our review of 'Left to Tell' deals with the remarkable spirit of its author in surviving the Rwanda genocide and in forgiving those who killed her family. Al Gore's film. 'An Inconvenient Truth', reviewed by Terry Skene, shows one man's determination to alert us in the face of bitter opposition, to the catastrophic consequences of climate change if we do not change our way of living immediately. Wars, past and present and their calamitous results are rarely out of the headlines, and in this season of remembrance, John Robinson recalls the Falklands War and reflects upon its impact upon us now.

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REVD DR. COLIN WICKER JP
1934 - 2007.

We deeply regret having to record the death of Rev. Dr. Colin Wicker JP who died at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, while recovering from surgery on 15th August 2007. His Funeral Service was conducted on Tuesday 21st August, at Dundee Crematorium by the Revd. Patricia Shaw of Manchester. For more than 30 years Colin was a vital and energising presence in Scottish Unitarianism, first in Orkney where he started a Fellowship, then in Dundee as lay-leader 1976 - 1983 and as Minister, from 1983 to his retirement in 1994. A man of enormous energy, Colin who had served the Scottish Unitarian Association in several Executive posts, including Secretary, Treasurer and Vice-Chairman, on his retirement founded the Scottish Unitarian Fellowship, to cater for people who wished to be associated with Scottish Unitarianism but who were unable to join a Congregation.

Colin had a vision of a 'Church without Walls', an institution without a building or physical centre, whose meeting place was in the homes or work places or wherever its members happened to be. He felt the Minister  should not be confined to his pulpit, his ivory tower, but should be active beyond the walls of the church, reaching out to the community, serving the need where it is, participating in life as it lived by ordinary people.

For the next ten years or so he travelled widely throughout Scotland administering to his scattered flock, conducting services, counselling, offering advice and comfort, and generally keeping in touch. The S.U.F. flourished and Colin started 'The Link' magazine to keep all the members informed of Fellowship events. 

Colin's was a powerful personality, confident, assured, innovative, determined and occasionally impulsive: when he thought something ought to be done, he did it, there and then. He was also a generous and helpful friend, a lavish host, a boon companion and raconteur, with a fund of entertaining stories, dramatically narrated.

His untimely passing has saddened a great many people, not only his family members and close associates, but the members of the Scottish Unitarian Community at large, and particularly the members of his S.U.F. who valued his help, and appreciated his concern for their well-being and his interest in their lives. Colin was the S.U.F. It took its identity from him. He shaped its personality, inspired it and was its living embodiment. At the moment it is difficult to imagine the S.U.F. without Colin, but that is for future consideration. For the time being we have lost a true friend and that is enough to cope with.

In his heyday, Colin was like a force of Nature on the Scottish scene, and although increasing infirmity had robbed him of that energy and drive and restricted his activities, such was his foresight that he will posthumously continue to influence Scottish Unitarianism form any years to come.

We express our deepest sympathy to his wife Sheila, his daughter, Anne, our former Minister, and to his sons Paul and Timothy and their families.

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The following Eulogy was delivered by Paul Wicker at Colin's Funeral Service
on 21st August at Dundee Crematorium.

COLIN McKENZIE WICKER
5th November 1934 to 15th August 2007

Dear friends, thank you for coming here today to say goodbye to our Dad, Colin Mackenzie Wicker.

Some of you know him as a friend. Our Aunt Dorothy knows him as a brother in law. Our cousins Duncan and Sandra know him as Uncle. His grandchildren, Elizabeth, Alice and Bryony, Kate, Mairi and Neil, know him as Grandpa, or Grandpa Dundee. Some of you know him as a colleague or workmate. Our mum, Sheila, knows him as a husband and partner of over 50 years. My sister, Anne, and brother, Tim, know him as Dad.

And he is of course, my Dad too. So, I want you to see a picture, for a moment or two, of our Dad through my eyes.

Dad, this is my chance to tell a few stories about you, rather than the other way around. So just be quiet and let me tell my stories. That's the first chance I have had in some time to say that!

You know how all kids think that their parents are invincible, almost like superheroes. If Dad had been a superhero, he wouldn't have been the Invisible Man - he was always too loud and too Insistent for that - always talking, always doing something. No, he would have been Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), a scientific genius and leader of the Fantastic Four. If I had an image of Dad when I was a little kid, that's who he would have been - a clever leader, able to get out of any predicament. Mum would have been the Invisible Woman, always by his side, always looking out for him. We kids would have been like the kids in the Invincibles - always getting into trouble, and always relying on our parents to help us out.

Mum has told me some things about Dad, which happened before I was born. It seems, he made his mark even then. Our Dad was a navigator in the RAF, as part of his National Service. On one trip he advised the pilot to avoid a storm cloud, however, the pilot, knowing better, decided to go through it. Dad looked out the window to see the wings flapping and vibrating. The plane crashed. Unfortunately there was an Air Vice Marshall on board at the time, so as a result the pilot was demoted, and Dad promoted. He was 18 at the time.

One of my first memories of Dad was as an avid photographer. He had one of the very early cine cameras and recorded many incidents of our lives when we were young. On one particular occasion, when I was about 4 or 5, I had been paddling in a pool and tripped over something in the bottom of the pool. In blind panic I stumbled forward, falling every few steps trying to get out of the 6 inch deep water. Fully expecting my Dad to come and rescue me, my 5 year old mind did not realise for several years that it was actually my mum who rescued me, while my dad was taking a cine film of the whole event! Thanks Dad!

Dad did rescue me from my own folly one time though - when I was stuck halfway up a cliff which I had thought, wrongly as it turned out, that I could climb. I was about 10 at the time. Hanging on by my fingertips, it was Dad who climbed up after me and grabbed me as I slipped off screaming to the rocks at the foot of the cliff - a good 10 feet below! He always thought that the bump on my head had affected me in some way. I'm just glad he didn't have his camera with him that day!

Dad took the family and left Partington, in Lancashire, in 1963 to go up to Orkney to live. These were happy years for our dad, and our family, and provided a rich experience of life which he never forgot and always remembered, even though it is many years since we have lived there.

While he lived there, Dad was in Customs and Excise. So I guess you can understand how popular he was with a culture used to the odd bit of smuggling and the isolation from authority afforded by the distance from the Scottish mainland. Our Dad was diligent though, and can boast a a professional integrity which earned him the title of 'Wicked Wicker' .

There was, for example, the time he confiscated the entire chair collection in an Orkney hotel, because they refused to pay their VAT bill. It got paid rather quickly after that.

Or the time he closed down all the slot machines on the St Ola, the brand new state of the art roll-on roll-off ferry which provided the single major link to the Orkney Islands, because they didn't pay their tax bill on time. The little incident of cutting their plugs off to ensure they weren't used, did not go unnoticed.

We stayed in Orkney until 1975, during which time Dad made many friends, many of whom are still in touch today. He also developed his love of walking; of the outdoors, of trips around the country. And of course, of Malt Whisky, and alongside mum, he developed an uncanny ability to tell the difference between many a malt. This was a skill which he put to excellent use in the later years of his life!

Dad left Orkney in 1975 to go to Dundee to take up a position as Lay Preacher at the Unitarian Church. this was his real vocation, and passion, and a role he threw himself into with a gusto which left many people around him breathless and became his life work. Before long he became ordained as a full minister of religion.

Dad wrote his Ph.D. during this time. A thesis of over 100, 000 words on the history and workings of Unitarianism. This book, even now, proves useful as a reference source for the Church in Dundee.

Dad's role of course, involved marrying people. Dad was proud to say that he has married more girls in Scotland than most other men. His standard reply to the question 'Would you marry me?', was 'Sorry, but I already have a wife!' He always was a bit of a flirt, when the thought took him. Even in hospital, just a couple of months ago, he managed to steal a kiss from the lady doctor who was looking after him. A bit of a lad, my Dad!

His role in marriage went well beyond his retirement, and in fact he was marrying people up until two years ago, when he finally decided to retire properly.

Another achievement was his founding of the 'Church without Walls', a way for people who couldn't go to church, to share their faith. This organisation continues to flourish with Anne, his daughter, as Chair.

Yes, Dad rarely let sentiment get in the way of what he wanted. He was a real mover and shaker, he made things happen, and provided the power house for supporting and pushing us kids into achieving so much with our lives.

This of course didn't always go down well - especially as his kids were usually as stubborn as he! When he forced me to go to Church, because I lived in the Manse, I rebelled by wearing my scruffiest of clothes, and only spending the minimum amount of time in the church that I could get away with. Some of you may remember the scruffy ne'er -do-well, who stumbled into Church last thing on a Sunday morning, looking sullen and dour, before exiting quickly as soon as the final words of the service were spoken. Yes, that was me!

I want to really apologise now, to my Dad for me being such a stubborn, bullet headed teenager, and to the Church for having to watch it all.

Yes, I was a bit of a rogue at that time, and when 1 left home I didn't return for almost a year. In fact, meeting my dad in the street for the first time since I left, he said to me 'Do you know what day this is?'. Here we go, I thought. 'Er yes, Tuesday', I replied,

'Yes, what else' he asked

'Er the 5th November', I replied, getting really fed up and annoyed.

'That's right.......................... My birthday'. He said.

'Ah', I replied, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.

Now don't get me wrong, my Dad has given me lots. Because of Dad, I achieved my Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award. And my President's Award, and a place on the. B.Sc. Nursing Course at Dundee's Bell Street Tech, and helped me develop my stamp collection, and do a traffic survey in Kirkwall with Tim. Dad has given me the ability to write clearly, thanks to his legacy I have published several books and many, many articles. He pushed, encouraged and cajoled all of us to make the most of our lives. I know his spirit lives on in Tim, Anne and me, and in his grandchildren. And we have a lot to be thankful for.

After his retirement, Dad and Mum spent a lot of time travelling. They went on many bus trips all over the country and overseas too. In the late 80's they went to Australia to see me and my family. They went to Canada to see that vast country. And they travelled to all corners of the UK.

In the last couple of years of Dad's life though, he preferred to stay at home. When his brother Donald passed away, he could not be with him, but I know, that Dad missed Donald so much, and perhaps it hurt too much for him to cope with. In my minds eye, I can see a picture of Donald and Colin, brothers side by side, reunited and exchanging stories over a couple of Malts, and looking down on us from somewhere on high, laughing and joking. Perhaps there is a message in there about what is really important in life.

I hope, that you have all seen something of the many sides of our Dad - the kindness, the generosity, the care, the integrity, the intelligence, the commitment, the stubbornness, the love, - all of these things made Dad into the person he was.

These are just some of things which stick in my mind. I only knew him for 47 years of his 72 years of an amazing life.

Our mum, of course, knew him for much longer than any of us, longer than anybody else in this room. She loved him, and was loved by him. She stood beside him through everything, right up to the end. It's our mum who is the real superhero. She had the strength over the years to look after Dad and to keep the family together. .

We are all going to the Swallow after this Service, and I would urge you to come along too, and speak to Mum, and all of the family, and hear even more about his life, and share some of your experiences too, of the remarkable character who was my Dad.

Good bye, Dad, all your family misses you. We'll love you forever.

From Paul, Anne and Tim, your Children and Sheila, your wife.

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LIBERAL RELIGION IN THE 21^ST CENTURY

By Barry Bell

I understand liberal religion to be the acceptance that there are many paths for us to strengthen our spirituality (often thought of as getting closer to God (however defined)), with all such paths being valid and with the rejection of any religion's claim to absolute knowledge or absolute authority.

We are not alone in seeing the truth inherent in liberal religion; the question is whether we can find the courage to stand up for it.

The principal challenge for liberal religion is to persuade all religions (including Christianity) that seeking to retain such a claim will in fact weaken them, since in this age of the global, village it will become increasingly difficult for any seeking a spiritual path to accept such a claim The other challenge (much easier) is to reassure them and mankind of our understanding that they will provide a valid, and stronger, spiritual path without this claim.

Previous attempts to face these challenges have failed because the time was simply wrong. With the advent of the global village, the time is now IF we can find the courage THIS is what liberal religion can uniquely bring to mankind in the twenty-first century

(Barry Bell is a Unitarian and spiritual humanist.) 

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THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

by Bill Stephen

The vast majority of those people privileged to be present at the very first performance of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' in 1606, although puzzled by that speech, probably regarded it as no more than the bitter ramblings of a deranged tyrant about to meet his just deserts. The more thoughtful members of the audience, however, may have been intrigued by the issue raised in the speech as much as they were non-plussed by Macbeth's reaction. Shakespeare seemed to be asking a question about the meaning or value or purpose of human life, an extraordinary thing to do, as everyone - apart from stage villains - knew the answer, and had known it for 16 hundred years and it would take another three hundred years or so before Shakespeare's question and Macbeth's answer were taken seriously by philosophers.

On the basis of this speech we now recognise that Shakespeare was thinking along existentialist lines, a view that is confirmed by other plays, especially by 'Troilus and Cressida' where Troilus regards things as valueless in themselves and only acquire meaning or significance by what they achieve or in the use to which they may be put. Helen of Troy, for example, is only significant because she was the cause of the Trojan War. Neither her life nor that of any other human being has any intrinsic value, according to Troilus.

The ancient Greeks, of course, in reality not just those portrayed in Shakespeare's plays - bad given much thought to questions about the purpose and value of Human life. The writers of Greek tragedy, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, to a portion of whose work we have access, were clearly obsessed by this question. Life to the Greeks was short, brutal, painful and unjust. Why did perfectly good people suffer crushing pain and ill health and endure the most horrendous catastrophes in their lives, loss of children, family, home, possessions, reputation and livelihood, victimised by vindictive forces which they cannot appease or even identify? Are human beings intended to be nothing more than the involuntary playthings of evil forces. Does human destiny amount to no more than that? The ancient Greek tragedians asked the question, 'if life amounts to no more than inescapable disaster and suffering and pain, what is the point of it?' They can offer no answer. They can show how noble and courageous human beings attempt to cope with disaster without yielding to despair but in the end they are forced to admit defeat. In the final chorus of 'Oedipus the King', after the terrible death of its hero, Sophocles is forced to conclude, 'Count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.' A few of the Greek philosophers, notably Aristotle, to whom we shall return later, tried hard to find a more positive response, but the question remained unanswered - some say it is unanswerable - and largely ignored until the 20th century.

Christian writers, on the whole, did not spend much time on the question, as clearly the purpose of each human being is to obey the will of God, as Milton explains in his sonnet, God had created the universe and every thing in it, not out of necessity but out of sheer love. So powerful is his creativity that he has provided a life plan for every living thing and takes a compassionate care and interest in each individual. Each creature is required to take on trust everything God has destined for him or her, including suffering, disappointment, hardship and tragedy, believing that eventually, within the time scale of eternity, all will be made good. Cheerful submission to the will of God and observance of his laws are the only requirements of a fulfilled and successful life. Christian teaching, furthermore, is concerned with the spirit rather than the body. The needs of the flesh, therefore, may be ignored in favour of spiritual needs. Hunger, thirst, pain, disease, exhaustion, the ills of the flesh, are clearly of less significance than any threat to the health of the spirit.

However, there is a serious weakness in the Christian position, as identified and then hushed up in the Book of Job, that is the question of Evil. Why did God, having created the universe out of love, permit evil to enter his creation, to flourish there and cause havoc to every living thing. Why bother to create people if the consequence of doing so is to condemn them to intolerable suffering? Job is a law-abiding, upright family man, who has honoured his God and obeyed his laws meticulously, yet God allows the Devil to kill his family, ruin his livelihood, destroy his home and drive him into the depths of despair, apparently to test his loyalty to God. But God has created Job, knows him thoroughly and his ultimate destiny, so why does he need to test him? Job clearly asks the question, if he was not created to suffer what was he created for? What is the point of human life? The writer of Job, however, cannot any more than Sophocles in answer to the question and is compelled to acknowledge that the answer must remain with God. However, the question has been raised. If bad things happen to good people, what is the point of life. The problem of evil and questions about the meaning of life seem to go hand in hand.

Various attempts have been made to explain away the persistence of evil in the world in order to protect God's reputation for omnipotence and compassion. It has been suggested that having created the cosmos, God withdrew altogether and took no further interest in it; that evil, a naturally occurring phenomenon was already present in the material used used to build the universe and leached out to disrupt his handiwork by means of disease, warfare, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flood, drought and famine; that evil stimulates our compassion and makes human beings a caring species; that God gave human beings a  large measure of freewill and, therefore; under the guidance of his laws, moral responsibility for all human acts. These arguments seemed sufficiently telling, therefore, to avoid any need to modify the clam that 'Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever'. While these arguments were apparently acceptable to the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who complained that "The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" (incidentally he lived to be 91) but has to be accepted as the work of God, and to his contemporary, the poet, John Milton, they bothered the rationalists of the 18th century. Philosophers like David Hume and Immanuel Kant could not reconcile the existence of evil side by side with the existence of an all powerful God who loved his creation and who logically ought to have protected them from lives of suffering and misery. They, therefore, bounced God off his throne and claimed the moral high ground for humanity. Nineteenth century writers, like the Author of Job, like the Greeks, like Shakespeare, continued to question the point of human life. Stephen Blackpool, a hard-working, God-fearing, law-abiding mill-worker in Charles Dickens's novel 'Hard Times' is unfairly dismissed from his job, maliciously accused of theft, driven from his home and the people who love him, and while walking across moorland in a bid to prove his innocence, falls into an abandoned mine shaft, where he lies in agony for several days before dying. Existence has defeated him and he can find no explanation for the purpose of his life. He sums up his view of life in the words, 'It's all a muddle lass; it's a1l a muddle,' words which reflect the bewilderment of millions of wage slaves, toiling their lives away in the mills and factories of the industrial revolution. Later on in the century, Thomas Hardy, explores the same issue in a series of tragic novels, culminating in the unbearably painful and pessimistic, 'Jude the Obscure' in which the hero suffers all the miseries of Job and in addition is abandoned by God. He is entirely alone and desolate. His suffering has been pointless; it has achieved nothing. He was born; he suffered; he died. What was the point? Pain, pain, pain and then nothing. Soren Keirkegaard and Feodor Dostoevsky also search the universe for some hint of meaning but in vain, although paradoxically they continue to declare a belief in God.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the quest for the meaning of life had become and remained one of the principle preoccupations of thinkers, writers and artists, reflecting not only the restless iconoclasm of the modern age, questioning and usually demolishing traditional attitudes, assumptions and practices, but also its growing anxiety about evil and the status of human life. In the Christian era, although life was frequently unbearable, it was based firmly for the majority upon a belief in the existence of a creator God who knew what he was doing. The modern age could offer no such reassurance and the unimaginable horror and bloodshed caused by modern weaponry during the W.W.1 robbed people of any sense of security and any illusions that they might have left, that there was some point to human existence.

The twentieth century eventually caught up with Macbeth. The existentialists, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Cam us, while acknowledging there is a mystery about existence, reject out of hand that it has any purpose or meaning. Why is there something rather than nothing; why is there being; why is there a state called existing, they cannot say. They are convinced, however, that human life is an accident, the consequence of mere chance, a random effect of the evolutionary process, and as such has no purpose or meaning, and seen. objectively, has no significance for the rest of the universe. In spite of this, however, because we are so constituted, we continue to search for meaning, a contradiction for which they coined the word 'absurd' and created the literature and the theatre of the absurd, to explore its consequences. Pessimistic as their writing is, much of it dominated by an obsessive awareness of death as in Camus's "The Myth. of Sisyphus", "The Outsider" and "The Pest", at least they thought the question worth pursuing; postmodernist thinkers now dismiss the issue as being totally irrelevant, a delusion, a hang-over from the days of belief in God. The Postmodernist approach is to take things at face value. When we go digging below the surface of things to find their meaning, they claim, we are still looking for a grand all embracing concept that will explain everything, the only difference is, they say, we no longer call it God, we call it Nature, Reason, History, Power or some such term. Every good postmodernist knows that there is no such thing as a single overarching concept, but thousands and thousands of tiny concepts, just as there is no such thing as an individual self, but hundreds of thousands of mental processes that deceive us into thinking we do possess an individual self, a subjective 'I' or a 'ME', a spirit or a soul. Searching for life meanings, either for the human species or for an individual, therefore, is a waste of energy, a conclusion that ironically, has something in common with that of Shakespeare's groundlings.

However, this is not in the least satisfactory as it simply buries the question beneath fashionable philosophical ideas, largely emerging from French universities. As far as the individual is concerned the meaning of life is not an answer to a philosophical problem, it is not a matter of argument, but a matter of living in a certain way, a way that makes the individual's life worth living. In spite of what thinkers think and writers write, we all feel our life ought to have significance not only for ourselves, nor just for the people who love us, but also for the whole universe. Unlike all other creatures on the planet, and possessing a degree of consciousness they do not share, we know that life is not everlasting and unlike all other creatures we are able to question and comment upon our experience of living, therefore, how much satisfaction and fulfilment we derive from our life is vitally important to us. In fact it may be argued that the meaning of the universe is the sum of all human experience. Consciousness of a need for meaning creates meaning.

Many commentators claim that at the microcosmic level, the search for the meaning of life is a search for personal happiness; what makes each one of us happy is up to us and to no one else. We may eat, drink, take drugs to excess if that makes us content; we may set ourselves challenges to excel in our profession or in artistic or athletic pursuits; we may exploit a talent to the exclusion of all else; we may set ourselves goals and objectives to accumulate a vast fortune, buy a bigger house or better car, become a celebrity; we may undertake voluntary or charitable work; we may be as materialistic or as spiritual as we like; it is our choice.

Aristotle, however, would not agree. While agreeing that the aim of all human life is the pursuit of happiness, this is achieved, not as an isolated individual, but as a member of a particular society. Decent human beings, he argues, acknowledge the responsibilities and obligations they owe their community and in pursuing their own happiness pay due attention to the well being of other people. For instance, he would not condone any act of selfish pleasure which caused suffering, distress or annoyance to anyone else.

Aristotle, while advocating respect and consideration for others, however, seems strangely indifferent to the expression of that single emotion which more than any other gives life its meaning, and that is love. Whatever else may give us satisfaction, the experience of loving and being loved is the most fulfilling of all. Loving, caring, compassion, all seem to be elemental in our nature. They may be expressed more abundantly in some people rather than others but our instinct to protect, nourish, help and support others, even complete strangers, makes us feel that we are doing something worthwhile and that our own existence on this planet, accidental as it may be, brief as it may be, has been of some value. While Aristotle, quite rightly, advises us against adding to human suffering, love inspires us to combat the evil that engenders that suffering. We are prepared to sacrifice ourselves for others, usually for a loved one but also occasionally for a person we may have never met. I think the greatest satisfaction of all is to be found in acting out of pure selfless love for another person. If there is anything transcendent in human experience it is the feeling of compassion.

Macbeth succumbed to evil because he denied the compassion that was in him. Evil robbed him of that sense of gratification, that awareness of the eternal in the present, that accompanies that moment of complete fulfilment and happiness

 The conclusion I come to is that the meaning of life is in ourselves, that we can love.

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Felicien was sobbing. I good feel his shame. He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met. I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I'd come to say.

"I forgive you. "

My heart eased immediately, and I saw the tension release in Felicien's shoulders before Semana pushed him out the door and into the courtyard.

This is the incredible climax to Immaculee Ilibagiza's autobiography "Left to Tell" in which she describes the horror of living through the Rwanda genocide of 1994, 91 days of madness, in which more than a million people died at the hands of their neighbours.

Two soldiers yanked Felicien up by his armpits and dragged him back towards his cell. Semana was furious. 

"What was that all about, lmmaculee? That was the man who murdered your family. I brought him to you to question, to spit on if you wanted to. But you forgave him. How could you. do that? Why did you forgive him?

I, answered him with the truth: "Forgiveness is all I have to offer. " 

None of the Christian virtues is easy to exercise but forgiveness is surely the most difficult of all, and Immaculee did not find it easy to forgive her neighbour who killed her mother and her brother, looted their home and pursued her relentlessly for three month, during which she lived in terror of this man and his mob of killers and hated him as much as she feared. By sheer willpower, however, Immaculee, a devout Catholic, resolved to transform hatred into forgiveness in order to put the suffering of the Rwanda holocaust behind her and find peace of mind at last.

Immaculee was a member of a Tutsi family. Her father, Leonard was the headmaster of the local secondary school, her mother a primary school teacher, her two older brothers were university graduates, her younger brother was at secondary school and she was studying maths and science at the State University of Butare. They were a close-knit family, undemonstrative, but deeply committed to each other and to their religious beliefs. 

Immaculee, then, was a tall, attractive girl, highly intelligent, articulate in French as well as her native language, exuberant, self-confident, free of prejudice and deeply religious. She made friends easily, had a highly developed sense of fun, was high-spirited and took part in various student societies.

The family lived in the Kibuye province on the banks of Lake Kivu, which separates Rwanda from Zaire. Their home village was quiet and remote. Hutus and Tutsis lived happily together, inter-marrying, cooperating, sharing, concerned about keeping body and soul together in one of Africa's poorest countries, untroubled by tribal differences, historical rivalries and past resentments. However, in Kigale, the capital, political events, provoked by unresolved tribal conflicts and exploited by ambitious and unscrupulous politicians, spread suspicion, unrest, terror and eventually open warfare throughout the country. The government was dominated by Hutu extremists who employed the media, particularly the radio, to demonise and dehumanise the Tutsis and to encourage their Hutu neighbours to exterminate them as vermin, burn their homes, seize their land and possessions and destroy every record of their very existence. Emboldened by the government's licence to kill, and with the promise of rich booty to be had, inspired by old resentments and long-suppressed jealousies, many of the Hutus, armed with machetes, spears, sticks, rocks and guns turned upon their unarmed and vulnerable Tutsi neighbours. Men, women and children were hacked to death, in their own homes, in the streets, in their fields, schools, university, wherever they might be found. Immaculee's Tutsi neighbours sought help from her father, the most respected man in the area. Panic stricken, they crowded around his house, seeking refuge, urging him to negotiate with the local extremists on their behalf. He tried, and was hacked to pieces. Their home was attacked. The family fled. Immaculee and her younger brother sought refuge with Murinzi, the local Protestant Pastor, a family friend, a widower and a Hutu, who had married a Tutsi, and who, with great courage, for friendship's sake and in fulfIlment of his Christian duty, agreed to help. 

Although grateful to Murinzi for saving her life, and jeopardising his own and that of his family in doing so, Immaculee admits to hating him as well, because, in the end he refused to shelter her younger brother and his friend, and drove them out of his house. They tried to conceal themselves in the fields, but were eventually discovered, beaten to death and dismembered.

Murinzi, however, kept faith with Immaculee and seven other Tutsi women whom he concealed in a tiny bathroom attached to his own bedroom. There was insufficient space to lie down so they were obliged to stand and to take it in turns to sit on the floor. There was a flushing toilet and Murinzi brought them food and drink late at night, if he could do so unobserved.

Felicien and his band, searching for Immaculee, ransacked the Pastor's house several times, convinced he was hiding her, but failed to discover the bathroom door, concealed behind a large wardrobe. In these cramped conditions and never free of the fear of discovery, Immaculee and her companions spent ninety days, during which their family and friends were hunted down and killed.

Severe as the physical suffering was, it was nothing compared to the mental torture they endured hour by hour, day by day, the dread of imminent discovery bearing down upon them, crushing their spirit, and reducing them to trembling nonentities during the frequent raids made by their pursuers. 

Immaculee's account of these 90 days is the spiritual heart of her book. As with the others, she .was powerless in the grip of terror. Fear furnished her mind with images of her seizure, of her humiliation, naked in the hands of her enemies, of witnessing her own dismemberment, limb by limb and finally of feeling grateful for the coup de grace. Their situation was hopeless. They could not remain concealed for ever. What if their benefactor turned against them, yielding to the fear of reprisals and the murderous radio propaganda? Why should they escape, when their family and friends had already met their doom? Were they so special? Negative thoughts washed through her brain like a tide, sweeping away hope and the desire to survive. 'Let's get it over with as soon as possible.' Immaculee characterised these negative feelings as evil, brewed by the Devil, and turned to prayer as an antidote. She felt her Catholic faith was under attack. God was on trial. Using her rosary, she prayed non-stop throughout the day and night, asking for God's protection. She meditated for hours on end upon Biblical passages that dealt. with the power of faith; faith would be her refuge; she visualised two shafts of bright light piercing the ceiling and guarding the bathroom door, God's presence, reassuring her of his concern for her plight. However, anger towards the whole world which seemed unconcerned by their plight, and hatred for the Hutus, including Murinzi, more consuming than she had ever experienced before, created a barrier between herself and her God. God excluded no one from his embracing love. To deserve God's protection, she too had to forgive and love everyone, even her tormentors, She withdrew into herself and tried to understand the killers, to find some compassion for them, even to forgive them. A week past as she struggled with her thoughts, constantly interrupted from outside by the screams and moans of the dying, the innocent victims of these same killers. Eventually she persuaded herself that they were children misled by evil, and that the ignorance and mistakes of children are more easily forgiven than those of adults. Suddenly she pitied them and asked God to forgive them. Having achieved this spiritual victory over self, she felt calmer, more assured of God's love and protection. From now on, until the end of her confinement, she lived almost entirely in her own mind, creating for herself a mental refuge, constructed out of prayer, contemplation and submission to the will of God. Whatever happened to her now, happened with God's approval.

Eventually, the Hutu extremists were overthrown and the killing ended. Immaculee went in search of her murdered family, discovering the mutilated remains of her mother and oldest brother whom she laid to rest. Of her father and youngest brother, there was no sign; they had perished in the holocaust and they would remain unidentified for ever.

The value of "Left to Tell" lies in its authenticity as testimony to human depravity and cruelty, unsparing in its frankness and unchallengeable in its accuracy, on the one hand, but also to the human spirit, its resilience, its strength and its ability to transcend. Immaculee's anger, hatred and terror were thoroughly justified, but she had a vision of a nobler humanity that aspires to an understanding and love of her, fellow creatures that transcends transitory impressions and selfish concerns. Forgiveness, however it is achieved, through religious exercise or emotional maturity or compassion or common sense or as a response to genuine remorse is surely the most difficult relationship to enter into and also the most divine. 

"Left to Tell" is published by Hay House