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After the Massacre in Beslan

The Difficult Discipline of Forgiveness

Giorgio Vittadini

What comes to mind is the first slaughter of the innocents, the one that took place 2000 years ago. Today we should all be united against such cruelty that brings to mind the most diabolical pages in human history. Yet we have never been so divided, incapable of that very unity that is the condition for every reconstruction after barbarianism. Everyone, after the first few moments, lingers on important yet indecisive considerations.

And yet, if only one of the hundreds of innocent dead in these days (one of the children from Beslan, one of the passengers from the Tupolev aircraft or the bus in Israel) were to speak to the person who killed him and to us, he would reveal what is lacking in all of our considerations: "Why me? What did I do to make you kill me, adding injustice to injustice?"

The so called democratic conquests, the very same liberté, egalité and fraternité can only be justified ultimately by one fact: the life of a person is in no way and for no reason measurable and quantifiable. Terrorism is the extreme consequence of an idea of man as the ultimate judge of everything, who takes the liberty to think, to itemize the life of humble people, of poor people, of men without a face. No Palestinian without land, no Chechen woman, no invaded Iraqi person can take the liberty, because of an endured injustice, to dispose of the life of another person: no cause can make the life of a person relative.

This powerful reason is the only one that can break the circle of violence, yet unfortunately, this reason is lacking in almost everyone, even if in different ways. As a consequence, notwithstanding the judgment of the Catholic Church and the Pope, the first and second Gulf wars were declared, provoking destruction and the deaths of innocent people. Even with the knowledge that many innocent people would be killed and that an even more violent reaction would be provoked, the path of indiscriminate repression was chosen.

In the same and opposite way, the Iraqi Prime Minister and his soldiers - who are trying to prevent the birth of a new State that supports that terrorism which would cause other innumerable massacres in the world - are left alone. Some people, even Catholics, say that the deaths caused by terrorism are the right price to pay for the deaths caused by imperialism, therefore there is no reason to be so scandalized. Or even, as reported in the French newspaper Le Figaro, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs has no qualms about meeting with and seeking out the indulgency of the Hamas terrorists, on the very same day in which they would claim responsibility for the outrage in which 16 workers lost their lives. The person who claims to measure everything is the root of the same ideology that leads a civilized country such as Holland to introduce euthanasia for sick children.

So then, which is the possible path to follow? In The Betrothed, when Renzo meets Br. Christopher in the hospital and tells him he wants to take revenge on Don Rodrigo, the brother, scandalized, obliges him to forgive, even before telling him that Lucia is safe and Don Rodrigo is sick with the plague. This is the very same sort of forgiveness given by Mrs.Coletta*. It's the forgiveness of the Christian who, hundreds of years ago, started building up a new people with the Angles, the Saxons, and the Hungarians who killed his father. It's the forgiveness of the Barbarian who abandoned the law of "ten lives in exchange for a life," so was he moved by the humanity of Cyril, Methodius, Patrick and Boniface.

Western civilization springs from overcoming the law of "an eye for an eye;" it is born of a forgiveness that is not weakness but rather participation in the experience of a God who forgave those who accused and killed Him unjustly, and who vanquished evil. It's a forgiveness which becomes positivity, reconstruction, civilization, peace, work, science, progress, democracy, tolerance, and the possibility always to be greater than the circumstances that would oppress us. Unfortunately, meetings among religions are not enough if they remain abstract.

The Chechen woman and the fighting Palestinian man, to whom no welcomed retaliation will give back their beloved or their friend, need to meet different people who, first experiencing forgiveness in their lives, may witness a more human way to treat women, things and work.

They need to meet Christians who stop imitating ideologies and authentically live their community which brings peace: lay people who recognize and defend the inviolability of the person, Muslims who, deeply moved by their religious sense, affirm the sacredness of life (like the appeal launched by the Italian moderate Muslims commented on in these days by the Minister Pisanu** and Magdi Allam***), statesmen who love the peoples, as the fathers of Europe did.

Therefore, while we need to defend ourselves from terrorism, also by means of peace-keeping operations which prevent the birth of new terrorist-friendly states, each one of us cannot escape the heartfelt appeals of the prophets of our times, like the Holy Father, Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Monsignor Giussani.

The most effective tool for fighting terrorism is education in the respect for life, in forgiveness, and friendship with others and among peoples. This is the beginning of the new world.

Il Giornale, September 6, 2004