Along the Way

The Divine Transcendence of Forgiveness

A Human Being Died that Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness, is a book about the hatred and violence that plagued the Apartheid years of South Africa. How would they deal with the past in a way that would break the cycles of violence and restore peace? the journey of healing a broken nation involved the intentional process of bringing victims and the perpetrators of violence together in a series of controlled hearings called The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. the hearings were intended to be opportunities for confrontation, confession and ultimately forgiveness and reconciliation. In most legal procedures the goal is justice, not reconciliation, and therefore the victims are excluded.

One of the perpetrators stands out as the man whom many in the country considered the most brutal of Apartheid's covert police operations. Eugene de Kock was the behind-the-scenes engineer of hundreds of murderous operations. His sinister reputation earned him the nickname "Prime Evil."

At the very first hearing he confessed to planning and executing the murder of three black policemen in a car bombing. The widows of two of the murdered policemen were present and testified how their lives had been affected by the lose of their husbands. As de Kock finished his testimony he apologized to the widows for the wrong he had done. With tears in his eyes and his body shaking, he said with a breaking voice, "I wish I could do more than say I'm sorry. I wish there was a way of bringing their bodies back alive. I wish I could say here are your husbands," stretching out his arms as if bearing an invisible body. His hands trembling; his mouth quivering.

After the meeting both women said that they felt that de Kock had communicated to them something he felt deeply and had genuinely acknowledged their pain. Pearl Faku said, "I was profoundly touched by him. I couldn't control my tears. I could hear him, but I was overwhelmed by emotion, I was just nodding, as a way of saying 'yes, I forgive you.' I hope that when he sees our tears, he knows that they are not only tears for our husbands, but tears for him as well. . . . I would like to hold him by the hand, and show him that there is a future, and that he can still change."

Whenever there was a response like this at a public hearing of the commission, Archbishop Desmond Tutu would be compelled to call for silence "because we are standing on holy ground." there was something divinely transcendent about forgiveness. The example, motivation and ability to forgive comes from God.