Healing Trauma: Perspectives and Attitudes, 40

What I want to know is, what does it take to bring the oppressors to repentance? The Spanish have been collectively traumatized by the brutality of their own nation and culture, the way they brutalized and waged wholesale genocide and robbery against entire indigenous nations of people in the Americas. Why would I say this, that they are traumatized as well as being traumatizers, or vectors of trauma? There has never been any admission of wrongdoing or culpability proffered by the Spanish to the indigenous peoples of Latin America and their descendants, the Mestizaje (Latinos of mixed race and heritage who compose the majority of the populations of most Latin American countries), and the Spanish character, if it can be called that, remains famously arrogant, selfish and haughty, artificial and evasive. Spanish people, and by extension, many Latin Americans, appear to have an inherited allergy to truthfulness. If you are bluntly honest with a Spaniard, especially about their behaviour and attitudes and the way they impact you, I have found, then you have made an enemy for life. Latin Americans of my experience tend to show a little more flexibility and humility in this area but they have also been infected by the collective arrogance of Mama Espana, perhaps in a sonny boy mimicking daddy sort of way. In terms of a willingness among the Spanish to come to terms with the sins of their country? I had a chat on Skype recently with one of my friends in Colombia. He told me about a confrontation he had with a particularly arrogant Spaniard who was visiting his country. When he mentioned to this Spaniard, who had already shown himself to be quite disagreeable, that it was his country that had invaded and cruelly exploited his people, the Spaniard simply shrugged it off, replying that if Spain hadn't done it then some other country would have. That of course ended the conversation, though I did suggest to my Colombian friend that punching that idiot in the mouth might have been the only appropriate response (and no, I do not approve of violence. But there are certain exceptions to which I will kindly avert my eye, Gentle Reader!) I have noticed a similar obtuseness to repentance with people like Felicia, that rather fearful and unpleasant woman I mentioned yesterday, who tends to say cruel and blatantly untrue things about homeless people. I imagine she is like this for the same reason that a lot of people are like this. They tend to vote for right-wing politicians and their poor-bashing is legendary. I have also noted often a big elephant in our collective provincial living room, here in BC. An apparent reluctance in the media to remind us that it was our own BC Liberal Party that instituted some of the cruelest and most draconian measures in the history of our province against the poor and marginalized who live here. That their mean-spirited policies, followed by their dog-like submission to the market thus driving up the costs of housing way beyond the reach of people of average means, have contributed to a crisis of homelessness and housing that wasn't even seen here during the Great Depression. Now our leaders boast about our robust and thriving economy, yet we have a humanitarian catastrophe of homelessness. But to get people like that to come to a place of repentance? To 'fess up? Why are they too proud to admit that they were wrong and that their overweening arrogance, fear and greed are rapidly flushing us all down the toilet? Whether Spain, Felicia, our government, or those deplorable strongman presidents and leaders in other countries (President Dump, Duterte in the Philippines, and others). When we assume positions and attitudes of power, we also acquire the ability to inflict great harm on others, especially on the already vulnerable. This dehumanizes us. We become less than real human beings, because we are harming and exploiting others for our own gain. Human beings, being created in the image of God who is love, are naturally oriented to love, but so much gets in the way to warp, mutate and pervert our essential nature of love, and it is at our peril that we ignore this. Meanwhile, Gentle Reader, how do we get those in power, those abusers of power, to come to terms with the harm they have done? Che Guevara believed staunchly that such enemies of the people are good only for being taken out and shot. I don't accept this thinking. There has to be a better way, and there is a better way, but we have to really believe that love is stronger than hate. If this means Kumbaya, then so be it, because we are thus singing, "Come by here, my Lord, come by here." Only the presence and daily practice of real, universal and unconditional love is going to put to flight the work of hate, fear, greed and darkness. But we have to believe this enough if we are going to make it work.