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What are the consequences for ourselves and others when we choose to forgive or not to forgive?
Genocide, or mass violence, can shatter lives. For a survivor, finding hope and meaning when a loved one has been killed is as challenging a task as a person faces. Ultimately, the choice whether to forgive another human being for wrongs he or she has committed against you or your loved one is a personal one. |
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On October 23, 1993, Alan McBride woke up and took his daughter out for a bike ride. McBride loves to ride his bike throughout Belfast and out into the country whenever he gets the chance. Earlier that day he had gotten into a small quarrel with his wife, Sharon, as happens sometimes between loved ones. When he and his daughter rode off, his wife went to work at her father’s fish shop on the Shankill Road, an area famous for being the heart of Loyalism in Northern Ireland. When McBride came home, he received a phone call from a friend asking if he had heard about the bomb on the Shankill Road. McBride immediately headed over and saw ambulances and police cars. He saw that the entire fish shop was gone. The story that would later come out was that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) meant to place the bomb in a building where the Ulster Defense Association met, but the bomb exploded before the two bombers had the chance to put it there. Sharon was 29 when she was murdered.
McBride says he spent that first year after his wife had been murdered in a daze of anger and sadness. His life had been turned upside down, and his last words with Sharon had been in anger. McBride grew up in a Protestant home with family members committed to Loyalist politics. But soon after his wife's murder, even in his anger, he began to realize that peace would not be possible as long as terrorism existed, and that is what he considered the Shankill bomb; an act of terrorism. McBride became deeply involved in work that supported victims and family members, and he became actively involved in a group called Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT).
Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, became a target of much of McBride's outrage, not only because of Adams’s political agenda, but also because of his support for the men who killed McBride’s wife—in fact, Adams had helped carry the casket of the bomber who had died. McBride wrote several letters to the Sinn Fein leader, who finally responded. “Alan,” Adams began in his response, “I am sorry, but you must understand...,” and then went on to describe why he felt the IRA’s struggle was necessary. In remembering this, McBride says, “that's what everyone said, ‘but you must understand.’ No, I don't have to understand anything. It was wrong.”
A short time later, McBride was invited to Scotland to be on a panel speaking to psychologists at a conference on post-traumatic stress syndrome. On the plane he saw a man that he knew was a member of a Loyalist paramilitary group as well as a man who was a member of the IRA. The Loyalist man approached McBride and asked him if he wanted to have a drink when they arrived in Scotland. McBride told the man that because he was against terrorism of all kinds—not just by “the other community”—he could not have a drink with him unless they invited the IRA man. The man was surprised but he agreed to ask and the three of them went out. McBride recalls:
We talked about football for a while and then they asked me about what had happened to me, so I told them my story.
Afterwards the former IRA prisoner reached over to me, touched me on the hand and said: “What happened that day was wrong and I’m sorry.”
Nearly ten years after the Shankill Bomb I had finally heard someone from the Republican community say sorry and not go on to try and justify it. Heaps of times I'd heard Gerry Adams say sorry for the bombing... then he'd always go on to try and justify it. But the fact is that the Shankill bomb was wrong and I needed someone to say that, and when that ex-prisoner said that to me, he moved me to another place.
His story made me think, too. He'd seen the father of his best friend shot dead and had vowed to avenge that killing. That's how he became involved. And I have to accept—indeed I do believe—that while there are some IRA and loyalist paramilitaries who are pure evil and always would have ended up doing evil things whether or not the Troubles had happened, others became caught up due to circumstances. But I do think Sean Kelly [who murdered McBride's wife and was released through the Good Friday Agreement] is one of the purely evil ones.1
Two years after his wife was murdered, McBride made a choice that would change his life. He moved to a mixed area that was in fact more Catholic than Protestant. He knew he did not want his daughter to grow up in a society where murders like her mother's were possible, and he knew that where and how he was living were somehow part of a culture he had to challenge.
McBride also campaigned “yes” for the Belfast (or Good Friday) Agreement. He did this even though the Agreement would mean the release of political prisoners, including Sean Kelly, the other bomber who killed Sharon. McBride thought the Agreement was best for Northern Ireland and the possibilities for long-term peace.
Today, McBride is a director of the North Belfast WAVE Trauma Centre and a board member for Healing Through Remembering, a nonsectarian organization dedicated to facing the past and finding a way for Northern Irish people to live together in light of what happened, not in spite of it. Despite all of McBride's work and his activism, he does not believe that he should forgive Sean Kelly, or that he needs to.
Connections for the Classroom...
- Two years after his wife was killed, Alan McBride decided to challenge a culture of hate, and move to an area of Northern Ireland that was more mixed. McBride is now devoting his life to aiding in the healing process and working together with former enemies.
In your journal, write a letter to McBride. What would you want to tell him? What questions would you ask him? How has his story affected you?
- What do you think of McBride's choice to move to a more mixed area of Northern Ireland? What was he giving up by moving? What do you think he might have gained?
- When McBride relates the story of his conversation with the two men over drinks in Scotland, what does this story say about apology and forgiveness? Why do you think it was so important for McBride to hear “I'm sorry ” without any additional justifications or disclaimers? Do you agree with McBride's beliefs on how and why people commit evil acts?
- In the South Africa section of this Web module, there is a reading entitled Amy, Peter and Linda Biehl: The Courage to Forgive. The reading relates Peter and Linda Biehl's reactions after their daughter, Amy, a graduate student from the U.S., was murdered in a township in South Africa. Like McBride, Peter and Linda Biehl showed great fortitude in the aftermath of tragedy. They were able to overcome their grief and selflessly put their efforts towards healing in a society deeply in need of reconciliation. Linda Biehl said “In my own heart I've never really been bitter and angry about this... I felt horrible sadness....I don't think I have anything to forgive, because I don't believe I ever felt hatred. ”
In your journal, reflect on forgiveness.
1 source: http://www.tcd.ie/ise/news/amcbride.php
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