FORGET THE “FORGIVE & FORGET” MANTRA OF A MISPLACED PITY
Adal Isaw adalisaw@yahoo.com
Jan 02 2011
The law on some perverted occasions becomes blind; for instance, when it indiscriminately prohibits the owner of a mansion and a homeless from spending the night underneath a bridge.
When its sight is twenty-twenty, it is likely to see and treat an accused black person with impunity more so than it does a white convicted killer. Designed and coined to generate moneyed interest, the law may also become a convenient cage that holds the life of a convict for life—for stealing a chewing gum on his third transgression. In its yet class-based form, it may become a house of clemency and commuted convictions, premised on misplaced pity, to “forgive and forget” the crimes of those with a privileged connection to a legislative, adjudicative and executive body of a government. Normally, the law in its function and intent has to be unambiguous, precise, just, free of loopholes and very fitting for all the crimes it is coined to punish. Neither the function nor the intent of the law should give an opening to anything, including to a religiously-coated misplaced pity, to render itself malleable and fickle.
The recent reverberating misplaced pity of those who are willing to “forgive and forget” the imprisoned criminals of the Derg era, is obviously the subject of this article. This misplaced pity is out of line for it draws a parallel between transgressions of the domestic type and heinous crimes committed against an entire people. As it draws the parallel, it predicates on more than four hundred years old proverb of “forgive and forget,” as if the case of those whose flesh and souls were boiled in overheated oil, is comparable to a case of a spouse who forgives and forgets her adulterous husband, to rekindle a love lost for lust.
The extent to which this misplaced pity is reverberating is amazing. The “plea” has now become so hot an air balloon it needs a prick of the needle, and nobody on earth but the Ethiopian government is holding this needle to use it if need deems it proper. My only suggestion to the Ethiopian government is this; don’t use this needle to prick this misplaced pity of hot air out of this balloon. If you do, you will fall into a political and legal entrapment that you’re so far proven yourself an expert in untangling. Instead, forget the “forgive and forget” mantra of this misplaced pity and continue with the arduous work of developing Ethiopia into a middle-income country—for the following reasons.
This misplaced pity is full of tacitly drawn unwarranted assumptions. It assumes that the Ethiopian political psyche is in shatters; that hate is prevailing and doubt and hopelessness looming; that peaceful co-existence between two diametrically opposed political rivals is uncertain—making our future susceptible to the unknown; and that the wheels of our history is squeaking for lack of soothing social relationships—making our national harmony unattainable unless we “forgive and forget” the heinous crimes of Derg. These tacitly drawn unwarranted assumptions miserably fail to describe the Ethiopia of today. The Ethiopia of today is upbeat, stable, hopeful, striving, assertive, forward looking, very cognizant and tolerant of its socio-political makeup and owns one of the noticeable and tangible economic growths in our world. Ethiopia’s arduous but peaceful political and economic transformation will continue and there is no need to “forgive and forget” the heinous crimes of Derg to make it profoundly feasible.
For life-saving reasons, heinous crimes of the kind that the imprisoned Derg members committed should not be forgivable and forgettable. For one, there is the need to set a precedent to severely punish future diabolic criminals. And for another, the willingness to forgive heinous crimes is imbedded in one’s own religious belief but not in the law, and, it should not be employed to lessen the severity of a crime and the corresponding punishment for it. Imposing the law to its fullest extent on all who’re convicted of heinous crimes is not bitterness bent on lack of forgiveness. Those who administer the law and those who would love to see justice prevail in its fullest capacity, are not necessarily bitter and unforgiving towards the criminals in question.
If they’re, the only just thing we ask of them is not to impose or crave for a punishment that does not commensurate with the crime committed by the criminals in question. Whether we’re bitter towards the criminals in question or not, the just thing to do is to let the law of our land takes its course as it is written and meant in our Constitution, and as it was commandingly elaborated by Ambassador Tesfaye Habisso in his article on Aiga Forum; nothing less and nothing more. For this reason, the “forgive” part of this misplaced pity is therefore for one’s own religious conviction to resolve. It’s up to the forgiver to forgive and forget, and, a just punishment to a heinous crime is not an obstacle to a path that takes the forgiver to his God or Goddess. Just punishment, I surmise, is part of the likely path that takes the forgiver to his God or Goddess, since what is just in the final analysis of spiritual context is what is sought by the forgiver’s God or Goddess.
The “forget” part of this misplaced pity is beyond incomprehensible. How is one to forget a heinous crime and for what good reason? Why should we as a people rewind our own history, to delete the part that narrates the immense suffering of a generation? We should not; because to “forget” is a code word if any, which sanitizes the heinous crimes of Derg that an Ethiopian generation has known unlike any other. Besides, the struggle to bring all those accused of heinous crimes is not yet adjourned. Torturers, killers and haters of the Derg era still live in comfort, for instance in America, hiding behind a newly tailored political skin. It’s our responsibility and the responsibility of the Ethiopian government in particular, to seek, find, ask for extradition, apprehend and prosecute those responsible of heinous crimes perpetrated against our people. It should be noted with emphasis that justice has not been fully served to redress the heinous crimes of all responsible Derg members. Therefore, to equate the crimes of those imprisoned notorious Derg members with crimes that one wishes to “forgive and forget,” is at best a misplaced pity and at worst a heartless gesture devoid of justice. We should not at all give credence to this misplaced pity. If we do, the severity of torture and extrajudicial political killings and the corresponding punishments to these crimes, will be severely undermined.
It’s hard to ascribe the history of this misplaced pity to a group. But who started this pointless pity and who may stand to gain from it should in any case formulate one of the bases of our inquiry. There is a known quantity of support for Derg and for all of its deeds, for example in America, where anything and everything about EPRDF is considered un-Ethiopian by some members of the Diaspora. The core element of support for this type of bitter political stance comes from x-Degist and its beneficiaries. To this known quantity, EPRDF is genocidal, fascist and dictatorial and leaves nothing unturned to ruin the lives of millions of Ethiopians. In contrast and quite obliviously, this known quantity totally denies the brutality of Derg and paints the seventeen years of agony as desirable in comparison. A “plea” for clemency, pardon, or commuted sentence of any sort for the heinous crimes of Derg, with such bitter political stance at the backdrop, not to mention the convoluted legal implications, is therefore a laughable misplaced pity that we the people in general and the Ethiopian government in particular should forget; and forget for good.
