Justice is a Challenge

An article by Frank    2 Comments

Justice is a challenge. Often when I propose justice as I understand it within the Christian and biblical framework I use in any given situation, I face the inevitable kick-back that what I am aiming towards is something that is simply nice and ignores the harsh reality of the world and what needs to be done. The assumption is that I am giving some sort of gloss to what is happening.

Allow me to state that I don’t believe that a sense of justice that focuses on restoration, reconciliation and making things right is either nice or easy. Where I see justice being inclusive of things such as forgiveness and letting go is not an easy road. It is never easy for the abused to forgive the abuser. It is never easy for an abuser to look their victim in the eye and hear the words “I forgive you.” It is never easy to restore and reconcile. Often these are long arduous processes that take generations. Sometimes the cost is counted in very personal terms and even in the loss of many lives.

The easy option for abuse is violent revenge. For this reason we see conflict after conflict, with all perpetrators offering some sort of justification for their violence. The road to a deep living out of true justice stands in opposition to the violent nature of humanity and it often carries a great personal cost.

When I propose justice through peace-making, through forgiveness, through reconciliation and restoration, through absorbing violence, I am proposing a long, hard, narrow road that is not for the faint hearted or for those who simply wish to placate the violent desires and natural impulses of human nature, but it is the only path that can end cycles of violence and brokenness. It is a path that is often offensive to human nature and in the protection of our nature, even we Christians are guilty of ignoring or sidelining it and finding justifications to play out our violent desires.

This path to justice is expressed well in the following song and its associated story:

Revenge

My personal revenge will be your children’s
right to schooling and flowers.
My personal revenge will be this song
bursting for you with no more fears.

My personal revenge will be to make you see
the goodness in my people’s eyes,
implacable in combat always
generous in victory.

My personal revenge will be to greet you
‘Good morning!’ in streets with no beggars,
When instead of locking you inside
They say, ‘Don’t look so sad.’
When you, the torturer,
daren’t lift your head,
my personal revenge will be to give you
these hands you once ill-treated
with all their tenderness intact.

Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy
Translated from the Spanish by Dinah Livingstone.

I found this song in the May 2007 issue of New Internationalist. They explained the story behind the song:

Nicaraguan singer/songwriter Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy wrote this song, using the words of the Sandinista freedom fighter Tomas Borge.

People like Borge gave the lie to Washington’s propaganda of the Sandinistas as militant despots. Borge underwent seven years of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Somoza dictatorship’s National Guard; his wife was also tortured, sexually abused and eventually died at the hands of her tormentors.

After the Sandinista Revolution in 1979 Tomas Borge became Nicaragua’s Justice Minister. Many of the former National Guard were now prisoners for whom he was responsible. Under Borge’s direction the prison system was completely overhauled. Prisoners received progressively more humane treatment for good behaviour until they could visit their home at weekends and guard themselves. The story goes that Borge came face to face with his torturer and responded by saying: ‘For your punishment, I forgive you.’ When the man was freed, he went to Miami and became a leader of the counter revolutionary contras. Borge reflected that the man didn’t understand forgiveness.

On a larger scale, the Sandinistas’ ‘revenge’ was a vision of an inclusive, humane society for a country they all too briefly governed. In 2006, the Sandinistas again achieved power in Nicaragua when Daniel Ortega was re-elected President with nearly 40 percent of the vote.

No matter what one thinks of the example, including the ideologies and actions of the Sandinista movement, the point is that whilst there may arguably be a place for armed struggle (this post does not assume to affirm or negate such activity), if true justice – restoring things and making things right – is to be pursued then at some point someone must lay down their arms and/or their sense of justified violent response and walk the hard and often lonely road of forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration and they must be willing to pay the price to live those things out.

True justice is not an easy road, but it is the road humanity must pursue. For me, the best example of justice embodied is Jesus himself.