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I saw a fantastic drama on the TV last night called 'The Street', by the award-winning British scriptwriter, Jimmy McGovern. It reminded me of an idea for a thread where I was going to ask what people felt about issues involving having 'sympathy for the devil', but never got round to it - so here goes.... The episode was about a young man who had recently been released from jail and who 'carries a burden', which we subsequently discover is the fact that, as a 10-year old child, he murdered a grandmother and a baby. With distinct echoes of the real-life case of James Bolger, a toddler who was murdered by two 10-year old boys in 1993 (the pair were released from jail in 1999), the drama focused on his inability to cope with his guilt, and ultimately how he finds his route to redemption/peace after a confrontation with the dead baby's mother...
In the dramatisation, 'Paul' (who lives under a new identity) and the mother of murdered baby, Jean, happen to meet by chance, so Paul runs back to his apartment and decides to have another attempt at taking his own life by embarking on a drugs overdose. However, Jean finds him shortly after their chance encounter and forces him to confront his guilt rather than killing himself. As they talk, 'Paul' (original name Michael) describes what happened and why he did what he did: he had attempted to burgled Jean's mother's house in order to acquire a 'gift' for his own mother, who needed cheering up at the time. He (accidentally?) kills the woman and subsequently finds that she was baby-sitting - but instead of incriminating himself (and to protect his own mother from the knowledge of his crime), he 'let's the baby die' and buries it in the garden. Unfortunately the baby wasn't actually dead when he buried it, and subsequently is convicted of both murders - one being the apparently horrific murder of a baby by burying it alive. But as the confrontation between Paul and Jean goes on, it quickly becomes apparent that Paul cannot cope with his own guilt - but Jean is quick to dismiss his guilt as nothing compared to the fear and pain of first having a child go missing and then discovering that it was dead. Paul admits that his suicide is not intended as a grand act but merely as a gesture of atonement, but Jean rejects this - saying that his suicide was too easy and didn't constitute atonement at all. Instead, she persuades Paul that she has rights over his life since he destroyed her family, and Paul agrees. She demands that he does not kill himself but rather 'atones' by appreciating what it must have been like for her to go through that pain and fear - and the only way he can truly understand is to have and love a child of his own.
The themes of forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation and coming to terms with a painful past were addressed in this brilliantly written (and superbly acted) drama, and were poignant and potent in equal measure. Just what is the right way to confront 'the devil' if you were ever to meet 'him', face to face? As this example is intended to highlight, the power of understanding and forgiveness is one possible route. And this extreme example also suggests that, in theory anyway, there is no limit to how much people can be prepared to forgive, or atleast try to understand. Another (even more amazing) example of this was 'Facing The Truth', a series of meetings moderated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, where victims and perpetrators of crimes during 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland were brought face to face to discuss the past and to hear the story from the other's point of view. Although not without it's critics, this remarkable project certainly had a profound effect on some (although not all) of it's participants.
Most of all, both series beg the question of just how much benefit is there in trying to understand the motives of those who have deeply wronged you in the past?? So if you met him, would you show some courtesy, some sympathy, and some taste?
In the dramatisation, 'Paul' (who lives under a new identity) and the mother of murdered baby, Jean, happen to meet by chance, so Paul runs back to his apartment and decides to have another attempt at taking his own life by embarking on a drugs overdose. However, Jean finds him shortly after their chance encounter and forces him to confront his guilt rather than killing himself. As they talk, 'Paul' (original name Michael) describes what happened and why he did what he did: he had attempted to burgled Jean's mother's house in order to acquire a 'gift' for his own mother, who needed cheering up at the time. He (accidentally?) kills the woman and subsequently finds that she was baby-sitting - but instead of incriminating himself (and to protect his own mother from the knowledge of his crime), he 'let's the baby die' and buries it in the garden. Unfortunately the baby wasn't actually dead when he buried it, and subsequently is convicted of both murders - one being the apparently horrific murder of a baby by burying it alive. But as the confrontation between Paul and Jean goes on, it quickly becomes apparent that Paul cannot cope with his own guilt - but Jean is quick to dismiss his guilt as nothing compared to the fear and pain of first having a child go missing and then discovering that it was dead. Paul admits that his suicide is not intended as a grand act but merely as a gesture of atonement, but Jean rejects this - saying that his suicide was too easy and didn't constitute atonement at all. Instead, she persuades Paul that she has rights over his life since he destroyed her family, and Paul agrees. She demands that he does not kill himself but rather 'atones' by appreciating what it must have been like for her to go through that pain and fear - and the only way he can truly understand is to have and love a child of his own.
The themes of forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation and coming to terms with a painful past were addressed in this brilliantly written (and superbly acted) drama, and were poignant and potent in equal measure. Just what is the right way to confront 'the devil' if you were ever to meet 'him', face to face? As this example is intended to highlight, the power of understanding and forgiveness is one possible route. And this extreme example also suggests that, in theory anyway, there is no limit to how much people can be prepared to forgive, or atleast try to understand. Another (even more amazing) example of this was 'Facing The Truth', a series of meetings moderated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, where victims and perpetrators of crimes during 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland were brought face to face to discuss the past and to hear the story from the other's point of view. Although not without it's critics, this remarkable project certainly had a profound effect on some (although not all) of it's participants.
Most of all, both series beg the question of just how much benefit is there in trying to understand the motives of those who have deeply wronged you in the past?? So if you met him, would you show some courtesy, some sympathy, and some taste?
