My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan is a book that chronicles many of the horror stories that occurred in South Africa under the Apartheid regime. Though often disturbing, the book really chronicles how awful humanity can really be toward one another.
The purpose for this post, however, is about how brutal Africans were toward one another during the political unrest in South Africa in the mid to late 80's. Though no blame can be taken from the Apartheid regime for they created the system which divided African families, it was unnerving to find that Africans were directly responsible for triple the amount of deaths than Afrikaners during the unrest. The mutilations, torture and anger that seethed in the skin of all of South Africa should be a warning to all people of what we are capable of as human beings.
All over the continent of Africa there is civil war, violence, rape and a brutality unmatched in most places of the world today. But we would be mistaken to believe that that spirit of division and violence is "over there" on the Dark Continent. No, it is within us all.
When we fail to realize this single point or even fail to act upon the recognition, forgiveness is forgone, a mercy drought occurs and love is hindered by the blame we place on "the other" for our pain.
But to recognize that we are in need of the same grace our enemy needs, that we need forgiveness as much as "the other" and that "the other," no matter how appalling their crime, is our brother and/or sister we will begin to learn what it means to love like Christ and that love will penetrate the darkest abyss.
