Surprised by rage
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 16/Feb/2012 09:33, 34 days ago
It’s a very strange thing, to sit in a meeting about something I did in the recent past.  And a lot of that strangeness relates to how incredibly angry everything at that time made me (linked directly to a massive downturn in my enjoyment of Nigeria, and regularity of blog postings), and how those emotions are restirred by the reimagining of that period which has clearly taken place in the intervening period.It makes me think about that strange idea of a‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ which South Africa instituted.  Of course, I can see the need for such a body in that context, and the value of both abstract nouns.  But it’s not a hendiadys – far from it – and in fact, to my mind, the idea of both in a meeting with each other chimes with Isaiah’s vision of the wolf lying down with the lamb.  It also brings to (my) mind what I see as the absurd notion of history being able to examine the recent past: historical study becomes terribly fuzzy when applied as treatment for psychological trauma.  Hence the History Channel and its strange obsession with re-narrating Nazis and the Holocaust with little analysis.Anyway, the time is soon coming for me to write a report on my activities here– most of which will be easy: I’ve worked with some wonderful groups and (I think) been able to give them some useful support.  But do I want to tell the whole truth?  Do I want to share the reports from some of the people I used to work with about mismanagement, miscommunication, aggression and arrogance?  Do I want to share the truth (as I remember it) of a process that is now being misrepresented for reasons that seem– to me – both self-evident and damaging?Or do I want to aim for reconciliation– which here would largely, I think, be about me keeping my mouth shut?  People with whom I had very radical and complete disagreements on my departure, which swiftly became personal attacks, have demonstrated their willingness to treat me as a colleague again, in their own special ways.  Is my desire to attack (and it’s worrying that I unthinkingly used that verb) born more from my own raging sense of frustration and injustice than any actual professional need?  And where on earth does the seething boiling snake pit in my belly come from?  Will I now, forever, remember my VSO experience as something professionally (if that’s an appropriate word to use about a voluntary placement) dominated by vile people behaving in a vile manner and making me want to act in a vile manner back?I love being back in Nigeria, but I’m remembering that I hate a lot of the work here, and that I was extremely miserable in many ways during the last 6 months of my placement.  And I don’t want to face the truth of that again – I’d much rather forget it.  But maybe that’s where the T&R notion comes from.  Forgetting doesn’t seem to be an option for me – I’m alarmed by how close to the surface lots of negative feelings and memories are.  So maybe there’s no reconciliation without some kind of truthful accounting.