“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that is the essence of inhumanity.” The Devil’s Disciple. George Bernard Shaw, 1901.
I helped facilitate a post-diversity sensitisation experience for an Avo client at the Apartheids Museum today. It was harrowing.

Firstly the exhibition was like our very own South African holocaust commemoration, bringing up memories and emotions I hadn’t felt or thought about for years. The helplessness, the useless guilt, the frustration, the anger and the pain of all that suffering, all that loss, so many lives and opportunities wasted. I always get the feeling that I should have joined the struggle, should have done more than rage helplessly at the stupid white boys in my school who beat up black people in the streets after dark for fun.

It was difficult to hear the stories of the people in the group, to sympathise with people who “didn’t know”, to hear the defensive arguments, the xenophobic statements, the flippancy and the nervous humour and to remain objective. It was difficult to facilitate a space in which ALL voices could be heard, while knowing full well that the pain of the people without a voice was still not over.

Those who had suffered, were still silenced. They were still not allowed to say “we were killed and tortured, humiliated, degraded and negated and you did nothing to help us” Their sobbing is still silenced by white self-righteousness and ignorance.

I cried when I left that place. As I walked through the gardens of the museum I felt as if I was channeling all the unspoken anguish of our land. How can we begin to make people feel empathy; to hear and see and feel these broken things if they refuse to acknowledge that they exist? How can the healing begin, if their own wounds are not even acknowledged?

Even ‘though the experience was upsetting, I still believe it was a valuable learning opportunity for me and everyone else concerned. People were given a space in which to tell their stories. It is important for all of us to remember when working in the vulnerable space of relationships and communication, that a story is a person’s truth. It is the reality about who they are and how they experience the world.

My world may look and feel different to me, but it is not more valid or real. We need to tell more stories and listen to more stories. As Tracy said, telling stories is like surgery for the soul.

It is one of the most fundamental human needs: To be known. To be seen. To be heard.