I don’t really have a comment or have anything to add here, but wanted to write to counter the negative comment above, and to thank you for wrestling with this. Thanks for sharing your writing with us
Thank you Elizabeth, for a very helpful reflection. I had a chat with our mutual friend Rebekah Berndt about the controversy over Russel Brand, to try and help me fathom the reality of it all, given that I am male, but also a social worker with long experience of seeing far too many men get away with gender based violence. GBV is such a MASSIVE problem here in South Africa where I live that we cannot avoid writing and talking about it.
However I find myself existentially in the same place as the man with a child with a "dumb spirit" except that I feel a bit dumb myself on the subject. He confesses to Jesus, "Lord I believe. Help my unbelief". I know that "we come to God not be doing things right, but by doing things wrong" as Richard Rohr teaches, but I really feel at a loss to know how to respond to the pandemic of GBV, especially with a Restorative Justice, transformational approach.
I will be sending your article to another social worker friend Mike Batley who heads up the Restorative Justice Centre in South Africa and maybe we can have a chat on my podcast @icosindaba together sometime in the new year. See https://www.rjc.co.za/
We need all the help we can get, and I love your fresh, loving and breezy spirit. Thank you.
I'll comment! I was awestruck when I first ready about Thordis Elva's courage in the New York Times years ago. It was this I was thinking of when I saw the play Prima Facie this summer - an incredible performance that is complicated by the contrast of the character from the first act to the second. Before her rape she is a clever manipulator of the legal system with a powerful ego, and after she is weakened and a victim of that system. The play is meant to portray, I think, the impossibility of achieving justice in a system rigged for failure and humiliation of the victim. I wanted the play to do more - to show how women search for and find other options to achieve reparation. (Among them destroying him professionally a la Russell Brand). By the way, this only applies to acquaintance rape. Unknown attackers I think get an entirely separate discussion.
thank you Elizabeth. You are asking the question others are neglecting, particularly the left. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my husband recently, he asked me if I thought Mason Greenwood should be allowed to stay at Man United, whether or not he should be given a ‘second chance’ - and whether he thought Jesus would have him in his football team 🙃 I really struggled to come up with an answer on that front. What makes these stories so complex is the amount of power and celebrity involved. Is ‘forgiving’ someone in the public eye with tremendous wealth and their own platform the same as forgiving a normal person? How do these principles work when there is such an enormous power imbalance?
Well I thought this was beautifully put. The delicate presentation of conflicting feelings over past decisions while interweaving concepts of restorative justice was not only engaging and thought-provoking, but a real encouragement to someone at the coal face of such work.
I’m digesting what you wrote, so don’t have a formed response right now. Reading your piece made me immediately think of this interview with Maya Angelou --
Unsubscribe. the ONLY reason the media cares about the Russell Brand accusations is he making the oligarchic power uncomfortable, don't be their useful idiot.
I don’t really have a comment or have anything to add here, but wanted to write to counter the negative comment above, and to thank you for wrestling with this. Thanks for sharing your writing with us
Well that is very thoughtful of you, thank you. I knew when I wrote it it would touch some nerves.
Thank you Elizabeth, for a very helpful reflection. I had a chat with our mutual friend Rebekah Berndt about the controversy over Russel Brand, to try and help me fathom the reality of it all, given that I am male, but also a social worker with long experience of seeing far too many men get away with gender based violence. GBV is such a MASSIVE problem here in South Africa where I live that we cannot avoid writing and talking about it.
However I find myself existentially in the same place as the man with a child with a "dumb spirit" except that I feel a bit dumb myself on the subject. He confesses to Jesus, "Lord I believe. Help my unbelief". I know that "we come to God not be doing things right, but by doing things wrong" as Richard Rohr teaches, but I really feel at a loss to know how to respond to the pandemic of GBV, especially with a Restorative Justice, transformational approach.
I will be sending your article to another social worker friend Mike Batley who heads up the Restorative Justice Centre in South Africa and maybe we can have a chat on my podcast @icosindaba together sometime in the new year. See https://www.rjc.co.za/
We need all the help we can get, and I love your fresh, loving and breezy spirit. Thank you.
I'll comment! I was awestruck when I first ready about Thordis Elva's courage in the New York Times years ago. It was this I was thinking of when I saw the play Prima Facie this summer - an incredible performance that is complicated by the contrast of the character from the first act to the second. Before her rape she is a clever manipulator of the legal system with a powerful ego, and after she is weakened and a victim of that system. The play is meant to portray, I think, the impossibility of achieving justice in a system rigged for failure and humiliation of the victim. I wanted the play to do more - to show how women search for and find other options to achieve reparation. (Among them destroying him professionally a la Russell Brand). By the way, this only applies to acquaintance rape. Unknown attackers I think get an entirely separate discussion.
thank you Elizabeth. You are asking the question others are neglecting, particularly the left. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my husband recently, he asked me if I thought Mason Greenwood should be allowed to stay at Man United, whether or not he should be given a ‘second chance’ - and whether he thought Jesus would have him in his football team 🙃 I really struggled to come up with an answer on that front. What makes these stories so complex is the amount of power and celebrity involved. Is ‘forgiving’ someone in the public eye with tremendous wealth and their own platform the same as forgiving a normal person? How do these principles work when there is such an enormous power imbalance?
Yes! It’s so hard. And honestly I think forgiveness is quite a private, tender, personal thing, not something a crowd decides on.
The only way out is through. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Well I thought this was beautifully put. The delicate presentation of conflicting feelings over past decisions while interweaving concepts of restorative justice was not only engaging and thought-provoking, but a real encouragement to someone at the coal face of such work.
Thank you Leah!
I’m digesting what you wrote, so don’t have a formed response right now. Reading your piece made me immediately think of this interview with Maya Angelou --
https://youtu.be/ePodNjrVSsk?si=aRdmeRNMgS_TvR5l
Unsubscribe. the ONLY reason the media cares about the Russell Brand accusations is he making the oligarchic power uncomfortable, don't be their useful idiot.