...an update on the ROM peace project.

For the past three summers we have engaged in a role-reversal exercise that has played a pivotal role in the ROM experience. This year Wednesday night of week two of ROM was not an exception.

On Monday, we asked nine of our participants to begin planning for an exercise to be conducted in front of all of the other participants at ROM. We asked each one to step into the skin of a person that had become a victim of the conflicts in the Balkans since 1991. The person whose shoes they are to fill must be someone that would be considered a member of an opposing or enemy group. The role reversals this year would include a Bosnian Serb telling the story of a Bosnian Muslim, an American woman telling the story of an Iraqi mother, a protestant from Northern Ireland telling the story of a Roman Catholic from Belfast, a Serb telling the story of an Albanian from Kosovo, an Albanian from Kosovo becoming a Serb in Kosovo, a Croat telling the story of a Serb living in Croatia, and other similar role reversals. Our objective is always to have a story that represents a victim from each major constituency in the room. The role-plays would be followed by a period of discussion among all those in the room.

Over the course of the two days leading up to the exercise my heart went out to the nine role players. They expressed to me just how difficult it is to learn enough about the “other” to be able to put one’s self in that person’s place. I could see that all nine were more subdued during the other activities of Monday and Tuesday and were even actively suffering as they prepared.

Wednesday night as the exercise began I confess that I did not know what to expect. I did not want the experiences of prior years to raise my expectations too high, yet I was still apprehensive. There is always the possibility that the “audience” will not connect with the role players or with the stories that they tell. On the other hand, the audience could well respond with anger. After all, since the exercise by design represents a victim from every constituency in the room, every constituency in the room also has its representative victimizer. The risk we take with such an exercise is that contrary to our instructions, the emphasis may be more on the evil of the perpetrator and less on the personal experience of the victim. There is also the risk that despite the best efforts of the role players, someone in the room will find it impossible not to defend his or her own ethnic group’s role in the conflict.

As each of the nine role players told his or her story many of the members of the “audience” began to weep. I believe some wept because it reminded them of their own experiences of suffering during the wars. Others who wept for the victims belonged to the same ethnic or nationalist group as the perpetrators. After the role plays we opened it up for discussion, asking the role players to comment on their own learning, if any.

Our discussion of the exercise got off to a rocky start with one of the role players telling us that she spent the last two days angry with me and with Tihomir for giving them this assignment. She said she felt that the exercise forced her to invade the privacy of the victims. We thanked her for her honesty but I must confess that my heart sank. Not only because I feared that the exercise might turn out to be a failure, but because I heard the genuine pain in her voice.

Then other role players began to share their positive experiences with the exercise. Many said that while it was extremely difficult to obtain enough personal information to trade roles, doing so gave them totally new perspectives about their ostensible enemies. Next members of the audience began to share how they had been personally touched by the exercise. Many, while only witnesses to the exercise, said that it had helped them to see the conflicts involving their own ethnic groups in a new light. At some point, someone said that as the stories were told the ethnic differences dissolved and he realized that in each story, regardless of the details, the common denominator was human beings suffering at the hands of other human beings.

A real turning point came when one of our participants, from Germany, referenced his own sense of collective guilt for the Holocaust and how hard it is today to be a German. A long discussion ensued about how to responsibly address the atrocities committed by one’s own ethnic or national group. Tihomir reminded us of the Old Testament prophets who expressed remorse and asked forgiveness of God on behalf of their nation for the grave sins of the past. Only one or two had a difficult time with that concept. Two members of the same ethnic group really got into when one thought the other was defending the actions of their group. She asked expressed her own shame at the atrocities committed by her people. I spoke of my own difficulty in that regard – it was my ancestors in the south who treated African Americans so badly not me. What was my responsibility toward them for past oppression at the hands of whites in America? Then one of the participants, a schoolteacher from Macedonia (if my memory serves me) made one of the most profound statements of the night. She said, “None of us is responsible for the sins of our grandfathers committed in the past, but we are responsible for rectifying the results of their mistakes in the present.”

The mood of the room almost immediately changed. I cannot say what was in the minds of the others, but her eloquent wisdom gave me hope. The call to repent is a call to hope in a better future. We need not live on in shame and collective guilt for the atrocities committed by our forefathers or even our contemporaries. We can act redemptively by loving our neighbor today and correcting the outcome of past sins. The words of the prophet Micah come back to mind, “O man what does God require of you but to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?”

The exercise started at 8 am. We ended our discussion at 11 pm when Tihomir, God bless him, suggested that we each find someone from another ethnic group and give them a hug saying to them “I am sorry for what my people have done to your people. I love you.” A “hug-a-thon” ensued and the room was filled with the wonderful sound of laughter and voices alive with hope for a better future. One of the people I got a big hug from was the role-player who had confessed her anger at the beginning of our discussion. She told me she was no longer angry. I am pretty sure that she realized that her role-play honored and redeemed the suffering of the woman whose story she told. I know for a fact that her role-play and those of her eight fellows served as catalysts to healing and the most honest and vulnerable dialogue of our time together.