The Alchemy of Hatred

I found this powerful and thought I'd like to share it.

The Alchemy of Hate

It's
hard to keep my mind on much else today, other than on the upsurge of
horrific violence against foreigners in my very own city. In places
just kilometers away from where I live and work people are being kicked
out of their homes, robbed, beaten and set alight for being 'other'.
The taxi rank and supermarket a few minutes’ walk from where I am right
now, have just shut down hours early in anticipation of
another afternoon of fire and hate. I’m feeling alternately numb and
horrified.

Naturally
there are a number of lenses through which to try to make sense of
what’s being called xenophobic backlash (though I’m not convinced
that’s what’s actually afoot). There are economic explanations,
political explanations, cultural explanations, even bureaucratic
explanations if you listen to the sagacity of Mamphele Ramphele. And on
all those levels there also possible actions to take if, like me, you
are feeling appalled and grief-stricken by mob behaviour that one can't
help but compare with the sniffing and snuffing out of Jews only 70 or
so years ago, or our own local brand of apartheid for that matter.
Things you can do to contribute include political lobbying, supporting
newly-homeless folk by taking blankets, food, toiletries and water to
police stations and making your voice heard in the press.

But
more than that, I have to engage with this violence personally and
spiritually. Although I myself can cringe at the esotericism of this
approach, I trust deeply that the internal eventually becomes the
external and therefore that’s where to go when treating the cause of
the disease, and not just the symptoms. If the world is only ever a
mirror of the self (which is why Gandhi famously suggested that to
change the world we must become that desired change ourselves), then
the actions we see around us (yes, even theft, murder and the like)
belong to all of us. Rather than that disheartening me, it inspires me.
At last I can contribute. At least I can be part of making a new
reality, when just dropping off some blankets (which I have also done)
doesn’t feel like enough

It's
easy (and probably natural) to focus our outrage and judgment on
the people bearing the torches and tyres or those in power who’ve let
it come this far. Yet, if we do, the place we are coming from is
exactly the same one that they are - hatred and blame. More of this in
our country, and our world, can not be the solution. So today I’ve been
looking in myself for these two thugs that I see mirrored around me.
Perhaps for you there are more striking reflections than hatred and
blame, giving you another set of questions to raise, but for me, that’s
where I’m starting to look.

Hatred

Is
there anyone you feel justified to hate? BEE fat cats, the Chinese, the
person who hijacked your car, the taxman, your boss, the government,
paedophiles, your sister who got all the privileges, Robert Mugabe?

The
emotion of hatred exists and therefore has value. Feeling it and
expressing it healthily must be available to us (and perhaps part of
our problem is an overly politically correct context) but the rot sets
in when we feel justified to hate and to act on that hatred in any way we like. Unreachable
as this sounds, the only way to create the world we’d like our kids
(and ourselves) to live in, is if we never let ourselves justify a
perpetual hatred. After all, if our hatred can be justified, then why
can’t somebody else’s? Swearing at someone on TV and burning down a
shack are just a few degrees of hatred apart.

I’m
investigating at the moment whether I’m holding onto any hatred. It’s
not an easy task because those of us who like to think we are educated
and somewhat self-aware, presume that hatred is something rather
outdated, an emotion for the ‘less developed’ along with things like,
say, sloth and wrath. But after persistent searching, some of the
places that I’m finding speckles of hatred are:

· Where I regularly ridicule others (on TV, in newspapers, in conversations with friends)

· Where
my highest values get threatened e.g. people that send me hate-mail
about my work (yes, really) or people who don’t think my children are
the cutest, brightest, most beautiful angels ever to be humanly
conceived (no, not really)

· Where
my social circle justifies hatred and I just slip into it (usually
toward despotic, neurotic, psychotic or just plain stupid political
leaders)

· Where
I transfer my hatred from an ‘unacceptable’ focus onto a more
justifiable one (being angry at my husband instead of at my baby,
shouting at the cat instead of the CEO of the medical aid scheme and so
on)

· Abstract
areas of life – hating poverty, debt, ignorance, violence, mess,
injustice and so on. Hating hatred, as I’ve already mentioned, keeps it
alive and thriving.

Naturally
it’s a little futile to examine all the external locations of our
hatred without looking at the primary source, hatred of ourselves. I
realise that sounds a little overdramatic, but I can’t tell you how
many clients I have whose dream is to bring peace and healing to the
world in one way or another, but feel quite justified to hate their own
fear, addictions, body, habits, stuckness, inadequacies, secret desires
or lack of clarity. How can we possibly transform hatred in the world
if we are carrying it for ourselves?

Blame

Blaming
illegal immigrants for the poverty, unemployment and women-lessness
(yes, this is one of the major arguments) of some South Africans is (to
me anyway) quite clearly a case of scape-goating. I found myself
arguing vehemently with a friend today that the spate of attacks on
foreigners was a case of locals being too loyal to the ruling party and
finding another, less powerful, group of people to punish for the
appalling conditions of their lives. During my convincing debate
however, I realised that my own argument, just like that of the looting
mob, was rooted in blame.

I’m
not suggesting that people should never be held accountable nor face
the consequences of their choices. But there is a difference between
calling someone to book, and blaming them for your sorrows. And here’s
the difference in a little example from my own life:

One
of my husband’s few Extremely Irritating Sickening Habits (EISH) is
spending hours on his computer upstairs. I regularly blame our untidy
house, my small writing output, all our debt, my children’s dirty hair
and anything else that concerns me on this. There is some legitimacy to
my complaints, and just this evening we made a deal about some of the
no-go times of day to be on the computer (bath-time, breakfast-time,
during a fire and so on). Asking him to be accountable for chores that
we share is one thing, but blaming him solely for Complaints A – D
above, is an escape and one that can only leave me paralysed and
resentful with no options for meaningful action. If the story you are
telling yourself also leaves you in that position (or if the only
action you can think of is torching someone’s home) then it’s highly
likely you are blaming.

When (or maybe in present company I should be saying if J)
you do encounter blame and hatred in yourself, the only way to heal it
is, paradoxically, to love it better. (Or were you thinking that
feeling hate and blame towards your hate and blame was gonna dismantle
that hate and blame, huh?). Just the awareness of when and where it
comes up for you, already dissolves it somewhat and if you’d like to
take it further then have a conversation with that yucky (as my son
would say) part of you until it feels heard and tells you why it is
acting that way. We know that criticising and punishing a young child
all the time only produces more undesirable behaviour, why don’t we
practice that towards ourselves?

As
we create more compassion in ourselves, it will spill over into our
lives, and into the world at large. That’s the only way I know how to
alchemise hate.

Angela Deutschmann

www.angeladeutschmann.com