was traveling home on the – in London
the underground the subway having
visited my mother who was in hospital
with an ear infection my three my two
sisters and I didn’t live in London and
we tried to contact my father that
evening to see how things were going we
couldn’t get through this was not like
him we tried and tried eventually one of
my sisters reported him missing to the
police 24 hours later the police
informed us that he had died on the tube
as he had been leaving my mother from a
heart attack they hadn’t told us and
this is despite the fact that he had
much identification on him in amongst my
grief I was angry the next day I went to
the morgue but some berries and as I was
entering I saw a young policeman who had
located us and my father’s body and had
been involved in communicating what had
been going on I was extremely angry when
I saw him and I let rip I talked to him
well talked maybe an understatement
I spoke with him about British racism
about the racism of British police and
how could they not appreciate that an
old Indian man still had a family and
had dignity something that they had
ignored as I stopped I looked up and he
had tears in his eyes and was
apologizing profusely as he apologized I
felt that I was starting to forgive him
and why this is important is that it
wasn’t his tears and his apology that
allowed me to be open to forgiveness it
was the fact that I had been angry and
my anger had been hurt but I could then
move on let go and
forgive even the British police another
example last week I went to see the film
hidden figures
it’s a 2017 film which is based on the
stories of three African American women
a scientist an engineer and a
mathematician who all work NASA the
common goal for the whole project is to
put someone in space and in this case it
ended up being John Glenn and then
working out the orbits so that he could
come back to earth say he it’s a very
good film no doubt about it and if you
haven’t seen it please do but I mention
it here because in one scene one of the
characters Catherine Jones played by
Thoreau GP Henson gets angry she works
in the space task group and she gets
angry with her group and tells her boss
about her anger she is the only black
woman in the group she is one of only
two women she’s a key mathematician
she’s a mild-mannered woman who has
strong beliefs and values and doesn’t
enjoy living in Virginia in segregated
Virginia
despite the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in
the scene she describes angrily to her
boss how she has to walk ten minutes
each way to get to the bathroom she
points to a small coffee percolator but
she is expected to use because it is
marked colored the others don’t want her
to use the coffee urn that they drink
their coffee from and she finally tells
her boss but her supervisor had said to
her you can have only one string of
pearls for jewelry she looks her boss in
the eye and says I don’t have money for
that one string of pearls
as you can imagine the scene formed a
pivotal moment in the film and led to
actions on the part of her boss herself
and others to desegregate NASA and as it
became desegregated of course they could
work much more constructively on this
common goal
I mentioned the scene as you may have
guessed because her anger and being
heard meant that she could then start to
forgive her colleagues for their
narrow-minded racism and once she could
start to forgive them they could work
together in collaboration it was her
anger that facilitated the forgiveness
now many people suggest that anger and
forgiveness are polar opposites
forgiveness makes us whole anger tears
us apart however I think there’s
something different going on I think
that anger and forgiveness are related
to each other in a much more complicated
way forgiveness needs anger in order to
be able to forgive I need to feel anger
I need to express that anger so that I
may let go of that anger and move into
forgiveness now I’m not talking about
physical or violent anger I’ll say that
for my next TEDx talk the philosopher
David White said stripped of physical
imprisonment and violent reaction anger
is the purest form of care stripped of
physical imprisonment and violent
reaction anger is the purest form of
care that is the anger I speak about
today stripped of that physical
imprisonment and violent reaction we can
become angry because we care about
people think parents and children or we
become angry when we think about issues
imagine what happens when you encounter
blatant traces
when you see it either you experience it
you see it whatever who do you feel how
do you deal with it many of us would
feel angry and yet I want to suggest
that anger is not the barrier to
forgiveness nor is it the opposite of
returning to my example from hidden
fingers figures Catherine Jones anger
the anger of the character was a
catalyst it was a fall of verbal action
through which she spoke in order to
right the wrongs done to her and other
black people in this instance at NASA in
fact it would have been unforgivable if
she had not acted as she did perhaps it
Audrey Lord has said that anger is not
the same as hatred and again I want to
be clear that anger is not the same as
hatred anger she says can be a
liberating act of clarification that is
anger can be a source of empowerment but
more than empowerment I want to suggest
that anger is a necessary and first step
to be able to let go of perceived wrongs
thus anger becomes a crucial step in
learning how to forgive and allows us to
move forward to a forgiveness that is
sincere last year when I was filming
Tibetan monks in North India for my next
project we talked about forgiveness of
course many of us know that forgiveness
is fundamental is the cornerstone of
Buddhism they also told me that not
forgiving leads to more suffering
because not forgiving can breed hate and
that can lead to more suffering on the
part of the individual and of course
forgiveness is the way to enlightenment
is the way to an inner peace and inner
peace so that we may also work on outer
peace I agree with all the monks said to
me and yet I argued with them because I
think we need to talk with each other
about how we arrived at a true
forgiveness I can’t simply say I forgive
you how do I feel it in myself we have
to feel it openly and deeply I was an
international observer in the first
one-person one-vote elections in South
Africa that undermined apartheid there
were long queues of people long lines of
people waiting to vote in the hot
basking Sun and our job was to make sure
that they could vote in a free and fair
way following that elect
the government set up the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission Commission
this is a commission that set up so that
people were asked victims were asked to
speak to their perpetrators and forgive
them that was the crucial bit victims of
torture victims who had had their
children murdered think Hector Pieterson
were asked to come forward and forgive
their perpetrators nothing was said
however about the victims being allowed
to be angry about the victims expressing
their anger and the perpetrators hearing
that anger before forgiveness was on the
cards I do know that forgiveness is the
only way to eliminate hatred no question
at the same time the road to forgiveness
comes we get on the road to forgiveness
when we could locate our anger that
allows us to forgive and then we suffer
no hatred towards others so in fact we
acquire an inner peace we can be honest
and respectful towards others my final
example is of Israel and Palestine when
Israeli settle in Palestinian villages
and land building their houses on areas
that once belong to Palestinians few
would think that the anger on the part
of the Palestinians was unjustified also
getting to forgiveness while this is
happening is also very difficult it is
almost impossible to forgive people who
are stealing your land and your homes
while they are in the process of doing
it however once and this is what we all
look forward to heartfelt peace talks
begin and are completed to the
satisfaction of many of the actors in
this sad and far too long conflict and
the Palestinians will be
treated fairly with land resources Falls
they’re getting back their homes in East
Jerusalem I think that is when I would
have the courage to talk with them and
say was there room for forgiveness was
there room to forgive the brutal
repression of the Israeli state just as
people in South Africa were asked to
forgive the perpetrators even though
they had suffered at the hands of white
apartheid just as they were asked to
create amnesty and forgiveness maybe
that’s something that could happen when
peace talks are successful in Israel and
Palestine in a period when close to 3
million people protested the election of
Donald Trump what will we do when he
demolishes the Affordable Care Act what
do we do when he builds a wall between
the u.s. and Mexico what will we do
about the refugees and people from
countries that he decides our sources of
terror and not let them in many of us
don’t agree with his proposals and the
inspiring and angry protests that took
place last week led by women all around
the world demonstrated that it is
unforgivable not to act the protest
showed how angry we are because we care
about our societies we care about our
people
we care about our planet it is
unforgivable not to act and perhaps it
is unforgivable not to feel angry anger
is the purest form of care that is why we need to feel kindly