Stuck in the Victim Archetype

The elephant in the room of Uganda—even as we talk about nine-percent GDP growth rate, or embellish the supposed twenty two national hospitals built by a past regime, or how such and such a political party is going to be the savior—is the story of blame, victims and perpetrators.

Who is blaming who? Who is the victim? Who is the perpetrator? It all depends on the ethnic or tribal group, or the ethnic within ethnic group. In this toxic stew, no self-serving nonsectarian law will change the trajectory of the dysfunctional state.

So, then, how can we get out of this mess? A bi-ethnic presidential candidate wants us to know that he is the Obama and the window to paradise. He is probably not aware that the Obama ship is sinking—courtesy of trying to please everyone in its maiden hundred-day journey. If the inter-marriage prescription can give us polyglots, so that we can, at least, understand the backbiting across the table, may be we can literally begin to understand one another. When in doubt, try anything.

The religiously inclined have a different take: We must turn to God and away from the pervasive immorality. There are several problems with this tact. First, most of the people in power profess to the Christian God. They may have gone to historical missionary schools. Why then the rampant split personalities? When we see people proclaiming the name of Jesus or Allah, we should wonder whether Jesus or Allah is responding with a hearty laugh when at the same time these characters are vicious towards other beings.

The bottom line is that most of us are damaged somehow in our very core. Considering that ninety five percent of who we are operates below consciousness—a result of downloads of conditions, events, and states that began in the womb and solidified by age six, this is the place to begin individually to understand and find the mechanisms for correcting and passing on something better for the next generations. In the meantime we can only have compassion when, in a survival mode, a president does not practice what he preaches. He is probably acting out some subconscious behavioral traits, and he is not even aware of the contradictions. Hence, the Biblical injunction, “Forgive them; they know not what they do” may make sense, literally.

For some this forgiveness thing may sound like some prosaic religious mumbo jumbo. For those of us who are turned off by obeying and/or pleasing some stern God in the netherworld, and who trust only in the experiential and proven hypotheses, there is plenty of scientific evidence in the benefits of forgiveness. If the God thing helps, go right ahead as long as you can affect the mind to sincerely do the forgiving. Eventually, we may be able to break the cycle of blame, victims and perpetrators. In Forgive for Good, Dr. Fred Luskin says, “Forgiveness allows us not to get stuck in the past.” In Radical Forgiveness, Colin Tipping adds that forgiveness “transforms the victim archetype” once and for all.