The Root of Ethnic Conflict is a 'Good Conscience'
What is the root of Ethnic Conflicts?
If you look at it very closely, you are very surprised that at the root of all these great ethnic conflicts
is a “good conscience.” All these conflicts derive their energy from a good conscience.
Now we are taught from early childhood, that we have to follow our conscience.
Some people even say that conscience is the voice of God in our soul.
But a very superficial look at conscience shows us that people from different families and different cultures
have different consciences from our own. Very often, following their own good conscience
they will express different values, act out different behaviors and hold different attitudes
than we will have within our own family and in our own culture.
A very easy test to check that: when you go to your father you have a different conscience than when you go to your mother.
If you go closer to mother, you may feel a bad conscience from your father.
And if you go closer to your father, you may feel a bad conscience from your mother.
So conscience, actually, does not tell us what is good or bad.
It tells us what we have to do in order to belong to a particular group or to a particular person.
Conscience has one basic function: it binds us to our family of origin, especially to this group that is essential
for our survival. Therefore, when we follow our conscience, it is not a personal conscience;
it is the conscience of our group. If we follow this conscience, we feel safe within our own group.
But by the same token that conscience binds us to our group, it separates us from another group.
So the divisions, actually, between peoples and families, and bigger groups come from good conscience.
This conscience is a means for survival. For our survival, and for the survival of our group.
If there is an enemy from outside, threatening our group, conscience becomes very active to bind us closer
to our group and to mobilize the energy to fight the others for the sake of the survival of our own group.
If you look at these conflicts, you see that both sides have a good conscience.
Both sides feel that their conscience is the voice of God. Their cause is something holy.
That’s why the conflict between groups is defended as a holy war. Always, a holy war. Very strange, eh?
The question now is: Can we find ways that we can overcome the limits of our own good
conscience and include within our souls and our hearts the values of other peoples?
Then we have to have a bad conscience. By having a bad conscience, we can love more than before.
Because this kind of love, that comes from a good conscience, says at the same time, “Yes and no.”
The love that leads to reconciliation would be the love that can say, “Yes,” to everybody and to everything.
Listen to Soundclip
This is not politically feasible.
Political leaders have to follow their group’s conscience.
We cannot expect from them that they overstep the boundaries of their own conscience.
In recent times, there were two political leaders that dared to do that,
President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Rabin of Israel.
Both were killed by their own people who acted with a good conscience, of course.
To overstep the boundaries of our group is dangerous. We must know this.
Once you follow your conscience, you no longer can see the other people. You never see them.
They are just, “The Enemies. The Others. The Other Group.”
Therefore peace begins when we see the other people, our enemies, as human beings exactly as we are.
All efforts to serve peace must be done very slowly. It must start in the soul.
First of all in our own soul, and then we may find others that unite in a certain movement of peace.
That might achieve momentum and over time accomplish something good in the service of peace.
First Demonstration
Here, I would like to demonstrate what happens if we follow our good conscience
and if we go beyond the limits of our conscience. I will do something that may be very radical.
I will take some people to represent victims of the Holocaust and some people to represent the murderers of the Holocaust.
Let them face one another. We watch what happens if we allow them to look at one another and to see one another.
I need five representatives for victims of the Holocaust. Anybody volunteering? [Selects representatives.]
You stand here. Just stand side by side. Then I take five representatives for the murders. [Selects representatives.]
[Hellinger places a line of victims facing a line of perpetrators.
He offers no further explanation or instructions. This is not psychodrama or acting.
The representatives do not speak at all. After some time, they begin to exhibit reactions.
Some begin to cry, some become weak and collapse, some turn away, some move closer to the others, some stand still.
Hellinger allows the process to unfold for about 10 minutes.
Then he brings in a few representatives on each side who stand behind the others.
He does not tell them anything, but as the process develops they can be seen to be
representatives of the descendents of the victims and perpetrators.
After some time, they too begin to react in various ways.
The entire process goes on for more than 20 minutes without any speaking.
Tears flow freely, from the representatives of the victims, the perpetrators, the descendents
and the observers in the audience. We see that very slowly, the members of the two original lines
have been intermingled with each other. Many, but not all, have embraced in small clusters.
Some lie on the floor alone. No one is left unmoved.]
I think here I can stop it.
Remarks on First Demonstration
I will say something about the procedure. If we don’t interfere with any judgments and intentions,
then in a constellation like this, the representatives are moved by a deeper force.
This is ‘soul’ in much wider sense than we usually talk about it.
The basic movements of the soul are always the same.
They bring together what has been separated before. You could see that beautifully.
Over here, something very important happened.
One of the perpetrators could not give in. We saw him standing there with his fists clenched.
The young man over there, obviously, was a descendant of this perpetrator. We could see that.
When the perpetrator turned to face his descendant, the young man came and placed his hand on the older man’s shoulders.
This was the beginning of a movement where he could soften. A perpetrator cannot get soft unless he is loved.
That is shown. There’s no change unless the perpetrators too are looked at as human beings
who followed their conscience just as the others did.
It must be recognized that they are called up by a special destiny and fate, like all others as well.
At the end, no groups anymore, just people.
Just people connected by love and by deep grief that you could see here, for what has happened.
The main force that brings peace between feuding people and nations is shared grief for what has happened.
I want to point out something very important. Something that is in the way of peace.
Many of those who have suffered, or who belong to a group that has suffered much, are angry at the perpetrators.
They reproach them. They don’t want to forgive in any way. What happens?
Those who reject the perpetrators become in their souls like them.
Suddenly, they have perpetrator’s energy and they continue the conflict just the other way around.
Like a wheel that turns, but is always the same, without any solution.
Furthermore, those who are reproached are re-enforced in their aggression.
So all the accusations and all the blaming by the survivors of ethnic conflict against the perpetrators
just achieves the opposite of what is intended. They stand in the way of reconciliation.
Once we understand this and allow ourselves in our souls to wish each person well, even the perpetrators,
even those who committed injustices against us, even in everyday life, if we learn this, we grow.
If we adopt this attitude our very presence in any situation will promote reconciliation and peace.
There is a saying from Jesus, just two sentences, that explains what this actually means in the end.
He says, “Have mercy, like my Father in Heaven; He lets his sun shine upon the good and the bad, equally.
And He lets his rain fall on the just and the unjust, equally.” This is the peace of God, actually.
Questions
Q: There was a representative of the victims who moved away from the others.
The further he walked away, the more he seemed to collapse.
Whereas, the representatives who approached the perpetrators remained standing and eventually moved
into harmony with the others. I wonder what happened with the representative of the victim who walked away.
Hellinger: I’ll say something first about the whole process.
Each representative is an individual who is tuning into to something on their own.
We cannot explain their movements. It was just what was done, that’s all.
And still, we can see that these movements reveal something about the inner forces that
influence those who have experienced contact with the Holocaust.
In this example, we can see that very often the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust want to die.
Many of them are drawn to death. Here you could see an example.
Those who were daring enough to meet the perpetrators, they have strength. You could see that, too.
Very strange, of course. That’s how it is. This is not planned or just thought up in any way.
It can’t be thought up. Something from the depths is just coming up, and it comes to light and is shown to us.
We just watch.
Q: The representatives did not use any words. What does it mean in terms of the procedure that there is no speaking?
Hellinger: These movements can only be revealed without using words. Only then do the depths of the soul move.
Very often we want to challenge or question what we see because we have in our minds the idea that
it should be a certain way. If we voice these ideas we are cut off from the deeper movements, immediately.
This can only be done without words. And it shows that there is no interference from outside.
As soon as you use words, you are thrown away from the movements.
Q: Did you instruct the representatives not to use words?
Hellinger: You see, since I didn’t say anything, they didn’t say anything either.
Q: You used the word “conscience” to describe the conscience based on belonging to a particular group that often turns,
then, against another group. It seems to me that there is also conscience based on identification with all of humankind.
These people work towards world peace. Can there not be a conscience like that?
A group comprised of people who are peace-loving and do not identify with a particular ethnic, national or religious group,
but with humanity as a whole?
Hellinger: Conscience has to do with belonging. Belonging to a small group or belonging to mankind as a whole,
coming in tune with the world as a whole. Personal conscience is felt either as guilt or innocence; that is how it shows.
It directs our actions and behaviors by these feelings. When can also feel what is like to come in tune with all people.
Being in tune is felt as a feeling of calm and centered. Not being in tune is felt as being restless.
If we work for peace, and we are quite calm, trusting in the greater movement that we are each a part of,
then we feel very quiet and collected. Then we don’t have any eagerness.
As soon as people become eager and desirous to achieve something, they follow their personal conscience.
They are not in tune. When we are in tune with the whole, we are centered.
We trust that things will develop in due time; we don’t rush. Therefore the test is: are we quiet or restless?
One other thing to notice is that when you follow your personal conscience and you feel bound to your group,
you feel connected with an intimate relationship. Once you are in tune with mankind, you lose intimacy.
You are open wide; you are connected, but not intimately. There is a price to be paid.
You feel in a way alone, yet connected.
Q: How does grief promote reconciliation? Beyond feeling grief, what other steps promote peace?
Hellinger: Life is always moving forward. Grief is only for a short time.
By experiencing grief, something from the past is made complete. Then you move forward.
If we were to carry our grief and remorse with us all the time, we would miss our own life.
In the soul, if we come into connection with those we have previously opposed, and share together in grief,
then we can be complete. Then we can move forward with life without the need to avenge the wrongs of the past
against the next generation.
Very often people reject something in themselves. Call it their shadow, or whatever it is.
Our soul contains an image or a reflection of the history of our family, our culture, our religion, our race,
our nationality. Whatever we reject in ourselves represents a rejected person.
Many illnesses, for example, are a hidden connection to an excluded person within our family system.
If that excluded person is taken into to our heart, the illness may go. Very often.
Reconciliation starts in our soul. When whatever we reject, whatever we are ashamed of, is acknowledged, and agreed to,
and even loved, then we can become more complete and at peace.
Unfortunately, this means too that we must give up our good conscience.
Second Demonstration
Hellinger sets up a second demonstration. Ten victims of the Armenian-Turkish Holocaust lay on the floor
in the center of the circle. They are flanked on each side by 5 representatives of the descendents of the
Armenian victims and 5 representatives of the Turkish perpetrators. No further instructions are given.
After 20 minutes, many of the representatives have moved into clusters with some from each side joining
together to mourn the dead. Many are crying; at the end of these groups begins to laugh together.
Remarks on Second Demonstration
From looking at this constellation, we can see how difficult it is to reach reconciliation in the end.
Very difficult. It’s very difficult to reach it on a large scale. It’s only possible between a few individuals.
The main obstacle is that the descendants of both sides are bound by their conscience.
Even now, after so many years, they are bound by their conscience.
There’s an important aspect to be born in mind.
Many people who have suffered a lot, like the Armenians, or in South American, the Indians, the Incas,
or the slaves in the United States, and the Native Americans especially, they are bound by what has happened in the past.
Their energy is drawn away from the present to the past.
There is a secret hope that something that went terribly wrong can be redone and made better, even be undone altogether.
This yearning to change the past prevents the descendants from looking forward.
In Germany, we often meet with Israelis to discuss the German-Jewish Holocaust.
They tell us we must never forget what has happened. They say, “Never forget.”
But when you do this, nothing can be over. By being reminded of the past, always rethinking what has happened,
the energy is drawn away from the present life.
What happens to those descendants who are admonished to remember? They get angry.
Then, just the opposite of what one wishes to accomplish is achieved.
In the current demonstration, if the Turks living today are forced to express regret and
remorse for the killing of the Armenians 90 years ago, they refuse to do so and actually turn hostile and resistant.
They cannot soften. The conflict continues; it can never end.
Last year I worked in Florida. There was a woman at the workshop who said that she always felt
like she was disconnected from her body. She felt like her head was cut off from the rest of her.
I knew she was a Peruvian Inca. So I thought of the Inca King who was beheaded by the Spanish conquistadors.
I had some representatives of the Inca people lay on the floor. Then I took a representative for the Inca King.
Also, I placed three representatives for the Spanish conquerors. I put this woman in with them.
After some time she was moved to join with the dead ones, especially the Inca King.
She wanted to revive him. But of course, he could not be revived. He just sank deeper and deeper.
When the woman saw that nothing could be done, nothing whatsoever, it was really over.
She went over to the representatives of the Spaniards and held the hand of one of them. Then they began to cry.
They became soft.
Next day, she wrote me a letter telling me she was a direct descendant of the last Inca King.
Through this experience, it became so clear to her that any attempt to revive the past deprives
the present generation of their future.
In a few days, I am going to Canada where I have been invited by a group of Native people to work with them.
With all they have lost of their traditional lands and ways, they too see that there is no way to have a
future unless the past is allowed to be over.
There are many obstacles that stand in the way of individuals putting the past behind.
One is conscience, as I have said. Another is our desire for justice.
We all have an urge that something must be balanced out. Giving and taking, gain and loss must be put into balance.
This is a strong desire and it is very helpful for human relationships.
But it is not helpful at all when we try to force justice onto history.
So many wars are started in order to gain justice for those who are already dead or to punish the deceased
who committed crimes in the past. It has never been achieved. Never!
Justice, in these circumstances, is a great illusion. It is at the bottom of many conflicts.
To create peace we must give up the desire for justice directed towards the past.
Otherwise, future conflicts are inevitable.
Justice is a concern only for the living. The dead, whose fate we may want to avenge, cannot be helped in this way.
The quest to achieve justice for those who suffered and died gives us a feeling we are doing right;
it gives us a good conscience. But the effect is to continue the fighting without an end.
These are some of the insights that come from this kind of work that I demonstrated.
As you saw, there is no influence from the outside.
The deep layers of the soul work in a different way in our wishes and our conscience.
If we learn to trust these movements and go with them, we achieve something and we let go of a lot.
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