Who decided instead to rape me for two endless hours. It was my first love. On the other side of the window, an airplane takes off and fills the dreary morning with a thundering rumble. Unsurprisingly, it was the only thing he wanted me to paint for him yesterday. I produced something that looked more like a disfigured penguin than a plane, but my son was pleased.
Oblivious to my inner turmoil, my son, who has recently begun to confess his love to me, grabbed my face with paint-smeared hands. It was the most honest love confession to ever escape my lips. Loosening my grip reluctantly, I forced myself to look him straight in the eye. Maybe later, huh? You can come with Mommy on a plane later.
He pouted, his little arms dangling moodily from my grasp. I was wrong. That is how I fell asleep on the eve of my trip to Cape Town: with my nose buried in the hair of a little boy who clutched my finger tightly and sobbed through restless dreams.
The last thought that went through my mind was how I had to be careful out there in the great, big world so I could return home to these two gems. Meanwhile, the average day greets enough perpetrators of rape to fill thousands of jumbo jets, according to global statistics.
Yet there are no official security measures in place to fight that pandemic. My seatmates on the plane to Norway, the first layover on this mammoth trip, are an exceptionally well-behaved five-year-old girl and her mother. The chances that Haflidi would sit nice and still on a three-hour plane ride are non-existent, and I reward the girl with an encouraging smile.
It reminds me of my own mother, whose approval I desperately wanted before embarking on this journey. Yes, I am aware that I am thirty-two years old. He lectured me in a thundering voice about how I was jeopardizing my life for an utterly ridiculous idea.
Mitsue, worn down by years of back-breaking labour, had to start all over again in Medicine Hat, Alberta. A generation later, at a high school dance, Ralph's daughter and Mitsue's son fell in love. Although the war toyed with Ralph's and Mitsue's lives and threatened to erase their humanity, these two brave individuals somehow surmounted enormous transgressions and learned to forgive. Without this forgiveness, their grandson Mark Sakamoto would never have come to be.
And what about your own spiritual walk? Do you seem to keep hitting an invisible wall that keeps you from moving on in God? If your answer to either of these questions is yes, author Denise Renner wants you to know something: You hold the key to your breakthrough in your hand!
On cosmopolitanism and forgiveness , trans. Dooley, and M. New York: Routledge. Gallagher, S. The forgiveness that Mandela extended to his former enemies, especially whites, was a powerful factor providing South Africans with a sense of hope that their country could move forward, away from the brutalities of the past.
This conviction led me to focus on the topic of forgiveness in general terms. A detailed analysis of the macro, Dear friends who are "exploring forgiveness " through this volume published by the University of Wisconsin Press, I am greeting you from South Africa, this new South Africa, this free, democratic South Africa.
But by the end, I knew that I might never truly understand their relationship, but I could not help but admire the strength of them both in putting their story out into the world. Let me be clear, Tom raped Thordis, and this is not a defence. Telling his part in the story does not diminish what he has done or absolve him of it, but he is telling his story in an effort to ensure people learn from it. It took a long time for me to understand my reaction to him in this book.
South of Forgiveness is told by Thordis and Tom, in alternating chapters that chronicle their past together and their meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. As a whole, there is a big difference in the way Thordis and Tom write, for she is an accomplished author in Iceland. Her chapters are filled with the details of the world around them in Cape Town, of Tom physically, and her noticing a group of men watching her intently in Cape Town.
But both are essential to understanding their story. Cape Town South Africa is called the Rape Capital of the World, so it is ironic — or apt — that they find themselves there in an effort to find peace and reconciliation between themselves. Tom is a nomad of sorts and he is already there in Cape Town when she arrives.
Their meeting is strained, and the book follows them as they wander through the city, telling each other of life before they met and life after. Thordis traces her failed relationships and her decisions back to Tom and his raping her, while Tom does the same. Her story looms large for me, as I think she is a remarkable, strong woman and not to mention Woman of the Year in Iceland in I'm not quite sure how to talk about him, but I focus on the fact that Thordis forgives him.
Tom does not know why he raped her. He is anchorless in the book, looking for something forgiveness before he can make himself stop, and allow himself a life and someone else to love. How do you forgive? South Africa is the country in which I was born and lived until I was South Africa is also a country whose history is steeped in inequality and apartheid, and the country bears its wounds in their society and culture, and their art and writing.
This history is interspersed in their travels in Cape Town until it comes to a head in Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela lived for 27 years. On a tour there, it emerges their guide is a former prisoner, tortured and imprisoned for 7 years there.
They ask him if he could forgive his jailors, and his answer is simple: Yes. Until this point I have never been able to understand how Mandela, or any prisoner could forgive, but in that moment, reading that line I did. Their journey With the agreement to share their story and their situation, there is nowhere for Thordis or Tom to hide within the pages of this book.
As a result, the writing here is brutally honest, for to be any less would be a disservice to each other. These chapters are stark and uncompromising, each relating how difficult it is to meet, and how nervous they are. It charts how their writing evolves, from chapters filled with tension to one that are fragile almost, for by the time they leave, they are these new, different beings heading out into the world without the rape hanging out about their necks.
They do not let it define them anymore, and the choice to go public, to teach others of their experiences is them both taking their control back from that night. Tom Stranger raped Thordis Elva. View all 5 comments. Feb 17, Annie rated it really liked it. This is a very complicated, emotionally charged book that will make you feel incredibly uncomfortable in a lot of different ways.
I totally understand the idea of wanting to confront this person and meet and find a way to put it behind you. But flying to South Africa, a place very far from both of you, to do it? Spending a week doing it? But then, everyone approaches things in their own way. Who are we to decide what fits someone's forgiveness, someone else's redemption?
T This is a very complicated, emotionally charged book that will make you feel incredibly uncomfortable in a lot of different ways. This book and the authors' talks have gotten a lot of controversy.
But I'll say this: I don't agree with any of it. First of all, no one- not rapists, not murderers- are as bad as the worst thing they have ever done. And every survivor of violence is entitled to find their own way, including Thordis. If this is what works for her, who are we to judge? I also strongly agree with everything Thordis says in defense of the project. The way the world talks about rape, the focus is on the survivors, which forgets the why rape exists: i.
Rape survivors cannot prevent rape. Only rapists can prevent rape. So it's time we stop treating sexual violence as a women's issue. Rapists are predominantly men. Why doesn't that make it a men's issue? Furthermore, blindly condemning, for the rest of their life, a rapist as nothing more or less than a rapist is so futile. If we refuse to allow them to come out and admit it and allow them to take responsibility and make amends, how can we as a society ever hope to change the fact that rape happens?
If all men refuse to talk about rape, if women are the only ones talking about it, then we are left with this. So they need to start talking. To own up. To put themselves on display the way many victims do. To talk to each other about it, as women talk about sexual assault among themselves.
Another thing. You go into this book assuming you will sympathize with Thordis, and hate Tom. I was surprised to find that on a personal level. I liked Tom a lot more than I liked Thordis. Then Thordis is just painfully petty at times.
But the level of unrelated pettiness she gets to at times is just staggering and irritating. And sanctimonious. And very fond of muttering nasty little comments in her head. Yes, even the rapist. Both Thordis and Tom embarked on this incredible project to confront themselves, their own vulnerabilities, their dark, complicated history, and come out the other side.
And try to share their story with other survivors and rapists to open dialogue up. And the ending is very rich and satisfying. And I definitely had better feelings toward both of them by the end than I did at the beginning.
Lot of complicated feelings in this book, basically. This was a hard book for me to read. Lets be honest - people don't like to talk about rape and the rape culture that we live in today.
I feel like Thordis and Tom did an amazing job at telling their story - it was raw, real, honest and even spiritual.
It was actually healing for me. I wish this book would be required reading in our Jr. High schools - we need to educate our boys on what rape is and what the consequences are for both people involved in this horrendous act. I think this book opens This was a hard book for me to read.
I think this book opens a space to have real conversations about rape and educates us on its effects, both as a victim and a perpetrator - and even how those roles can reverse. I love Thordis' words, "It's about time that we stop treating sexual violence as a women's issue.
Jun 17, Sheri rated it it was amazing Shelves: coming-of-age , male-female-power-sex-attractivenes , nonfiction. I hear Thordis and Tom in a TED radio hour on Forgiveness and I am currently in training to be a volunteer on my local rape crisis center phone hotline.
The topic resonated obviously and I thought this might be a good book to pick up. Find out more about OverDrive accounts. Thordis Elva. Scribe Publications Pty Ltd. A woman, a man, a rape, and a hard journey from violence to reconciliation.
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