Thoughts on Shame, Acknowledgement, and Celebration

Talking with my brother Matthias on zoom this Sunday morning – his early evening in Germany – we converse about the politics where each of us is residing, the wonders of aging, his recent travel with wife Ingeborg to Istanbul, the Middle East situation, and the frighteningly accelerated brutalization of language and spirit. Verrohung. Which mirrors the worldwide wars and tragedies. We talk about the Western world living so wealthily on the back of other countries and populations – Ausbeutung – continued extraction, exploitation and robbery. And how two days after major catastrophic storms and flooding, the media is highlighting angry complaints and whining voices about not enough gasoline, waiting in line, not fast enough this, not enough of that… never enough. Oh, how ungrateful we humans are. All this perhaps to cover up our fragility? In our talk Matthias and I celebrate our upbringing, our different lives across the ocean, our 70-year bond as siblings.

At the core of the human experience, next to joy, sits our shame – Scham – personal and collective. As post-war Germans we know deeply about shame, secret and public, both. I engaged with it all my life through art and personal relations, as well as learning from my friendships with Holocaust survivors, and their children, my peers. My brother has been seeped in this field of German guilt and shame as well. He got to know firsthand about the shame of Communist Holocaust survivors with whom he worked for years in his twenties. This Sunday as we are talking, a sudden flash of light penetrates and illuminates my inner realm – insight arises. I glimpse that all Shame is a multi-faceted part of our existence, perhaps humankind’s painful safe guard. Not that we could avoid it. Or that only bad people, monsters, killers, losers, criminals, are supposed to feel it. The big Shame – those of perpetrators, victims, survivors, helpers – is universal. All at once, I sense in my own body how all shame is from the same source. Whatever angle we are approaching it from, we are ashamed of what humans are capable of. What we are willing to do, participate in, what we are willing to tolerate. People who are victimized feel the shame of having been raped, beaten, enslaved. People who perpetrated violence feel the shame of having been a brutalizer. Or they might work hard on suppressing shame at all costs. Secret shame becomes oppressive, or oppressor. The only true remedies or alternatives might be to increase our capacity for sadness and grieving. Our motivation to set things right.

Drastic inequalities of human rights, safety, education, well-being, access and opportunities ignite shame in us, even children in kindergarten feel it. Having more than others is not fair, not right, we feel ashamed. We might start sharing, when older addressing deeper issues of justice. In America, the repeated tragedies of history are so dramatically displayed to the newcomer – and the infuriating thing is that they are often portrayed as triumphs. And that might be the deeper tragedy. Robbery of land, massacres, genocide, slavery, human rights violations, exploitations. It is all about the big Shame. But many shameful facts of history have been shoved under the rug. In recent decades however, and especially recent years, they have been rising up to be known collectively, not just personally. Is Wiedergutmachung possible? Reparations are an acknowledgment that something was very wrong. They never can be perfect. Germany was forced by the world to deal with its past. The culture had to learn to go beyond reparations, and also engage in the work of memorializing. Trauerarbeit. Work of Mourning. The German psychologists Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich were pioneers of that. Their book “Die Unzufähigkeit zu Trauern” influenced me greatly, and of course, the whole 1968 movement in Germany. The incapacity to mourn, this term describes American culture quite well. As a teenager I understood it as a call to become human. And my “641 Garage Memorial Mural” belongs to that tradition.  Mourning belongs to us, in big and small personal ways. None of us are exempt from misdeeds and shame.  Every country has done wrong. We might rebel against Shame, but it demands to be known and grappled with, be seen as a warning, and ultimately, as a blessing. It helps us navigate the world. It becomes our compass for improving.

The Shuumi Land Tax is a voluntary annual contribution that non-Indigenous people living on the Confederated Villages of Lisjan’s territory can make to support the critical work of 

the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/shuumi-land-tax/

 

October 14 is National Indigenous People’s Day 

officially proclaimed as such on Friday October 11, 2024 by President Biden. A seemingly small step, nevertheless steps become a path. Looking carefully, everything has had a long path.

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/10/11/a-proclamation-on-indigenous-peoples-day-2024/

 

Today, writing outside the confines of religion, I am deliberately not including the concepts of sin and punishment. Most of us deeply desire to do good. Some people have the horrific fate of being destroyers. Shame has the function of establishing balance, similar to gravity’s laws. A country, or a leader, who is “shameless” is dangerous. Shame is necessary to set “wrong” right again, to repair, make reparations, apologize, attempt to do better. It makes us human, humble. And that humility is not a static place, we fall from grace again, stumble, realize wrong, repair, forgive ourselves and perhaps even others. In America, nobody knows better about tragedy and being victimized than Black and Indigenous people, as well as immigrant populations, like those from China, Japan, Philippines. They have survived and thrived in amazing ways. What I love about America, is these cultures’ contributions, the lived wisdom at their core. For-centuries-practiced, it comes hard earned. It is future-pointing, open to new ways of mixing and living together.  Of course, wisdom’s quiet ways, are in danger of being drowned out by the rising brutalization of language and spirit. It is poison. At bottom, the poison is the great divide. We are at sea in fast-changing scary times, we must listen to what is important. We must know our shame, our compass, be willing to shed tears of pain and joy. Both. Engage with delight and curiosity, and most of all, strive to be anchored in the affirmation of life and justice, so future generations can walk Earth – and Turtle Island.

Land dedication on the 641 Garage Memorial Mural

 

Let’s celebrate the First People of this continent who came before us. Let’s acknowledge them in their beauty and strength. Let’s learn from their gifts for gratitude, humility, and healing.

 

The long path:

 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-american-indian/2024/10/11/indigenous-peoples-day-a-day-to-honor-and-recognize-the-first-peoples-of-america/