“We have a long road to travel unlearning racism”

(CS) In 1990 Father Michael Lapsley lost both his hands and the sight of one eye in a letter bomb attack by the Apartheid Regime. He has been sharing his story ever since, encouraging the “healing of memories” to move towards a better future.

“After I was bombed I was the recipient of prayer, love, and support from all across the world. People accompanied me on my journey of healing, and in my work I'm returning the compliment. I'm now walking beside others to create opportunities so that they can heal,” said Fr Michael.

Founding the Institute for Healing of Memories in 1998 was one further step in an already tumultuous journey.

“I opened the letter; the bomb went off”

Arriving in South Africa from New Zealand in 1973, Fr Michael was exiled in 1976 after the Soweto uprising, during which he had been chaplain at black and white universities in Durban. He moved to Lesotho and onwards to Zimbabwe, where he received the life-changing letter bomb, three months after Nelson Mandela was freed.

Fr Michael returned to South Africa in 1992.”I can say that I lost a lot in the bomb. I lost hands I will always grieve for, but I still have a lot and I have gained because of what's happened to me.”

“In South Africa, after the end of Apartheid, the question was 'How do we deal with the past?', with what we'd done to each other,” he continued. Out of 45 million people, only 18,800 told their stories to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, according to Fr Michael, but “what about the rest of the stories?”

Addressing the past for a better future

While the work of the Institute for Healing of Memories started out as a way for the victims of Apartheid to work through their own stories in their nation's traumatic past, the focus has shifted in recent years to victims of HIV/AIDS, women refugees, prisoners, and young people, to “encourage, support and inspire” them.

On the way to promote his work, this week Fr Michael travelled to Luxembourg for the fifth time, speaking to students, pastoral workers, Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich, and many more, following an invitation by ACAT, a Luxembourg-based organisation of Christians against torture.

“I would say Luxembourg has become one of my homes,” said Fr Michael. “There's a sense of solidarity and belonging, love, affection and warmth.”

Grand Duchess Maria Teresa has since become a patroness of the Institute, along with Archbishop Tutu, administrator of the United Nations Development Program Helen Clark, as well as former first lady of Timor-Leste Kirsty Sword Gusmão.

A long road to travel

“I think when times are tough there's always a temptation to look inwards,” he said of the recent financial crisis across Europe, but it's also an “opportunity to develop greater compassion.”

“The fortress of Europe is increasingly xenophobic, increasingly racist, increasingly self-preoccupied,” Fr Michael commented, “but that's not the whole story.” Seeing demonstrations against racism and for human rights across Europe and the world gives hope that “people can begin to see that greed cannot be the answer, that the future of humanity is a shared future.”

A constant traveller, Fr Michael came to Luxembourg straight from Rome, with his next stop in Kigali, Rwanda, already on the horizon. Taking his story around the globe he hopes “that healing old wounds becomes more and more on the agenda in communities around the world, that we push them less and less under the carpet, and that we face up to them.”

With his autobiography “From Freedom Fighter to Healer” to be published soon, Fr Michael will continue his life's work, his “modest contribution,” towards the healing of nations.