Growing Past Pain

Two books that I was reading this week has sparked a thought in my mind.

In Farish A. Noor's "The Other Malaysia", he writes: "The Other Malaysia was an attempt to write a deconstructive form of political history, showing that history and historiography themselves were political in nature and that awkward silences and blindspots in the national historical narrative were not there by accident. If and when such erasures occur, they do for a reason and with ideological motives behind them." In fact, Farish admits that it was the "sustained attempt at recovering the forgotten episodes of our collective past and present" that motivated him to write his articles.

It is not just Malaysia that erases memories but other nations as well.  This habit or culture is even portrayed in communities and families. There is a sense of wiping out of blocks of the past and this leaves as he puts it "blindspots in the...historical narrative..." In a community, the leaders of which wish to put aside 'incidents' or 'accidents' which embarrass or cause discomfort, they may conveniently push it under the carpet. This they do because of fear. Fear of embarrassment, fear of being accused, fear of handling the truth. The past collects under the dark discomfort of a Persian rug wishing to be one day released. You see, the past has a mind of its own. It may sleep in ignorance for a time and be triggered to awake and reclaim its lost spot in history.

Speaking for families, memories and stories that shed humiliation and pain to a particular family face a fate similar to the nation's and community's "forgotten episodes". I cannot speak for others, but my own family has its share of dark secrets never to be spoken of, just in case, the community police come in full force to arrest and put on trial our values, or worse parade it in front of "Other" families. If we cannot even muster the courage to deal with our own individual past, or our family's past, how do we expect the nation to move on? Surely, the nation, with diverse and various communities with their own history, share a common history? Just like individuals with a past, share a common past within their own family? Are we not in the end "a family"?

But why bring the past up? Should it not be buried, along with Aunty Mabel's long lost cousin, who was killed during the Japanese occupation for reasons that were buried along with him? More pertinently, why bring it up now? Well the answer is I think a little ironic. We must bring up the past now, for the precise reason we have been burying it. "To have closure."

This is where the next book I read comes in. Robin Sharma's "Discover Your Destiny". Here he writes: "Visit the places that frighten you." "Once we do the inner work required to move through the fears that are running us, we move these shadows into the light of human awareness...moving a shadow into the light causes it to disappear. The fear leaves us."

What Robin seems to say is that running away from our past will not heal us. Precisely what Farish puts in one of his talks as "history is not meant to heal." The past is not meant to heal. Which is why, it should not be hidden in the shadows. If history or the past causes pain, then, that is it's role. We cannot hide it for fear of pain and suffering. We must suffer history, so to speak. This is the only way, we can grow. The only way, the fear will leave us.

More importantly, Robin says, "You must make the time to confront your resistances and examine yourself when frustrations or fears surface, rather than making it about others and avoiding self-responsibility." So in resisting our past, we fail to examine our own flaws and fears, and then we turn around and blame the rest of the world for our problems. Whether it is in nation or community or family, we fail to take responsibility of our past. We fail to feel the pain. We fail to grow.

Pain is a lesson we must learn in order to realize our true selves. Who we are as an individual, a family, a community or a nation will only be truly known if we stop resisting our painful past/history and embrace the lesson.