COLUMN: Remorse, doubt flood into the Apology Line
A horrid quotidian ague had been troubling me throughout that fateful day, and so I reached for the remote as I settled into my accustomed recumbent position. Relaxed I was not to remain for long.The particular edition of "This American Life" on KPFT revolved around the issues of crime, guilt and forgiveness.
Over the course of an hour, the audience was transported from war-shattered Bosnia to the anarchic streets of suburban Arizona, listening in on how others grappled with the way we deal with criminals of all stripes. Of course, the pitiable juvenile delinquents were not put in the same league as the blood-stained war criminals in Pale, Bosnia, but the parallels were considerable.
Perhaps the greatest revelation was the one made regarding contrition and its relation to forgiveness; importantly, that the latter is often predicated on evidence of the former. In the final segment of the show, that idea was given full force when listeners were granted the opportunity to listen to excerpts from the "Apology Line."
The Apology Line was started in the 1980s in New York City by Alan Bridge as a way to allow people to call in and anonymously confess to whatever was weighing on their consciences. Callers either spoke to him or left messages on his answering machine.
From the Line's archives, several calls were broadcast. The confessor in one call told of choking his infant sister to death when he was a child, hiding the plastic bag before his parents had returned from a trip. Though no one suspected him of killing her, he spoke in hushed tones of how he still had nightmares about that murderous childhood prank.
Another man recorded his change of heart over certain actions he had taken as an Israeli soldier. He and his comrades had together killed six Arabs, he somberly told the machine, and now he was not sure that he had done the right thing.
What stuck in my mind for a long time afterward, however, was the tearful fellow who recounted how he had found himself unemployed and desperate. He returned home to take care of his bed-ridden mother who needed assistance with most of her daily activities. Making no excuses for himself, he went on to describe how he had taken advantage of his mother's Social Security checks by demanding $5 for every glass of water that he would bring to her and $10 for every sandwich he would make for her.
Alan Bridge's life and dedication to his community were cut short when he was the victim of a fatal hit-and-run accident by a jet skier while on vacation in late 1995. When asked if Bridge would have forgiven the jet skier had he called to express remorse, his widow declared that he probably would have been upset at such a stupid waste of life, but that he probably would have.
Inspired by such a story, I resolved to take Mr. Bridge's example as a model. In quick succession, I set up a toll-free line, put ads in all the world's papers and called up the South African Truth Commission for a little free advice from Bishop Tutu. With the mechanisms in place, I kicked back and waited for the phones to start ringing.
This column is the first in a three-part series .
Massoud Javadi is a Wiess College senior.
This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 7, 1997 issue.
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