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Where There’s Blame, There’s a Claim …

… except when there is no one to blame … or you forgive them first!

Today I heard two stories. The first was that of a woman whose son had fallen off a bouncy castle at a school fete and broken his arm. She consequently sued the bouncy castle manufacturer, the school and the council who owned the village green on which the fete was being held. The second story was that of a community in Rwanda of children orphaned as a result of the genocide. These children had seen their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters brutally murdered and yet the Comic Relief reporter, sent there as part of the fund-raising campaign, said he had never witnessed such “love and forgiveness”. It struck me that the woman whose son broke his arm could learn a thing or two from those Rwandan children.

There are many things which annoy me about daytime television (namely Kilroy and Trisha on at the same time so that you’re forced to watch one or the other while you’re having your breakfast!), but one thing in particular is the recent proliferation of adverts urging you to claim compensation for accidents. There’s the woman who woke up and found she’d been involved in a car accident and the little boy who permanently damaged his eyesight in a playground (quite how he managed this is beyond me!). One of these adverts declares, “Where there’s blame, there’s a claim”. But what I want to know is, what if there is no one to blame? What if the boy fell off the bouncy castle by accident? What if the girl in the car accident was in just that — an accident? And even if there was someone to blame — if the bouncy castle hadn’t been set up properly or the driver of the car hadn’t been concentrating on the road — what about the acceptance that sometimes people make mistakes?

It is often said that we live in a culture of blame. The trial of the two men accused of the Lockerbie bombing finally came to an end in March of this year after twelve years and a brand new courthouse built especially for the occasion. The relatives of the Lockerbie victims have finally got someone to blame, regardless of whether he is actually guilty or not. This, however, is not enough for some of them who are going on to sue in the civil courts for damages. Where does this insatiable desire to assign blame come from, because I’m fairly sure the actual victims of Lockerbie don’t care who’s to blame?

Perhaps it’s the attempt to fill the empty space left by the loss of someone we love, or an attempt to make ourselves feel better; less guilty? The problem with attempts like these is that they invariably fail. Unforgiveness and the desire for revenge become bitterness and resentment that just make us feel worse. At some point, for our own sake and for the sake of the person who has wronged us we have to let go.

I think we can all learn from the orphaned children in Rwanda and from the ultimate example of forgiveness: “But God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Vicki Russell-Smith

Last modified: 25th November 2005