Note: these are running notes from Pop!Tech ‘08; for more posts, see the Pop!Tech blog.  I stopped liveblogging conferences (for why, see In Praise of Slow Blogging); however, I’ll have more complete (and perhaps coherent) reflections up this week. 

FRANK WARREN, curator of the world’s secrets 

Frank Warren collects secrets.  One day he printed up a few hundred self-addressed postcards, handed them out to strangers in Washington, DC and asked them to send him their secrets.  Four years and 250,000 secrets later, what started out as a community art project has turned into a hobby, a vocation and ultimately, a profession.  Of the thousand or so cards he receives each week, Frank posts a handful to his blog, PostSecret.  The blog is voyeuristically addicting; the secrets are painful, funny and profound.

While many of the secrets expose past deeds, some reveal hidden desires.  In December 2006, Frank posted this card:

Soon after, he received this email:

Sent: Sunday, December 3, 2006 8:22 AM

This Saturday evening I will be waiting for you too. This invitation does not mean that I want to do anything or talk during the movie. But when the darkness leaves the theatre, perhaps we will look into each other’s eyes, smile, decide to get a cup of coffee and share a conversation over what we just saw.

-waiting with a white hat

That email led to the creation of a PostSecret fan site called The White Hat People, which encourages people going to the movies alone to wear a white hat, and thus meet each other.   

PostSecret hits a collective nerve because it represents the paradox of the digital age: the ability to be publicly anonymous. (Or anonymously public. You choose.)  By revealing our innermost secrets to the world’s largest audience, it offers an opaque veil for the truth: one that is both staunchly impersonal and profoundly intimate. As a public confessional, perhaps Post Secret offers relief, if not absolution, by releasing people from the shackles of secrecy.

 

LAURA WATERS HINSON, on “radical forgiveness”

Imagine that you have a secret to confess. Now imagine that your confession is very public, and very personal. And that your crime isn’t cheating on your spouse, but that you killed your neighbor?  That you chopped off his hands and feet, until he slowly bled to death in front of you.

Is there an arena to talk about - and seek forgiveness from - such unimaginable crimes? That’s the basis of As We Forgive, a groundbreaking documentary film by Student Academy Award Winner Laura Waters Hinson that explores the human capacity for forgiveness in the most extraordinary of circumstances - the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide. 

In 1994, over the course of one hundred days nearly 800,000 Tutsis were killed by the Hutu militia and sympathizers, making the Rwanda tragedy one of the most horrific genocides in history.  As the country slowly edged toward peace and rebuilding, the new government was faced with an overwhelming backlog of genocide cases. Approximately 120,000 genocidaires were crammed into Rwanda’s prisons; it was estimated that it would take 100+ years to prosecute all of the cases.  In 2003, in an effort to decongest the prisons and promote reconciliation, President Paul Kagame ordered the release of some 40,000 prisoners back into the community.

They were free, but many remained prisoners of unending guilt and shame.  A number of religious organizations (including Prison Fellowship, which is featured in the film) have established “reconciliation programs” in an attempt to reintegrate murderers with their communities. As We Forgive explores this concept of “radical forgiveness” through the stories of two women who come face to face with the men who murdered their families, and are asked to forgive them.

Rwanda has pledged never to forget the genocide; memorials scatter the country, including this rural church (pictured above) in which 10,000 people were slaughtered.  The bodies of the victims were left in place as they died, and today the skulls and bones of the victims remain on display as a visible testament to the horror that engulfed the country.

But is forgiveness possible?  This is the backdrop to Laura’s talk at Pop!Tech: as she takes the stage she notes that “In 1994,all that was abundant in Rwanda was scarce. The scarcities were too many to count - trust, security, hope, peace … and people.”

While not everyone agrees that Rwanda has embraced forgiveness, As We Forgive is a haunting, provocative and ultimately inspiring film that asks the question: in an age of conflict, what does justice really mean?