1815: From Bagne de Tulon prison, after 19 years of confinement, a convict with numbers. 24601 was released. He no longer had a place to come back. He walked without direction, old and alone.
He was actually not a free man. The law required him to carry a yellow passport, as a sign that he was the former of "the chain". He had not received any stay at the inn. In desperation, he could just lay down on the roadside, with anger and bitterness.
But this is not the story of an angry and bitter. The famous Les Miserables assembled into the life story of Jean Valjean by Victor Hugo about the No. 24601 who has changed.
We remember how it happened: arrived in Digne, a small town in the South of France, Jean Valjean accommodated to stay by Bishop Myriel. He was given a dinner and a bed-and allowed to be alone. On that night, without anyone watching him, Valjean got a chance. He took a knife, spoon, fork, and silver tools for banquet in room. He then fled. But he could not run away. Police searched the former prisoner who walked in the morning. They found the objects belonging to the diocese on him.
Valjean was taken to face Bishop Myriel. I can imagine how his fear and desperation. He knew he would be locked up for life. Long ago, in the small town of his birth, Faverolles, in the winter of 1795 he stole bread from a shop because of hunger, then he was imprisoned for five years. The sentence was extended to 19 years because Valjean was caught several times to run away. The worse fate awaited him.
But something unexpected happened. To the police, Bishop Myriel said that Valjean did not steal anything. "The silver items were given to guests who were starving for lunch," Bishop said. Even in the morning, in front of the police, the kindly bishop gave a candlestick of silver, while reminding Valjean on his promise--- even though he never promised anything -- that he would be a good person.
Finally Valjean was free. The incident shook him. But not only that. On that day he -- a mighty man -- robbed the money 50 sous from a child. But this time he regretted. He was looking for the boy throughout the city, to return the money. But he did not find him.
The story of Jean Valjean is the story of the repentance. Since then he had become a good person, loved to help. But the remarkable fact here is that Bishop Myriel did not expect it. The "Promise" which was mentioned by him in the morning was only fictitious: the bishop lied so that Valjean could be exempted from punishment.
Thus we can say he was also forgiving, but his forgiveness was not a kind of barter. In barter, X gives something to the Y because X expects Y gives something in return. Forgiveness of the bishop was a sincere forgiveness, unconditionally.
But sincerity is the complicated case. Unconditional forgiveness can also hide a rule: I give it to you as a sign that I am better than you. If so, Forgiveness does not mean to have been lost or have forgotten an act that makes the actors seem scoundrelly. A pardon even asserts the harsh things.
An unconditional forgiveness, a forgiveness without supremacy, perhaps more fitting called as a pure forgiveness. But ultimately, if we follow Derrida, "Forgiveness", in the purest sense, is "just forgive what can not be forgiven", le pardon pardonne seulement l'impardonnable.
In such a reference, even unconditional forgiveness of Bishop Myriel to Jean Valjean is not forgiveness as envisioned by Derrida, for crimes committed basically can be forgiven: the culprit is the person who fears of dying of starvation.
The question is: is there an abomination that can not be forgiven, so pardon to him is an act that is truly selfless? Is there a "radical evil" in the sense of Hannah Arndt, which "Uproot all sizes that we know"?
The answer is not easy. Its size depends on who we are. Indeed, there is an abomination in the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dachau, or in the "Gulag Archipelago" built by Stalin, or as was done by some fanatical Maoists during the Cultural Revolution in China. The cruelty is not such a terrible thing in a universal size, but perhaps what is meant by radical evil is determined by the feelings intensity of the victims at a time, in one place. As a consequence is, a sincere forgiveness to a deed can only be determined by those who become the victims in a time, in a place.
But is -- as implied in Derrida's own expression -- the pure forgiveness possible? Indeed, it's impossible. It may even violate what is desired by a fair living. But maybe we can take it as an appeal to the self: to sue how far we change ourselves when forgiving.
But, often I -- the victim -- feel more glorious than the non-victims, moreover when compared with the criminals. Sometimes too, we forget, there is temptations of hubris in forgiving, such as the rich who gives charity just to show off his wealth.
That is why, I guess a pure forgiveness is not intended as a forgiveness. Bishop Myriel action is touching because he is not forgiving, but frees a person from the torment, and also frees him from the certainty of fate determined by the past. Valjean, a villain who everywhere must carry a yellow passport is not forever contemptible.
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