Inner Art – September 2007
A JOURNEY TO BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA
An Opportunity to Serve, Forgive and Heal
by James Anthony Ellis
On the morning of April 16, 2007, student Cho Seung-hui, a South Korean national and U.S. resident, walked the halls of the Virginia Tech campus and shot and killed 32 people and injured 20 others before turning the gun on himself. The final death toll of 33 made it the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.When a tragedy such as this takes place, the wounds go deep for not just a community but also for a nation. What can be done to reach out to those left behind: the families, the students, the community?
One such outreach will take place Sept. 16 in Blacksburg, Virginia, home of Virginia Tech. At a public event, the Blacksburg organization HERE will present a screening of the documentary, The Power of Forgiveness. Following this will be a question and answer session with Journey Films’ Martin Doblmeier, a local Virginian, and Azim Khamisa, a San Diego man who experienced his own tragic loss and found a way through the pain.
In 1995, Khamisa’s son Tariq was murdered by 14-year-old gang-member Tony Hicks. Shortly after, he established the Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF) with the intention of ending youth violence and planting the seeds of hope, forgiveness and peace in the minds of youth and adults alike. He also reached out in forgiveness to Tony Hicks and to Tony’s grandfather, Ples Felix. Khamisa’s story is one of seven highlighted in Doblmeier’s documentary. Khamisa was invited to the Blacksburg event by Doblmeier. He says he will be attending to answer questions and be of service in any way he can, offering his own story of healing.
“I believe I can relate to the pain beyond what words can describe,” he says. “I’d also like to relate the view that there is a chance for personal growth from this experience … not just for the victims’ families but also for the world at large.”
The Power of Forgiveness was taken on a 33-city tour this year and will be aired on public television stations in the near future. For the film, Doblmeier visited locations that had experienced extreme violence. He documented people’s responses and each community’s drive to band together. Doblmeier began Journey Films in the 1980’s. He has created 25 films to date, each exploring faith, spirituality and the drive for understanding.
“Somehow we have become a very angry culture,” says Doblmeier. ”You see it in our movies, our nightly news, even on our highways. A lot of people, myself included, believe we have to start moving in a different direction, and forgiveness is one step in that new direction.”
The journey to Virginia for Doblmeier came about while he was visiting Florida State during the tour. The chaplain there knew the chaplain at Virginia Tech. After being invited to screen his film in Blacksburg, he instantly thought of inviting Khamisa to share the experience. “I believe he can speak to the hurt and suffering you feel when losing someone to a random act of violence,” Doblmeier says. “There is no substitute for that kind of wisdom.”
The event is sponsored by HERE: Honoring Experiences, Reflections and Expressions, a group created by community members in May with the common desire to facilitate public dialogue and artistic response after the shootings. Says Shannon Turner, HERE Program Coordinator, “The intention of the screening and the Q & A session is to help fulfill HERE’s mission to create safe, sensitive, and diverse opportunities for our community’s processing and healing.”
Though the event is open to all, it cannot be confirmed that the victim’s families or Virginia Tech students specifically will be in attendance. It also can’t be determined how those in the audience will receive the movie or the presenters.Turner is sensitive to the needs of the community that is still healing from the tragedy. “We as a group are not inclined to speak to how we think the event will be received by the attendees or about how family members and students are doing four months after the tragedy. The community represents a multiplicity of experience around what has happened, and therefore no one individual or group can speak for the rest.”
Says Doblmeier, “I honestly never think of what will happen. I know I am going into the event to listen as much as to talk.” Turner said that audience members at the screening would be invited to participate in smaller, topic-based discussion groups throughout the community during the weeks after the screening. “We believe that providing intentional and community-based opportunities for gathering and sharing helps us in our individual and collective journeys,” says Turner. “The events and gatherings to begin this community experience are consistent with our belief that coming together to share and listen to our community stories will help build the road toward a better future, for us as individuals and as a community.”
Can there be positive change in a nation that appears to get more and more violent? For Khamisa, the answer is yes. “If violence is a learned behavior, so then nonviolence is also a learned behavior,” he says. “We need to make a real commitment as a nation to teach nonviolence and peace, and then eradicate violence from our society. It’s doable. What’s needed is a national will.”
This event, for one, reflects that will to create dialogue for the sake of compassion, growth and healing.
The Power of Forgiveness Screening will take place 3 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 16 at the Lyric Theater in Blacksburg, Virginia. For more information, contact Shannon Turner, HERE Program Coordinator, at shturner@vt.edu or 540.951.4771.