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In Reply to: Guilt, guilt guilt posted by YKW on September 11, 2003 at 14:28:02:
I preface my rant with "In my opinion."
yeah, well as I mentioned earlier, guilt is a major motivator for me. All I have to do is read some of the nightmares people at movingon.org write, and I get an outbreak of guilt.
I think that this is a generational thing. My experience has been that for the most part,FGAs don't see it that way. On the contrary, SGA's do. My guess is that about 90% of ex-member SGAs feel verey little in common with FGAs.
Our experiences and sufferings took place in the context of us joining a cult as an adult, of our own free choice, and more or less being able to leave whenever we wished to. IE we were not minors. (I know that many of us were legitimately trapped in some way). SGAs were born in the group, did not buy into the zany doctrines, did not choose to belong to the army of David. And they couldn't leave.
On top of it, they were horribly abused and oppressed by us!! Berg and co. may have been behind it all, but for the SGAs, the abuse and oppression had a face, it had a name. Those names and faces belonged to countless adults who punished them severely, who sexually abused them, who denied them education, and who committed multitudes of other misdeeds. They were the victims of our daily oppression.
For most of the SGAs, it is all about generation. As it should be. We were the Nazi prison guards, they were the Jews. We may have all suffered under Hitler, but they suffered under Hitler AND us. We were their enemy, as well as Berg and co.
It may be easy for us to say it is not about generation, but I don't think you'll find too many SGAs who feel that way. And I think they're right.
Like it or not, when it comes to social identity, they see us as their former oppressors. That's the label we have to wear. And if we recognise it, accept it, wear it and guide ourselves accordingly in our interactions with them, it will help us to understand them a teensy weensy bit more, and go a little towards laying a foundation for some sort of healing to happen. Because it validates the truth, that they were the real victims in all of this, and we bear a great deal of responsibility for all the suffering they endured.
