Moving On - Children of the Children of God

As victims of child abuse, each of us are solitarily faced with a complex dilemma:
Which parties can realistically be held accountable for countless incidents of gross child abuse that occurred whilst growing up within The Family International?

In seeking the answer, a painful question arises:
Do we hold our parents accountable for ignorantly joining such a group? Partly, yes.
Were they aware of the inhumane abuse forced on their children? Many were.
Were they capable of comprehending the consequences of such maltreatment?
and
Did they foresee the psychological ripple effects still very existent – and triggered periodically - within many our lives today? Hardly likely.

Our parents ignorantly followed the ranting of the perverted but charismatic founder, Dave Berg. He was, of course, beyond a shadow of a doubt guilty, of such crimes -- and many more. The fact, however, remains that David Berg is long been dead and while countless unfortunate victims – including myself - vehemently spit on his grave, violently curse at his name, and would, without hesitation burn effigies of the barbaric man, he unfortunately lived too short to atone for his sadistic deeds.

Yet, it would be somewhat absurd to expect all victims to simply ‘forgive and forget’. People should certainly ‘move on’ … and many have … focusing on the fulfillment of future visions and goals or simply living for the present, nevertheless, most will never forget such atrocious memories. We can tuck such memories away into one of our mental cabinets, lock it up, and continue on with our lives … but does it permanently erase them? It’s easy to run away from painful memories of illegal abuse… but is it socially responsible to?

In recent years, victims of abuse inflicted upon by Catholic priests have had some success in judicial proceedings. These victims also faced a dilemma, since the abuse occurred many years before, they lacked the hard evidence to sufficiently back accusations - notice how victims had success in directly prosecuting the perpetrators in contrast to prosecuting the pope or the entire Catholic church. The pope, of course, never issued doctrine endorsing physical or sexual abuse of children.

On the other hand, post-WWII, after Adolf Hitler had either disappeared or died (i.e. Dave Berg), his officers responsible for ordering war crimes were prosecuted. The relevance is that while not all orders of such spine-chilling acts where issued directly from the top, Hitler was responsible for his passionate indoctrination of the entire military and, in his absence, the perpetrators were convicted. While it was a far easier task to pinpoint culprits when clear military records where made available to the war tribunal --- let’s not forget that Japanese officers responsible for heinous war crimes in China were never properly convicted.

Past abuse that occurred within The Family International would combine traits from each of the above scenarios. How do we ascertain exactly whom to bring to court? An optional starting point would be to recollect all names/faces/photographs of abusers and match them with corresponding details i.e. approximate timeframe/location etc.

Although we may never see every abuser properly tried and convicted in a court of law, we can do our part to ensure that these abusers live in fear … forever looking over their shoulder … a punishment proportional to incarceration.

Reader's comments on this article
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from Bup
Thursday, March 02, 2006 - 00:59
(Agree/Disagree?)
I hold my parents fully accountable for not providing me with a high education ... but it's hard to (rightfully) talk of their accountability in allowing such abuse to happen to a child as innocent as I was.
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from cheeks
Monday, February 27, 2006 - 17:30
(Agree/Disagree?)

I think the answer is going to be diffrent for each one of us. In a lot of the cases we were seperated from our parents and the abuse happened when we were at a "teen home" or what ever the hell hole was called Macau HCS the Jumbo or where ever. Did they know? In a lot of the cases they did not at the time. Once they were informed they chose to turn a blind eye.

In my opinion we should go after the leaders the people that dictated what happened to out tender souls and more tender bodies. The people who enjoyed beating us or breaking us. Our immediate overseers and tn shepherds, for those of us that were sexually abused our immediate abusers.
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from KMLM
Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 12:11
(Agree/Disagree?)
Since we are asking questions, maybe we should be asking “what is it that we really want?” Whether our parents are legally liable, or who is legally liable, is up for debate but what does it mean to hold them accountable? What does it mean for us to hold our parents and perpetrators accountable? Doesn’t it mean that we would have to see ourselves as valid survivors and as deserving beings?
My question is to those of us who have an idea about how children should be treated, and how we treat our children, do you have a question in your mind, if you were put in the same position as your parent, would you do it the same or would ya do it differently? What would you do differently? Then that’s what I think we can ask of our parents. I think if I wronged a child and that child calls me to the carpet on it, I would expect myself to take accountability for it, even if it was just for the sake of the child’s sanity so they didn’t think they were the fucked up one?
The consistent theme I see with our parents is that they will always choose what will benefit themselves over what is in their children’s best interest. This, in my opinion, is what I would love to get legislation in this country behind as it is the root of their abuse. They didn’t have to rape, beat, and humiliate us, although many of them did, what they did have to do is protect our best interest as we were the vulnerable parties in this story, without an inkling of how to protect, or even recognize our best interest, and the one job they consistently failed at was that. Many a parent, mine included, considered the praise of their leadership and their ability to climb that ladder of success in the family over what they felt was a secondary or even a by product of their primary passion-serving their Lord and gaining the recognition of their peers and leadership.
Whether they take responsibility is another story, but that is neither our question nor should it, in my opinion, capture our focus. We can only be responsible for our own decisions and our own actions. In saying that, in my opinion we are the only ones who have the right, the strength, and the intimate experience to hold this group, and its individual members, accountable. If we shy away from this task we will be saying that it was acceptable, it was appropriate, and our parents were right in their actions and decisions that left their children in the state they are in now. In my opinion this is what Ricky got so mad at, when Angela tried to once again excuse and justify our treatment and blame the victims for their self-hatred, confusion, and self destructive behaviors.
Just thinking out loud...
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from sar
Friday, February 24, 2006 - 16:04
(Agree/Disagree?)

"In seeking the answer, a painful question arises:
Do we hold our parents accountable for ignorantly joining such a group? Partly, yes." Their ignorantly joining the group does not make them culpable for perpetuating abuses.

"Were they aware of the inhumane abuse forced on their children? Many were." It is this aspect that would be relevant. Parents are under a legal duty to care for their children. If a parent knew of abuse and did nothing to stop it, they would be complicit in the crime and would be guilty of the offence as much as the principal perpetuator.

"Were they capable of comprehending the consequences of such maltreatment? and Did they foresee the psychological ripple effects still very existent – and triggered periodically - within many our lives today? Hardly likely" Does it matter that they didn't see the ripple effects, if they did see and allow the immediate harm their children suffered? They weren't blind to the abuse. They merely turned a blind eye to the fact that it was abuse.

Where does the judicial predicament lay? The only predicament is that for many of us it would seem too harsh, and perhaps vengeful, to sue our own parents. We want to blame our parents crimes on another so that we can exact our revenge without hurting those that hurt and claim to love us.

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