Perpetrator silence: Obadiah’s depiction of Israel as victim and Edom as perpetrator

Abstract

Background: The depiction of Edom in the book of Obadiah is peculiar: Edom remains voiceless. What we see as readers is how the intended audience is silenced and rendered vulnerable: Edom is simply delivered to the audience as perpetrators in their nakedness and destituteness, stripped of everything, even their dignity and integrity.
Objectives: This study will endeavour to utilise some of the results of perpetrator and trauma studies to elucidate vulnerability within perpetrators in the book of Obadiah in comparison with vulnerability within post-apartheid whiteness.
Method: Comparative textual study of the book of Obediah and a particular South African ethnography in a socio-political context.
Results: In Obadiah, Edom is accused of standing idly by with Judah as the innocent victim of the Babylonian Kingdom’s imperial expansion. Within South Africa, whites are accused of standing idly by with the passing of the apartheid laws, allowing the creation of separateness in social structures.
Conclusion: Edom remains silent, and its representation is one-dimensional from the victim’s side. Perpetrator testimony is a complex issue and fraught with pitfalls in terms of justifications for the inequities committed. Looking at the perpetrator as an implicated subject (whiteness) in South Africa, whiteness can only respond with integrity if it develops a sense of vulnerability.
Contribution: Constructing a credible response as an implicated subject towards the current national dialogue.