NEWS ROUNDUP ON PEACE ACTIVITIES IN KENYA
Otieno Ombok |
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Chemchemi ya Ukweli (CYU in short), the Active Non-Violence Movement in Kenya, in this first “News Roundup on Peace Activities in Kenya” shares with our readers some of the activities it has been engaged in countrywide. These activities are meant to promote 2000 as the Year for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence as proclaimed by the UN General Assembly.
CYU's training and activism is coming at a time when Kenyans are facing a myriad of problems: violence in families, flagrant corruption, increasing poverty (partly due to unreasonable donor conditions), bad governance, mass media which often glorifies violence, devil worship, arson, landlessness and human rights abuses. Many Kenyans are confused as to which way to follow amidst all these problems.
The journey to peace is a peaceful journey that requires a middle way. This “middle way” is neither passivity (many people confuse prudence with passivity) nor does it counter violence with violence.
Active Non-Violence (ANV), the middle way, is needed to counter oppression because simple passivity may actually heighten violence since the oppressor is not challenged to change his behaviour.
The middle way response (ANV) calls for a pure spiritual being, a sober and realistic mind and a profound understanding about the logic of violence. It calls for supporting those in need (being a good Samaritan), even to the extend of paying the ultimate price as was the case in the recent murder of Fr. John Kaiser. It means being ready to suffer for justice like Jesus of Nazareth, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Monsignor Romero.
CYU's journey starts with a visit to a secondary school. The students in the school (name withheld) had gone on strike and during the strike some girls had been raped. A missionary working in a neighbouring Catholic Mission called CYU to organise a reconciliation seminar. True to its mission of planting seeds of non-violent responses in violent situations, CYU conducted a successful three day Seminar on Active Non-Violence and Reconciliation.
This particular secondary school is in a humble setting in the pastoralist semi-arid region of the country; it accommodates students and teachers from various areas, speaking different languages. This situation might have led to the tension that caused the strike. Since it is against the same background (tribal/ethnic) that Kenyans have killed each other in the past, it shows how quickly national problems are localised to the detriment of Kenyans, in this case students. Strikes were also experienced in Moi, Kenyatta and Nairobi universities, leading to the closure of the three institutions
The evening the group of fifteen (nine men and six women) arrived in the school, there was some hesitation on the part of the students. For one thing, the students were surprised at the youthfulness of the facilitators from CYU and the fact that they arrived by public means. Another hesitation was caused by the fact that the students did not know the objectives of the seminar. They were anxious to learn but would they be ready to change? However, time was on the side of truth and reconciliation.
During the second day of the seminar, the mood changed: we were getting along very well. Partly it was because the training was blame free (nobody was being blamed for what happened) and partly it was the process (drama, song, joke and dance) that thawed the hearts of the victims and the aggressors. By the third day individuals who were earlier not talking, sitting together or seeing eye to eye were apologizing to one another and some of them approached the headmaster to ask for forgiveness.
The strong presence of young people as trainers helped in bridging the gap since it demonstrated to the students that peacemaking is not a preserve of grownups. Religion played a very important and conciliatory role in the programme: there were meditations, interfaith prayers, songs and quotations from the Qur'an and the Bible. (It was the first time in the history of the Catholic sponsored school that Muslims were allowed to go for Friday prayers.)
However, the peacemaking process in the school will not be complete, according to the headmaster, if the Board of Governors, as well as the teaching and non-teaching staff do not take the same course. “The students will be ahead of them in these matters, leading to a new form of conflict.”
(The seminar in this secondary school was not CYU's first contact with secondary schools. Earlier we had given an ANV basic seminar to Young Christian Students (YCS) leaders. University students have also been trained. Since there is a great need to curb violence in schools and colleges, the challenge is to develop a curriculum for peace studies since the students who have taken the course don't stay long enough to help sustain the lessons learned.)
In the same month (September) CYU work moved from a school set up to a tourist class beach hotel in Mombasa (a distance of some 700 km.) The reason: to share their methods of active non-violence with participants in a workshop on Participatory Methodologies in Scaling Up, Training and Policy formulations. CYU believes in participatory processes. The people must be part of a bottom-up approach and must back the policy formulation process; they must agree on the content and process of training and be consulted on a scaling up methodology. CYU's strategy goes further and asks what happens when the policy and lawmakers ignore the interests and participation of the people (remember the stalled constitution review process?)
People must find ways to demand their right of participation, assembly and decision making in a non-violent way. The workshop brought together people from twenty organisations. Using participatory methodologies, they were happy to realise that once an awareness has been created, the anger of people can be controlled and positive and non-violent action taken.
CYU was back in Nairobi on time to conduct a basic ANV seminar in Kilimambogo for Sudanese youth living in Nairobi. These young people belong to a movement for Consolidation for Peace and had been looking for training in the area of conflict transformation. As a result of their training they resolved to spread the gospel of ANV to Sudanese youth in the diaspora and in Southern Sudan.
In the same month, CYU was involved in the planning of the memorial mass for the slain Catholic priest Fr. John Kaiser which took place at the location where his body was found. CYU made marshals available to take care of the welfare of the participants and to deal with any emergency at the venue. Earlier CYU, as a member of the Kenya Human Rights Network, was instrumental in facilitating as well as participating in the procession that took place from the Lee Funeral Home to the Holy Family Basilica.
CYU has done over 40 ANV Basic seminars for some 2000 people in the eight provinces and one regional seminar in Lusaka targeting youth, women and people working with nongovernmental and community-based organisations. CYU is also doing advocacy, lobbying and networking with other organisations involved in areas like the constitution review process, the land question, debt forgiveness, poverty, and human rights, all of these being justice, peace and reconciliation issues.
There is no letting up. CYU has been accompanying the Peoples Commission of Kenya in their provincial fora which have jump-started the stalled constitution of Kenya review process. Their involvement has included technical advice, secretarial and administrative backup, groundwork liaison with local coordinators, mobilisation, civic education, media monitoring and marshalling.
How has all this been possible? CYU has done ANV basic seminars in the eight provinces and therefore has base groups on the ground. It is these groups (which have been trained in non-violent responses) which help in accomplishing the above tasks. Given the nature of our political climate and the fact that the fora are public occasions, security cannot be left to chance.
CYU is also in the committee organising prayers for the religious shrines which were burnt recently. (These prayers will be held soon after the Muslims break their Ramadhan fast.)
The time for standing up for truth, justice and reconciliation is now and so is the need for educating people to participate in ways for building peace. CYU hopes to cultivate the culture of peace through it training seminars and its activism. We ask Kenyans to support CYU, and other human rights activist organisations working for peace and justice, through their prayers and their solidarity.
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