PEACE AND SOLIDARITY - THE THEMES OF THE AFRICAN CARAVANTWO INTERVIEWS
Interview with Fr. Adrien Ntabona of Burundi Fr. Adrien Ntabona: The accord signed in Arusha is a frame in which one must put a concrete content. If this is done, the accord will be a bearer of hope for it is a question of important principles and many efforts of reconciliation. Up till now the signatories hardly recognise themselves in this agreement. That is why I would call it a fragile agreement. The concrete content which would give sure hope are the efforts at reconciliation. This means that one day each person will admit his own mistake and will recognise something of value in the other person. At the moment we are Manicheans.1 We put the total truth on our side and irreparable error on the other side. Each of us turns around in his own orbit without the wish of meeting the other. The other is the one who is ethnically and ideologically different from me. There is need of forming anew the national consciousness which we have destroyed completely. I am in charge of the CRID Centre ((Centre of Research on Inculturation and Development). Its goal is mutual acceptance, progressive reconciliation, active non-violence, etc. In other words, to act in a way that people will recognise that they are citizens of a country. We have become members of our respective ethnic groups and practically refuse to be citizens. A country cannot be built on such notions. Therefore the Arusha agreement constitutes an open door, a door which was previously closed. We can enter that door but one must enter it with certain perspectives and with seriousness and then, with time, extremism will diminish. At the moment we are functioning on the basis of extremism.... It is necessary to reinforce a citizen consciousness, to move towards active non-violence. I am happy to talk with a disciple of Martin Luther King2 ; I am one myself. In our Centre we have invited disciples of Gandhi, of Martin Luther King and of others who practise active non-violence and we have become quite strong in that discipline, to the point where we have become brothers. We must move a little more towards non-violence at all levels. We have conceptual violence, we are forming wrong conceptions: our consciences, our language, our social life, politics, everything has become a victim of violence. To act violently means "to act contrary to the nature of things." Now we need to become non-violent, things, people, societies; we must act in such a way that people's minds are turned around, that there will be a re-acceptance of each other, a progressive reconciliation, that people will be ready to build their country. Yesterday, we were subjects of his Majesty, the King, later we became subjects of ethnic leaders. Now we must refuse to be subjects any longer; we must become citizens. We must become exacting citizens. But exacting first of all of oneself, which is an enormous struggle. I think that the immediate future still requires suffering from us. We must accept to suffer, but we must have perspectives at the same time. In our tradition we have a saying: If one is poor but with a child on one's back, one is rich." In the same way, if one is unhappy, but has a perspective of hope, one is rich. I consider the agreement as a source of riches, but riches which must be exploited and in which we must put a very concrete content. Those contents, we the citizens must look for them at the level of civil society and we must not leave it to political parties alone to manage society; we have known their limits. In some of your writings you place the origin of the Burundian drama in what you call "ethnocentric totalitarianism." What do you mean by that? What I mean to say is that we have become Manicheans. Ethnic groups have become atrophied and have themselves become totalitarian. Their totalitarian idea is then imposed on all the members of one's group. One can be totalitarian in everything, even in religion: sects are totalitarian. One has a number, often a minimal number of ideas, and one imposes these ideas on all who wish to become members; all others are made to be devils. There is something akin to a super brain which reasons for the ethnic groups and which renders the tendencies and positions rigid, with the consequence that everyone must follow, whether in life or in death. The members of the ethnic group who do not follow this totalitarian ideology must die just like the members of the other ethnic group: they have become traitors to the ethnic cause. Totalitarianism is an ideology along fascist lines. We have to go beyond this ethno-fascism because ethnocentric totalitarianism or ethno-fascism, it is all the same thing; it is also close to Nazism. That is to say, the wish to dominate society by the elect who were called Nazis (National Socialists) "the people of the superior race", all that is part of our misery!
And that is the same thing as the genocidal ideology? The genocidal ideology is the consequence of totalitarian ethnocentrism. First one imposes a totality of ideas and afterwards one massacres those who do not agree, especially those of the other race. That genocidal wish in our region was born with the Rwandese revolution in 1959. Burundi has battled long not to become part of it but it has not succeeded. Now we must again wage battle to get out of it. In situations like that where we face the propagation of ideologies, of murderous ideas, can one imagine reconciliation without a re-education of consciences? No, but a progressive reconciliation yes, starting from now. At CRID we have adopted a progressive reconciliation. That means that even if one has little, one works on that and builds on it. One cannot wait until that ideology is extirpated, one must fight against it, all the while knowing that among the elite there are those who are conforming to this ideology. People must be trained; we must educate those who have a different outlook, who have a citizen conscience. Gradually they will carry the others along and will reduce the extremisms. We have to start from our tradition: we are strong.... We must enrich our tradition ... with modern values, those of active non-violence, tolerance and human rights, and in this way one can build [a better society]. Is this what you call a moral and cultural revolution? Moral, or even better ethical, because today we distinguish between the two. Morals are imposed on you by tradition and by authority. Ethics imposes itself, by personal conviction. We must train people who are ethically relevant. Those who have a historical conscience, that is to say, a conscience which embraces all people and all beings. One feels oneself responsible for society and even for ... the physical environment. Then culture acts as a leaven to bring it to fulfillment. Culture, especially at the level of values, because culture consists of three dimensions: values, institutions and words. We must not limit culture to the level of words only, we must move towards values. We have beautiful traditional values which can be married to modern values and thus we can attain a just state. Do we have a crisis of leadership in this country? AN: There is a crisis of leadership, of the idea of leadership.... There is a certain institutional leadership where people are drawn towards their ethnic groups to have the idea of might, to forge legitimacy. One says, I represent my ethnic group, that makes me a leader, without even offering a clear ideology. We are losing the art of guiding people.. You see how nowadays groups are forever splintering! You see how difficult it has become to have associations that last, exactly because we have lost the art of guiding others. It has been lost because we have taken refuge in our ethnicity and believe that being member of an ethnic group is sufficient to exact obedience. What is the role of the Church in all that? It must first of all make an effort within itself. The Church also has problems with this, the Catholic Church just as well as the other churches. They are being eroded by totalitarian ethnocentrism, by the murderous ideology. The Church must first of all rethink itself, then secondly be the crucible of the formation of citizen consciousness, of active non-violence, of loving communion. We can do much but one must begin with oneself.... Is there hope for a speedy peace in Burundi and in the region? A speedy peace would mean that one would be able to see some promising signs and I do not see enough of them. Myself, I rather believe in a progressive peace; we already have a bit of that! This country is marvelous! We manage to survive in spite of everything we have lived through. We can therefore build upon that but it will be progressive; the signs are not sufficiently clear to promise a speedy peace.
Interview with Bishop Alfonso Sengulane from Mozambique
David Gakunzi:. What do you understand by the word peace? Bishop Alfonso Sengulane: For our continent, peace is a like a seed which must be sown, watered and cultivated. It is a tree bearing good fruit. Peace is well-being for everyone. It is a precious treasure. According to you, what should be the role of the church in the construction of peace in Africa? Churches are the servants and the architects of peace. They have no other choice but to work for peace: it is part of their mandate. They must see to it that there is a permanent dialogue between the major actors in the social arena. And dialogue means that no one should be taken for a devil. Every citizen can contribute a stone to the building of life in community. No one is such an idiot that he has no single contribution to make to the construction of society. And no one is so wise that he has no need of the support of others. It is of fundamental importance, therefore, that a culture of dialogue be introduced in situations of conflict. Moreover, such a culture is just as vital in the post-conflict period. Secondly, I believe that in every peace process the spiritual dimension should not be forgotten. Africans are a profoundly religious people, whether we are Catholics, Muslims or traditionalists. Our people assign a very great importance to their religion to the point that it is always difficult to distinguish between the sacred and the secular domains. It is therefore of fundamental importance not to forget the spiritual aspect of peace building. Thirdly, I believe that when a peace accord has been agreed upon by two conflicting parties, it is vital to proceed to the disarmament process. Our people need a disarmament process. And this disarmament must be complete. Many people have guns in their homes, their offices and their factories. But our minds are also armed and we therefore have need of disarming them.... We must even pay attention to children's toys. For that reason, in Mozambique, we have initiated a project which consists in the exchange of guns against working tools. In this project guns are recuperated from their owners and working tools are offered in return. We use the same procedure with children. We recuperate from them such toys as symbolically express violence and we offer them more peaceful toys. The idea here is to prevent a culture of violence from being established in their minds. It is therefore necessary, in this process of disarmament, to disarm our minds. We must also promote economic justice. The church must clearly take sides for economic justice. Since God is a good mathematician, before creating human beings, he began by putting the resources necessary to their survival on earth. The main reason for the poverty of our people is essentially the bad distribution of those riches. This is caused by either the egoism or the ignorance on the part of some. I conclude by saying that we must always remind ourselves that life is sacred. No one has the right to take away life. If your opponent or your political enemy does not agree with you, you can continue disputing with him but do not kill him. Do not sow terror, improve on your argumentation, but do not kill. One last question. Some people assert that the wars in Africa proceed, essentially, from a crisis in values. What is your opinion on this? I agree totally with this view. We have often forgotten the moral dimension in peace building. For several years we have known a void and our politicians have created ideologies to fill up this void. They have even arrogated the place of God to themselves. We must raise our voices to remind people of the centrality of certain values in every society. If certain values in society are ignored, moral illiteracy is the result. Nothing is set to remain the same forever in a given society: still every day we must remind ourselves of certain fundamental values. We must remember the necessity of being buoyed up by faith. We must be sustained and carried by those values and by our faith.
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