Justice for Reconciliation and Peace

JUSTICE FOR RECONCILIATION AND PEACE Shalini Podimattam, RGS 07th July, 2006 Mother House, Angers

I INTRODUCTION: My dear Sisters and friends, It is a privilege to be here. I am very happy to be with you.

You have been journeying together reflecting, sharing and experiencing various aspects of reconciliation. Now you are looking forward to the next phase of the journey – to bring reconciliation to a wounded and anguished world, that waits for you with great expectation. I feel the sacredness of this moment.

Beyond self: I cannot stress enough the importance of personal reconciliation. Personal experiences of injustices, guilt and shame when left unattended, constantly evoke fear, anger, prejudices and they discolour our behaviour. Reconciling and healing these experiences is vital to inner peace and to harmony in relationship with others and God. This vertical reconciliation of making peace with oneself and with God, prepare us to promote horizontal or social reconciliation.

Missionary E. Stanley Jones once observed: “An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body, and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other is a corpse.”

Good Shepherd Mission of reconciliation: For over a century, our Good Shepherd Charism engaged us in sharing the Church’s mission of reconciling persons with self and God. During the last decade, reconciliation has gained wider and greater importance in the christian mission. “The felt need to come to terms with a violent past and to end hostility between peoples have brought the mission of reconciliation to the limelight.” (Author David Bosch ‘Transforming Mission’- 1991, Robert Schreiter, CPPS, and others)

Our GS Constitution call out to us, loud and clear, “Our commitment to reconciliation demands that we promote justice and peace”.

What does it mean to us Good Shepherd people, to be committed to reconciliation of people and societies? How could we witness to God’s healing of societies and peoples, wounded deeply and broken by oppression, injustice, discrimination, war, and destruction? How could we participate in the Church’s mission of reconciliation when confronted by continuing conflicts and widening gaps in our world?

The only answer is justice. Justice will lead to reconciliation and reconciliation to peace. “If you want peace, work for Justice.” Pope Paul VI.

II RECONCILIATION – RESTORING RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS: When we see people who are poor and oppressed, do we ask the question “why”? Or do we accept it saying “well, inequalty is part of human nature?”

Most of the sufferings in the world is caused by broken relationships either with other humans or with nature itself. Bringing justice and reconciliation to these two areas only can save our societies and our world from further destruction.

We are challenged by ethnic and international wars destroying societies, sexual trafficking dehumanizing women and children and intolerence expressed in increasing hate crimes. Our future is at stake as environment is destroyed for excess profit. Basic human rights of water

1 and land is getting privatized. The world politics and economies are controlled by exploitative structures and Institutions owned by powerful Governments and multinational companies. All these devastate the lives of the already poor.

How do we reconcile such suffering and oppression in our world, in the light of our Constitutions and Chapter documents? We see the importance of social reconciliation as a way to transform ourselves, our congregation, church and the world. It is a way to bring the gospel of justice and peace to the suffering and oppressed sisters and brothers.

Our relationship with the environment:

In the beginning, God placed human beings in a world where ‘God saw that everything was very good.’ Humans were entrusted with the responsibility of enhancing the vitality and beauty of creation.

We humans, as we developed, broke away from this relationship of respect and nurturing. We mined deep into the heart of Mother Earth for minerals and wealth, polluted water and air, poisoned the earth with chemicals and fertilizers, stripped the forest bare, swept the ocean clear, all for fast results and excess profits. We dumped nuclear and non- biodegradable wastes of our development into the ocean bed polluting sea water and destroying life. We invaded, colonized, plundered and killed our sisters and brothers to accumulate wealth. If justice is right relationship, we behaved unjustly.

Nature reacts violently as we have seen in the Asian Tsunami, the earthquake of southeast Asia, the floods of Guatemala, the devastating hurricanes, heat-waves, prolonged droughts in Africa, torrential rains, and acid rain caused by air pollution. We speak about these complex depletions as global warming. The destruction of natural habitats of animals prompts virulent new diseases and pandemics such as the current avian flu. The carriers of threatening diseases have been victims of pollution and environmental destruction caused by humans. Experts say that the greatest threat to us and to future generations may come from conflict between humans and nature. Yes, “plucking a flower affects a distant star.” Poet Frances Thompson

The relationship between humanity and environment is mutually supportive. It has to be models of cooperation and complementarity rather than domination and exploitation. The Kingdom of God aims at the transformation of the whole of creation. Salvation is about healing and restoring. Our efforts for justice can bring healing, reconciliation and integrity to nature and wholeness to human relationships with earth, air, fire, water and to one another.

Our relationship with other human beings:

Our world, with its richness of resources and scientific developments, holds a wounded, aching heart due to the unparalleled instances of injustice and violence. On a daily basis, we see challenges posed by the multiplicity of our postmodern world community. Our lives are so closely linked that we are dangerously aware of differences, exploitation and inequalities.

Due to the globalization of economies and trade, wealth is concentrated in affluent countries. One of the consequences of this economic pull is the large scale migration of people. The breakdown of relationships in our social, economic and political systems have resulted in displacements, human rights violation and value degradation.

The present day economic activities of governments and transnational trade organizations multiply poverty in developing countries. Giant transnational companies control and exploit the natural resources of the earth, water, minerals and electricity, for profit motives. This has devastated the peoples and the environment. The poor, especially women and children, are worst affected by poverty and oppression. Women and Children are the most insecure, sexually exploited, trafficked and smuggled.

2 Individualistic ideologies, structures of exploitation and aggression breed violence. Those excluded from the mainstream give in to hopelessness, distrust and even vengeance. We have witnessed incidents of interreligious and intercultural conflicts in the recent past.

There is a rise in acts of intolerence, hate, prejudices, terrorism, xenophobia, aggressive nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, exclusion, marginalization and discrimination. People are treated as strange and funny because they are different from us in their skin colour, appearance, ideologies and life style.

War and international state terrorism aggravate the sufferings of the poor. We have seen this in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, Kashmir, Colombia and other war torn areas. "Indonesia killed up to 180,000 East Timorese through massacres, torture and starvation during its 24-year occupation.” (United Nations' Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation.) We have stories of Turkey, Cambodia, Tibet and Bosnia. The pain and sufferings caused by the Holocaust, the genocides in Darfur, the disappearances in Argentina & Chile, the death squad killings in El Salvador, the killing of the Tutsi in Rwanda, the many ethnic conflicts, militarism and torture that is going on around us.

Exploitation happens in our own homes and countries. Unwittingly or not, we are partners in this. Most of the oppression in the world is created by our privileges and sustained by our silence. "A time comes when silence is betrayal....Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

The cry is for justice. The context is sacred, delicate and complex. The mission of reconciliation is the only way to come to terms with the sufferings and hostility. It is the only way to heal the wounds of oppression and the memory of a violent past. Our Mission of reconciliation need to be multidimentional. It is imperative that a greater understanding of the psychological, cultural, political, and societal roots of human cruelty and mass violence, is necessary to fulfill the mission of reconciliation today.

Buzz.... identify a real situation where you see the need for reconciliation, whether personal, community, congregational, national or international.

III STORIES OF PERSONAL RECONCILIATION:

Graham Stains, the Australian missionary, and his two sons were brutally burned to death in their jeep in 1999 in India. A grieving Gladys Stains forgave those who killed her husband and children.

We know the story of our late Pope John Paul II who forgave the one who shot him.

I remember reading another story. The court pronounced 8 years of imprisonment to the two murderers of a young man. Before the court dispersed, the mother of the murdered man requested the judge to allow her to visit the prisoners on Sundays. To a surprised court room, she said, “allow me to give them food at least once a week. My son’s blood has fallen on them, and they have become my sons”.

A Burundian widow from Lkole camp in western Tanzania said, “God knows our pain, because he too has lost a son.”

The expressions of these persons are very moving. It is also worth noting that through restitution, some amount of justice is done to the above persons. Justice is a prerequisite for meaningful reconciliation.

“No reconciliation without justice”... says Jean Baptiste Kaylgamba, survivor of genocide in Rwanda. (New Internationalist, June, 2006)... “I still bitterly regret that the world betrayed my 3 people in our hour of need...some powerful countries spent days discussing the genocide, at the UN... A gigantic coalition was raised to invade Iraq. What was needed to stop the killings in Rwanda was not a big force...What is disheartening is the continued targeting of genocide survivors. We fight the deepest emotional and psychological battles imaginable. Today another culture of impunity is cultivated here in the guise of reconciliation... but as long as survivors assume that justice has not been done, prospects for healing the wounds remain bleak.”

Reconciliation - a process:

The expressions of violence and exploitation are so subtle and are ever taking new forms. The real challenge in building enduring reconciliation lies in monitoring and fully grappling with the changing patterns of violence and social conflict that dominate our world.

Reconciliation is easier when the perpetrator seeks forgiveness. How can reconciliation take place when perpetrators of evil do not show repentance and come forward to be reconciled because of their distorted and diminished humanity? Take for example, a survivor of a gang rape, or the sole survivor of a family tortured and killed. Or when perpetrators are faceless, military powers and terrorists, whom can you forgive? Or, for a handful of survivors of communities wiped out by militarism, whom can they forgive?

We might have heard of the cliche, ‘forgive and forget.’ Reconciliation is not the forgetting of violence and trauma. Forgiveness and reconciliation cannot be forced even in the name of our Christian virtues. It has to come from the victim’s inner freedom, their ability to develop meaning, in order to transform memories. Reconciliation does not take away memories. The experiences are not forgotten but if reconciled, their memories do not terrorise them any more. They are able to live with these memories without being oppressed by them. They are able go beyond these experiences and find new relationships. Reconciliation is not a ceremony or ritual, it is a process.

Years after the genocide in Rwanda, a man comes face to face with one of his “friends,” who confessed to killing his brother. “When the friend asks for forgiveness”, the man says, “of course, I forgive him. It would be wrong to reject his apology. But in many ways, I forgive him out of fear of what he could do to me if I didn’t.”

He represents a large number of people who are denied justice and dignity. They need compassionate listening, freedom to express emotions and safety to talk about their stories. This will heal them enough to forgive the wrongdoers. If not, demands for forgiveness become another form of oppression.

Justice, Reconciliation and Peace:

Here I would like to quote Robert Schreiter, CPPS. (ref. SEDOS bulletin no. 37) “Truth- telling, struggling for justice and working toward forgiveness are the three central dimension of the social process of reconciliation.”

According to Robert Schreiter, reconciliation begins with truth telling, the breaking of the codes of silence that hide wrongdoing against the poor of the society. Church needs to create safe places and community where silence can be broken and truth can be spoken and heard, with dignity and compassion.

Secondly, here comes the relevance of justice. ‘to seek justice with no effort to establish the truth runs the risk of engaging in vengeance instead of true justice.’ The struggle of justice involves punitive justice that punish the wrongdoers, restorative justice which restores the dignity and the rights of the victim, distributive justice that returns the goods taken away and structural justice that restructures the institutions with the qualities of a renewed system.

4 Thirdly, the rebuilding of relationship prevents society from returning to violence. It involves healing of memories of oppression and violence. Repentance and conversion of the wrongdoers are important. Equally important is to apologise and make reparation for the wrongdoing. This leads to forgiveness. Not forgetfulness, but remembering in a way that makes a different future possible for both victim and the wrongdoer.

IV GOOD SHEPHERD MESSENGERS OF RECONCILIATION:

“We cry out together..that justice may reign universally.” General Chapter 2003

 consider the centrality of reconciliation in our mission, in initial and ongoing formation  rebuild and restore the broken person or community  offer a place of welcome and hospitality, acceptance, respect  truth telling – need to face the experience, face the truth  struggle for justice and freedom – multidimentional approach  establish new relationships and reconnect with lost relationships  forming small communities of hope, strengthening each other by shared experiences  looking for alternatives to build a just society  look for opportunities to foster good relationships in the local community  defend the rights of the poor  awareness, analysis and action against national and international exploitation  join movements and networks that promote justice, reconciliation and peace  gently raise awareness of the politics that exploits conflicts

“Promote a culture of peace and nonviolence so that the rights of every person and of all creation be respected.” General Chapter 2003

 concern for justice for the planet and the species of the earth  promote values of relationship, respect, and nurturance for human, animal, and plant life  preserve the integrity of eco-systems  replace individualism with cooperative relationship, consumerism with careful use of things and throw-away habits with recycling of goods  join action and study groups with the young for re-education and sustainable living  affirm gender equality – support human rights, healthcare and economic opportunity for women;  influence governments for pro-poor and pro-earth policies and legislation.  “Peace with God –Peace with all of Creation.” Pope John Paul II To sum up what I have just been speaking about, I would like to quote a poem of Cabazares, a Filipino author:

Talk us about reconciliation Only if you first experience The anger of our dying. Talk us about reconciliation If your living is not the cause Of our dying. Talk us about reconciliation Only if your words are not product of your Devious scheme To silence our struggle for freedom. Talk us about reconciliation Only if you cease to appropriate all the symbols And meanings of our struggle.

From: “Reconciliation: rhetoric or relevant?” edited by Gráinne Kelly and Brandon Hamber. 5 V IMAGES OF RECONCILIATION:

Task: work on the issue written down... What could be a way of working out this conflict ... What is God asking of us.... Draw a symbol or write a word/phrase to represent your vision of justice, Reconciliation and peace.

A word picture – Story of the ‘prodigals’ as in Luke 15:11-32:

We are familiar with the story of the ‘Prodigal Son’. All three characters are very prodigal and they portray such extravagance.

The father is so motherly in his waiting for the son. At his return, the son is enveloped in the kiss of compassion and forgiveness. He, who has hoped for a minimum of the dignity of a hired servant is restored to sonship and given inheritance. The father’s generosity has reinstated the lost relationship, now more profound than before.

The younger son - what would have made him so rebellious, in the first place? By the end of the story, he is completely broken, he is devastated, he has eaten mud! He has lost everything, but the hope in his father’s love. And one day, he comes to his senses and opens himself to reconciliation.

And the elder son, surely is the model of filial duty. He has stayed by his father, obedient, supportive, responsible and reliable. He has spent his life serving the father... all work and no play. When he witnesses the welcome, he comes face to face with himself. How unjust my father is to me, to be so generous to such a wasteful brother!

Like many good people, he is a victim of comparison and self-righteousness. Self centred and judgemental, he has been a prisoner in his own house. He schemes and labours to keep up a mask. Not free enough even to enjoy a kid, he is discontented, angry and jealous. He represents the persons who are self-righteous and unwilling to reach out. He personifies a powerful, self righteous and unjust structure, whether it be in a family, community, Congregation, nation or the world at large.

VI CONCLUSION:

Reconciliation is worked out through the struggle for justice and liberation. Reconciliation is for persuing justice and peace. It is based on the experience of Christ, who suffered and died for us that we become the justice of God. (2 Cor. 5:21) ‘Though he was divine, he emptied himself and became like one of us...’ (Phil. 2:7) He entered with compassion into a world that is wounded and ignored. He invites us to a relationship based on love, service and mutuality for the fullness of life. He invites us to be in solidarity with the poor who have nothing but an abundance of suffering and unyielding hope for survival and transformation.

This mission is beyond us. We only participate in the work of a loving and just God, in the healing of a broken world. We commit to the call to be in solidarity, to be tender and promote justice. We respond with our frightened selves and limited resources but assured by the overwhelming power of God within us. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).