Life-Enhancing Learning Together
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E-EN IF HA L ING N N C R TH I A GE E R N E O G L T OIKOTREE MOVEMENT Life-Enhancing Learning Together First edition published in Feb. 2016 by Less Press & Life in Beauty Press 1/202, 99, Samjeong 2-gil Nam-gu, Daegu 42508 Republic of Korea Cover design & Layout Eunwoo Lee Copyright © OIKOTREE, 2016 All rights reserved. ISBN 979-11-954188-2-4 Printed in Republic of Korea USD 16.00 Life-Enhancing Learning Together Oikotree Movement Oikotree is a movement of movements, a combination of critical church related groups, social movements, and individuals who want to stimulate all churches and social groups to cooperate prophetically with the prime actors who are struggling for justice and sustainability around land conflicts. Oikotree provides a platform for sharpening our vision of justice and renewing our solidarity in the struggle for justice in the economy and the earth. We live in solidarity with the social, economic, cultural and political initiatives of historically disadvantaged as well as socially and traditionally excluded communities. Oikotree accompanies its members and organizations through joint and collective actions for reforming faith communities and societies. Oikotree is nurtured, cared for and watered by the Council for World Mission (CWM), the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC). It is open to groups and individuals who carry justice in their hearts and share this dream of fullness of life for all. Preface In 2007, thirty-five theologians and practitioners from Asia, Africa and other parts of the world, met in Changseong, Korea, to explore together the contribution of Ubuntu and Sangsaeng in relation to theology, life giving civilisation and ecumenism in the 21st century, under the theme ‘Transforming Theology and Life-Giving Civilisation’. The term “life-giving civilization” was a critical attempt to discredit the current “civilization” that brings death to humanity and the whole creation. This was a working term that would have to be fully replaced by a new one which is a more organic, relational, and holistic cosmo-vision. Several communities in Africa, Asia, Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean have beautiful concepts that describe the good and transformative life we are talking about, because many of these communities are still living from and into an understanding of good and transforming life for all living things, the Earth and beyond. Ubuntu is an expression of human relations lived in community and in harmony with the whole of creation (‘African anthropology and cosmo-vision lived in community’). Sangsaeng is an ancient Asian concept ‘of a sharing community and economy which allows all to flourish together’. In Latin America,Sumak Kawsay 5 is a similar concept to Ubuntu in Africa and Sangsaeng in Asia. Sumak Kawsay is a concept that comes out of the cosmo-vision of the Indigenous Peoples in Latin America about creation. It is an expression and praxis originating from the Kichua language of the Andes. “Sumak” means fullness and “Kawsay” life, altogether meaning “well being”, “good living” or “integral quality of life for all”. Sumak Kawsay is both tradition and realization in an on-going project pointing to a cosmic community. These expressions are references to the model of common life that implies an organized, sustainable and dynamic economic, political, socio-cultural and environmental system, an alternative which ruptures the postulates of the capitalist development by including all human society and all the life forms that exist on earth. This community is built on the principles of diversity, reciprocity, solidarity and equality. In other regions than Africa, Asia and Latin America, there must be equivalent concepts like these, which need to be explored further. The current dominant world view in education prepares young people to be objects of an over- consumption system. The paradigm inculcates values of competition among people for resources instead of cooperation. They are taught that poverty will never be eradicated and that inequalities in society are a natural phenomenon and can never be overcome. They are educated to dominate nature instead of nurturing 6 and living in harmony with it. Values of competition, selfishness, apathy and greed are promoted in colleges and schools. Ecology is taken for granted by corporations, which ‘externalise’ ecological damages to increase profits and employ ‘green-washing’ to enlarge their markets. Influenced by corporate lobbies, mainstream policymakers see the “green economy”, which continues to privilege economic growth, as the hope for the future. Corporate thinking is manifested and continuously reproduced in schools through business, economics and other curricula. The current knowledge that devalues creation has contributed to the intertwined economic, social and ecological crises confronting our planet today and which reflect an unjust and unsustainable mode of life on Earth. One of the most serious problems in modern epistemology is dichotomy, by which all sorts of organic and reciprocal relations have been dismantled and divided. One of clear awarenesses coming from Oikotree movement is that a new epistemology and methodology for theological thinking and theological education/training is urgently needed for churches and theology in order to respond to the enormous challenges of the contemporary life-annihilating human “civilization” manifested in economic injustice, ecological destruction, the threat of Empire, and the escalation of religious conflicts today. 7 Today, therefore, is the time when a new Life- enhancing culture needs to be explored, reflected and lived out based on those relational, organic and reciprocal concepts like Ubuntu, Sangsaeng, Sumak Kawsay and etc. A new generation of thinkers, young activists, church leaders, politicians, scientists, teachers, economists, and theologians with alternative education and skills that will bring fullness of life is needed now. This was affirmed by the report from Changseong, which said, “We believe that the challenge in the 21st century is to be life-centered, rooted in people’s struggle for life and justice, here and now. It will be characterized by convergence – convergence of philosophical, cultural and religious/faith visions and praxis for the sake of all life and in the service of life.” This is a collection of the papers contributed as brainstorming voices from various regions to the Oikotree Workshop on Transformative Education in February, 20015 in Matanzas, Cuba. The Life- Enhancing Learning Together programme is planned for different global regions in the coming years, and more substantial resources will be generated from this process. It is our hope that this book is used as one of the stepping stones by which more resources in various forms, including the arts and actions as well as written, will be generated. Park, Seong-Won (Prof. Dr) Oikotree Movement, Moderator 8 Table of Contents Preface (Park, Seong-Won) 5 Life-Enhancing Learning Together – Comprehensive report of Matanzas workshop on Transformative Education 13 Stories and Perspectives from Various Contexts Africa - Eco Analysis of Politics. Realities and Representations of the International Criminal Court in Africa. Reflections of Kenya’s experience with the ICC and the fractured nature of pursuit for justice. (Wahu Kaara) 43 - The story of Eco-economics as Ubuntu and Ujamaa Economics (Rogate R. Mshana) 51 A Hardening Husk of Neoliberal Antics: worrying Signs of the Times (Vuyani Vellem) 60 Asia - In Modernity’s Wastelands: Peripheral Islam and the Politics of Imagination (Junaid S. Ahmad) 78 Somos La Esperanza: God’s Kingdom, Reign and Power In the Suffering and Struggling People of Cuba (Chang, Yoon-Jae) 120 9 - Pela Gandong and Sasi Moluccas’ Local Wisdom To Live In Harmony Between Human Beings and Nature (Carla Natan) 146 - Democracy where People can Eat, Politics where the Poor Matter (Lapapan Supamanta) 158 Caribbean - Reconstructing Hope in a Globalized World (Ofelia Ortega) 171 - La Milpa from Abya-Yala: An Epistemological Rupture in the Context of Oikos, i.e., Ecology, Economy and Ecumenism (Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez) 191 - Listening and Engaging the Voices from the Margins: Postcolonial Observations from the Caribbean (Luis N. Rivera-Pagán) 209 Europe - The role of Churches and Transformative Education against Neo-liberalism and Globalization (Maria Karanatsiou) 235 - Interreligious perspectives of transformative education in the context of imperial capitalism (Ulrich Duchrow) 252 Latin America - Transformative Energy Through Relationality: Feminist Ethics Explorations From Latin America (Maryuri Mora Grisales) 293 10 - Post-developement, Difference and Socio- cultural Identities: The Divine in- between as a contribution to the Epistemology of Ecotheology (Nicolas Panotto) 312 - On Education and Emancipation (Lilia Solano) 332 North America - A Fish Out of Water (Kikanza Nuri-Robins) 344 Pacific - Reciprocate: Learning [in] Islandic-Oceanic Style (Jione Havea) 358 References 371 List of Contributors 392 11 Life-Enhancing Learning Together (LELT) – Comprehensive report of Matanzas workshop on Transformative Education The Oikotree Workshop on Transformative Education took place at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas, Cuba from 03 to 09 February 2015. The workshop was organized by the Oikotree Movement which is “movement of movements” striving for justice, peace and fullness of life in the spirit of Ubuntu, Sangsaeng and Sumak Kawsay (for their meaning,