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Common Ground, Uncommon Story

Posted Oct 18, 08:58 PM | 0 comments | by Steve Knight | Link

From Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent Village:

By any measure, the first-ever Amahoro-Africa Gathering was a smashing success earlier this year. A group of Western Christians took a pilgrimage to Africa and spent a week listening to the emerging leaders of the church on that continent. I’ve asked Claude Nikondeha, who pulled this feat off, to reflect back and look forward to next year’s Amahoro:

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By Claude Nikondeha:

I don’t generally think of myself as a Vanity Fair reader, but my wife Kelley simply couldn’t resist the temptation to buy several copies of the July “Africa” issue. Featuring guest editor Bono, the special edition was devoted exclusively to the exploration of issues in Africa. The articles were sharp and well-written, and I found Brad Pitt’s well-informed interview with South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu to be particularly illuminating.

The interview starts with Tutu explaining the African concept of ubuntu ...
Brad Pitt: “What is this concept of ubuntu I keep reading about?”
Tutu: “Ubuntu is the essence of being human [...] we say a person is a person through other persons. You can’t be a human in isolation. You are human only in relationships. [...] So we say that ‘I need you to be all of who you are in order for me to be all that I am.’ Because no human being is totally self-sufficient. In fact, a self-sufficient human being is subhuman. [...] If you want to be human, we are not going to be able to be human in isolation. It will be that we are human together.”

I find this fascinating: eavesdropping on this conversation between a young up-and-coming western activist and a seasoned African advocate as they wrestle with some of the issues facing their respective worlds. We clearly see a shared hunger for connection, for peace, for wholeness and for tangible justice. As Pitt and Tutu engage in dialogue, the common ground on which they stand emerges out of their friendly repartee. They become emblematic of their respective cultures; two friends on the same journey, learning together; Africans and Westerners reaching together for wholeness.

What Pitt and Tutu reference is that postcolonial Africa is reclaiming its deep, rich communal heritage. The postmodern Western world is reaching the limits of individualism, exhausting itself by insisting on going it alone, and reaching desperately for community as an antidote to chronic loneliness and isolation.

Sometimes a community is so ripped apart by devastating events that healing and reconciliation come to the forefront as prerequisites to a new, stronger community. This has been seen in America, where white subjugation of blacks through slavery was only ended by a savage civil war, the effects of both the north-south divide and the black-white divide are still readily visible 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the surrender at Appomattox. The effects are visible also among South Africans, who have been artificially divided along racial lines for generations under the oppressive apartheid system, and they are glaringly obvious in tiny Rwanda.

In the Western mind, Rwanda is still almost exclusively associated with the 1994 genocide that stole a million Rwandan lives in 100 days, in a breathtakingly brutal assault on an ethnic minority population antiseptically labeled “ethnic cleansing”. Now, the people of Rwanda struggle to find healing as the population again intermingles, with perpetrators of genocide living literally next door to survivors. The church at this juncture is poised to make a crucial step: will we perpetuate a system of exclusiveness and hate, such as we did in America during the Civil Rights era or in South Africa during apartheid, or will we chart a new path and take the brave step towards forgiveness and inclusiveness?

How are we as followers of Jesus obligated to act towards reconciliation of our cultures and communities? Are we still obligated to come together as a community if we have been severely wronged? In order to give this deeply significant topic the thoughtful consideration it merits, Amahoro Africa is hosting its second annual gathering in Kigali, Rwanda from May 20-28, 2008. Our aim is to engage in open, inquisitive dialogue on how the church, both as a local congregation and a broader international network, should aid this call to community by bringing about reconciliation within its members.

We invite you to be a part of this unprecedented international gathering of leaders to come together with a shared passion to see the kingdom of God realized in Africa. Leaders in peacemaking and reconciliation work from Latin American, Bosnia, Palestine, Israel, Kashmir and Northern Ireland will bring their wisdom and stories as well. No matter where we call home, we, as followers of Christ, bear the calling to live out the ministry of reconciliation in our own lives and communities. The world is aching for peace and the transformative power of reconciliation. Let’s come together and get the dialogue started!

For more information on the Amahoro Gathering: Rwanda, please visit www.amahoro-africa.org or email us at gathering@amahoro-africa.org

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