Global Update No 31: May 2012

MAy 2012 – No 31

Alan Channer

Media & Mediation in Chad

Answer which documents the imam and pastor’s peacemaking work in Kenya after the ethnic conflicts of 2007-2008. It struck a positive chord with participants and the event was widely reported in the national press. Ashafa and Wuye had meetings with the Mediator of the Republic, Abderahman Moussa, and with the UN’s Resident Co-ordinator, Thomas Gurtner.

In the following days Pastor James and Imam Ashafa facilitated three workshops on mediation and peace-building skills: in the capital, N’Djamena; in Abéché, in eastern Chad (bordering Darfur); and in Moundou, southern Chad (bordering Central African Republic). UNDP, in partnership with the Chadian NGO Comité de Suivi de l’Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation, selected 40 participants, including representatives of local government, traditional chiefs and leaders Participants and UN staff at the workshop in Moundou, southern Chad, with Imam of civil society.

Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye Une Solution Africaine was screened at the start of the workshops in N’Djamena and Moundou. In Abéché, Nigerian peacemakers, Pastor James Wuye and Imam where Arabic predominates, the fully dubbed version of The Muhammad Ashafa, and British filmmaker, Dr Alan Channer, were invited to Chad by the United Nations from 24 March – 2 Imam and the Pastor was screened. Many of the conflicts which Chadians face were brought to the surface and addressed during April. Their visit, under the theme ‘Media and Mediation’, was the workshops – for example the growing gulf between French part of a bid by the United Nations Development Programme and Arabic speakers in the country, the vying of different ethnic (UNDP) to build skills in mediation and peace-building groups for political power and tensions between pastoralists amongst a newly-forged network of Chadian mediators. and cultivators. All the participants were eager for further The programme started with a screening of Une Solution training materials, including the Resource Guide for Grassroots Africaine, at a Media Roundtable attended by Chadian Practitioners that accompanies the films. UNDP Chad is journalists and press. The film, by Initiatives of Change’s working on translation of this guide into French and Arabic.

FLTfilms, is the French language version of An African

Africa Coordination Group in Tanzania & Burundi

In March members of IofC’s Africa Coordination Group visited Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo to listen to what local IofC teams are doing on the ground in advance of the All Africa conference, which will take place in Cameroon, 7-11 May. They were also able to invite young Tanzanian students to IofC’s Eastern African Youth Conference.

In Dar es Salaam they spent time with the Tanzanian MP and former Minister of State, Anna Abdallah. It was a chance to update her on the expansion of IofC’s Creators of Peace programme, which she had helped launch in the 1991 at the IofC conference centre in Caux, Switzerland. Abdallah said that the secret to meaningful political and social changes is ‘to believe in and do what is right. It takes courage.’ She expressed her wish for Creators of Peace Circles to engage more Tanzanian women leaders – especially women parliamentarians from across the political spectrum – and offered her full support for the local IofC team. Abdallah agreed to be one of the keynote speakers at the forthcoming All Africa Conference.

In Burundi the group were briefed by the local IofC team about the current situation and their main objectives. In a meeting with Oliver Hoehne, Political Councillor representing the Swiss Government, Hoehne expressed appreciation and ongoing support for IofC’s peacebuilding and reconciliation work which the Swiss foreign ministry has been supporting in Burundi since 2007. They also met General Evariste

Ndayishimiye, who was part of the CNDD-FDD armed movement during Burundi’s civil war, and now head of military security in Burundi; former President, Senator Domitian Ndayizeye; and attended the monthly Political Café meeting for members of political parties, faith communities, journalists and civil society concerned with peacebuilding and reconciliation.

The keynote speech at the Political Café was given by another former President of Burundi, Senator Silvestre Ntibantunganya, who emphasized the need to face one’s fears, and the meeting ended with a showing of Une Solution Africaine (see above).

Members of the African Coordination Group with Burundian hosts on the shores of Lake Tanganyika

News in Brief IofC Workshop at Swiss students’ annual meeting A group from IofC presented a workshop titled ‘Your piece in world peace’ at the Swiss national conference of Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (AIESEC) at the end of March. Rainer Gude, Chargé de Mission at the Geneva IofC office, Ana de Montvert, and Evi Lichtblau ran the workshop twice for groups of 20-30 students during the conference’s Partner Day. After a brief introduction to IofC, participants were invited to create a peace plan to solve violent conflicts in the context of the IofC documentary film The Imam and the Pastor. Several students asked to learn more about IofC and how to participate.

Young Africans making a difference Leon Marincowitz, a young South African alumni of IofC’s Harambee Leadership Training programme, has won the Raven Foundation’s award for best writing on the theme of Violence and Religion. His winning essay, Unravelling Nigeria’s Violence! drew on his experiences with IofC in Nigeria.

In July, Marincowitz will present his paper at a Colloquium on Violence and Religion Tokyo, Japan. Meanwhile another Harambee graduate, Samuel Muiruri from Kenya, has been building houses out of plastic bottles to support poor people in his area and also to encourage young people who have fewer resources to embrace the idea for development. The idea came during the Harambee programme, and was inspired by a visit to the Development Association for Renewable Energies Nigeria.

Women Creators of Peace IofC’s Creators of Peace (CoP) programme continues to expand and engage women in their role as peace creators through CoP Circles and workshops meeting in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Kenya, Solomon

Creators of Peace Circle in Bogota, Colombia

Islands and Sweden. In British Colombia, local community services trialled a six-week CoP Circle for staff members and six mothers including recent immigrants from India, Poland and Mexico.

In Kenya’s Rift Valley region, a further five CoP workshops have taken place since January, helping to heal the wounds of ethnic violence that broke out most recently after the 2007-2008 Presidential elections. Many women came with difficult questions: ‘How can I make peace with people who stole and destroyed our properties, people who beat my father so badly that he lost his hearing? How is it possible to forgive a person who took my husband from me?’ But most found a way to answer the questions for themselves. ‘I came here with a lot of wounds. I leave healed in my heart,’ said one participant. A peace activist observed, ‘In just two days, I have learned more than I have ever achieved in all the peace forums I have attended.’ A participant who came from one of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps was convinced that if CoP could reach everyone in the camp, then their fights would come to an end. The work of CoP has been featured several times on local radio in Nakuru, leading to many requests for further workshops.

In Solomon Islands, 36 women leaders travelled to a CoP workshop by canoe, plane, bus and on foot from four different island provinces, funded by the country’s Ministry for National Unity, Reconciliation and Peace, and the Ministry of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs. The themes of what destroys or builds peace, the power of forgiveness, and the wisdom of inner listening were clearly and

eagerly understood by women still affected after years of ethnic tension.

Five articles about the workshop appeared in the leading English language newspaper, the Solomon Star.

And in Bogota, Colombia, rich and poor, women displaced through war, teachers and maids, dressmakers and housewives, young and old were able to learn from each other’s experiences and find peace within. As one observed, ‘I’m still trying to recover from this big surprise. Something so simple has produced such a deep effect in the life of nine women!’

calendar Yaounde, Cameroon 7–11 May All Africa Conference: Governance, Leadership and Corruption in Africa Caux Conferences See www.caux.ch 1–6 July Learning to live in a multicultural world 8–15 July Caux Forum for Human Security 17–23 July Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy 25–31 July Exploring the vital link between personal and global change 2–8 August The dynamics of being a changemaker

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Suresh Mathew

MAY 2012 – No 31

Dr Nagia Abdelmoghney Said

Egypt’s true revolutionaries Suresh Matthew meets some of the Egyptians who are working to build trust amid the fires of revolutionary change.

A

midst all the extraordinary scenes as the Arab Spring unfolded last year, one of the most poignant was that of Muslims protecting Christians, and Christians protecting Muslims from police violence while at prayer, during protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square.

Egypt has a Christian population whose roots go back thousands of years. But, like much of the Middle East, the last few decades have seen increased tensions. In the case of Egypt, many suspect Hosni Mubarak’s regime of deliberately trying to stir up trouble for Christians, perhaps in an attempt to deflect the anger which was building against the corrupt dictatorship.

‘The majority of the people have become impatient. They want to see the fruits of the revolution instantly’ Throughout all this time, a small but dedicated group inspired by the ideas of Initiatives of Change have been working to build dialogue and trust between Muslims and

Christians, and between Egypt and the West.

One of them, Dr Nagia Abdelmoghney Said, was born to a family of liberal intellectuals. Her mother, Enayat Hakeem, was one of the first women to stand for election when women were granted the right to vote in the 1950s.

Her father, Abdelmoghney Said, was twice imprisoned for his writings against British occupation, once sharing a cell with Anwar El Sadat. An advocate of labour rights, Said’s book Arab Socialism, was translated into many languages.

Nagia’s parents were introduced to the ideas of Initiatives of Change, then known as Moral ReArmament (MRA), around the time of their engagement.

Nagia grew up attending MRA meetings in Cairo and Alexandria. She remembers her parents taking her to the IofC conference centre in Caux, Switzerland, when she was almost six years old.

However, it was the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963 that led to her to conclude that hatred must be removed from people’s hearts. At a youth leadership course in Caux she was challenged by the thought that, ‘Egypt was the birthplace and crossroad of civilization, the crossroad of imperialism, the crossroad

‘A true revolutionary revolts to bring down corruption and then calms down to build glory’ Nagia, who is currently Vice-President of EMRA, says that in this ‘transitional’ phase, the perspectives and experience of IofC are needed more than ever. ‘The current situation is grave, demanding wisdom and self-restraint.’

She quotes the South Sudanese General Joseph Lagu on the need ‘to struggle for justice without bitterness’.

As well as the literacy project, EMRA is also working to produce and screen a documentary film showing Egypt’s interfaith heritage and its history with IofC, and Nagia is updating a multimedia presentation, Egypt, New Hope that she first put together when she was a student.

‘The majority of Egyptians expect instant changes,’ she says. ‘They are frustrated that the transitional government has still not succeeded in responding to the growing litany of demands. However, Egypt has held parliamentary elections, Presidential elections are due soon and the Supreme Council of Armed Forces is expected to hand over its powers to the newly elected President. Unfortunately,

although the revolutionaries and political parties, new and old, had earlier agreed on the goals, they have differed on the means to be adopted. The majority of the people have become impatient. They want to see the fruits of the revolution instantly. They want a magic formula to eradicate corruption, instant measures to regain stolen public money, instant economic reform, prompt trials for the accused and punishment for the proven guilty.’

In November 2011, just before the parliamentary elections, these tensions erupted into violent clashes in Tahrir Square. At least 23 died and around 1,500 were injured. Again, EMRA members responded quickly, helping collect medical supplies to treat the injured.

‘Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,’ Nagia wrote at the time. ‘Only God can give us the power and the vision to be able to heal the wounds, achieve justice without bitterness and build a better future for all, based on true democracy and human values.’

A month later, EMRA presented a paper to an international conference on Human Rights in Cairo, drawing on the reconciliation and bridge-building experiences of IofC in South Africa, Nigeria, Lebanon and Egypt. Then in January 2012 a large EMRA delegation, including some of the Tahrir Square ‘revolutionaries’ attended the Dialogue on Democracy, hosted by IofC in India. There they drew inspiration from struggles in other parts of the world: Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi sent a video message; Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim came just hours after being released from prison; South Sudan’s Vice President spoke about the challenges of bringing healing after decades of war; and Rajmohan Gandhi spoke about the ‘almost miraculous’ nature of India’s democracy which his grandfather, the Mahatma, had helped bring about.

Today, Nagia says, ‘we need a miracle of the spirit. We need to approach and appeal to the good side in each of us and revive our conscience. We need to repent, forgive and reconcile. We need to lose the fury but not the fire, in order to find guidance and direction.’ She quotes the late Sheikh Mohammed Metwally Elsharawy: ‘A true revolutionary revolts to bring down corruption and then calms down to build glory.’

Hossam el-Hamalawy

of revolution and independence. Could it also be the crossroad of moral renaissance?’

In 1972, she approached the Ministry of Youth proposing a programme of student exchanges between Egypt and the UK through the British Arab University Association. This had been set up by one of the early MRA pioneers in Britain, William Conner, with the support of the Egyptian Ambassador to the UK, Kamal Reffat, a former Minister of Labour. Reffat was an old colleague of Nagia’s father and knew of MRA. The Minister of Youth, Dr Kamal Abulemaged, approved the exchange programme and assigned his assistant, Mohsen Hussein, to head the first delegation of Egyptian students to Caux and Britain.

Since that time, ‘Baba’ Mohsen and his wife ‘Mama’ Lamia have become much-loved parent figures to generations of young Egyptians who have been exposed to the vision and values of MRA/IofC through the student exchanges and other programmes. In 1988 this group was formally registered as Egyptian Moral Re-Armament (EMRA) Before the Arab Spring, this team was working with Nigerian peacemakers Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye on developing early-warning and rapid response systems in response to the growing Muslim-Christian tensions. After the tragic bombing of a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Day 2011, EMRA members were among those forming human shields to protect Churches from attacks during the Coptic Christmas celebrations the following week. They printed and distributed a poster: ‘Mosques and Churches embracing each other on the land of Egypt’ and launched an educational initiative to abolish illiteracy based around the principles of Responsibility, Relationships and Respect for life. It is a tool to promote shared values, trust-building and dialogue.

Protesters in Tahrir Square

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