Give peace a chance
I came upon this article below. While reading it, a strong emotion stirred in me, one that is rooted deep within my soul, a strong sense of compassion. I am moved to anguish and sorrow for having realized how little concern I have for the peace-building efforts being done in Mindanao. Looking at my life, it is so sad to know that I could not point to even one instance that I took part or got involved in promoting peace. I was caught up in my own problems and struggles, that I did not realize that down south, there is a much greater need, far bigger than my own, that has to be addressed. I am disturbed, bothered and moved to take action.
I could not think of a way to help alleviate the situation in Mindanao. Raising awareness I believe is one way. Prayer for divine intervention is another, and a little act of compassion and kindness to a stranger can hopefully create random acts of kindness from people that may eventually spill-over to those in Mindanao.
But most of all, I know that being united in spirit, a miracle is not impossible… and that too is my hope not only for those people in Mindanao but for all the people of the world. When you think about it and reflect on it, we are all just living in one world.
Take time to read this. Just a little time to spare to show that we care.
A Miracle in Mindanao
Christians and Muslims build bridges in the Philippines
by Mary Ann Cejka
The Christians of Isulan were out for revenge. A young Muslim had stabbed a Christian
youth, and Christian adults were determined that Muslims would pay for the crime. As
Christians and Muslims faced each other, raised their guns, and took aim, Bernie Eliseo
knew he had to act quickly. He stepped between the two groups, facing his fellow
Christians.
“If you insist on killing our Muslim neighbors, you’re going
to have to kill me too,” he told them. Startled, both groups lowered their weapons. A
potential bloodbath was averted by the selfless response of one determined peacemaker.
Eliseo, a community leader, had learned mediation skills at a workshop
called “Panagtagbo sa Kalinaw”—Culture of Peace—which has since been
offered in communities throughout Mindanao, the southernmost of the larger Philippine
islands. Christians, Muslims, and members of indigenous groups who attend the workshops
reflect together on the harmful stereotyping of one another that can lead to violence.
They study the history of the diverse religious and cultural groups in Mindanao and
articulate their dreams for peace among those groups. Finally, they learn mediation
strategies and engage in role-playing to practice their new skills.
Judging by the events of the last 30 years, Mindanao has a long way to
go before its culture becomes a culture of peace. One long-standing conflict continues to
be fought between the Marxist New People’s Army and the Philippine military. Another
protracted source of strife has been a conflict between Moros—members of any of 13
ethno-linguistic groups whose cultural traditions are Muslim—and the mostly Catholic
Filipinos whose families immigrated to Mindanao from other Philippine islands after World
War II. Because of these two decades-long conflicts, many young Mindanawons have grown up
with images of war’s atrocities fixed in their memories. Lolito Palomares, a lay
minister in the village of Josefina, recalls curfews, evacuations, and the horrible sight
of bodies strewn along roadsides.
“I became active in the church because the church offers an
alternative to violence,” explains Palomares. “To be a Christian is to stand for
life.”
But not all Christians in Mindanao are convinced of this insight.
“A good Moro is a dead Moro,” some are fond of saying. There are Moros who show
similar animosity toward the Christian settlers who now make up the majority of their
island. As one Moro saying has it, “A Muslim who kills a Christian goes straight to
paradise riding a white horse.”
Hostility between Moros and Christians in Mindanao has not been limited
to hateful attitudes and angry slogans. In the 1970s, the ruthless oppression of Moros by
the Marcos dictatorship and their discriminatory treatment at the hands of the Christian
majority sparked a violent uprising among Moro groups in Mindanao. The Moros sought to
regain the autonomy that they had preserved even after Spain had conquered other areas of
the Philippines, but lost in 1898 when Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States.
Even after the Philippines was granted its independence in 1946, the Moro people never
regained their autonomy.
THEIR STRUGGLE FOR autonomy has played itself out not only between the
Philippine military and Moro militias, but also between ordinary Muslim and Christian
people. In contested areas, stories abound of shootings, kidnappings, massacres, and the
burning of houses, churches, and mosques. Last August, Columban Father Rufus Halley, who
had devoted his life to bringing Christians and Muslims together in the villages of
Malabang and Balabagan, was killed by an extremist Moro group in a botched kidnapping
attempt. Weeping when they heard the news, many brave Moros donned traditional mourning
attire and ignored Muslim proscriptions against entering Catholic churches to attend the
funeral. Out of solidarity with his Moro neighbors, Halley had learned to speak fluent
Maranaw, their local dialect.
A culture of peace will not come about without such generous acts of
solidarity, according to Grace Rebollos of the grassroots Christian organization Peace
Advocates Zamboanga (PAZ). That’s why PAZ members on Mindanao’s Zamboanga
peninsula decided to join their Muslim neighbors in fasting from dawn to dusk during the
Islamic sacred month of Ramadan, then invited the Muslims into their homes to break the
fast.
Sometimes such simple gestures of friendship go further than official
negotiations when it comes to building a culture of peace, explains Immaculate Heart of
Mary Sister Angelica Cruz. She and two other Immaculate Heart sisters live on the boundary
between Muslim and Christian neighborhoods in the community of Labangan, on the outskirts
of Pagadian City. There they attempt to be a prayerful, hospitable presence in an area
that was formerly a battleground between Moro militias and government forces. The sisters
visit the sick and share the harvests of their garden and fishpond with Muslim families.
Muslim friends have reciprocated by sewing brilliantly colored altar cloths designed
especially for the sisters’ chapel.
Anthropologist and human rights activist Karl Gaspar (see “A
Caged Bird Sings,” Sojourners, January-February 2001) has just completed a
research project on grassroots efforts to respond creatively to the violence that for so
long has plagued Mindanao.
“In many peace initiatives,” observes Gaspar, who
collaborated with Maryknoll’s Center for Mission Research & Study on the project,
“only those who are seen to have direct access to power, authority, status,
technology, armies with high-powered guns, and other resources are brought into the inner
circle of the negotiations. In many instances, grassroots communities hardly matter in the
whole peace process. And yet, in the end, it is the grassroots communities who suffer the
brunt once the negotiations fail.” Gaspar concludes that the efforts of ordinary
people at peacemaking must no longer be ignored.
“They could push away the encroaching waves of violence so that
their families could temporarily live in tranquility. They could evolve weapons of the
weak that help to resist the machinations of the strong and mighty who will not hesitate
to violate the people’s rights in order to advance their selfish interests.” In
Mindanao, Gaspar found, the “weapons of the weak” are primarily gestures of
hospitality and service to members of the opposing group.
“Acts of kindness towards one’s enemies can create the
conditions for more formal efforts at reconciliation,” explains historian Rudy Rodil.
A founder of the “Kalinaw Mindanaw” (Peace in Mindanao) movement, which combines
grassroots peacemaking efforts with institutional initiatives, Rodil and his wife
Saturnina recall their encounter with a man who was a descendant of both Christians and
Muslims and who practiced both religious traditions. One night some Moro soldiers had
stolen and eaten coconuts from trees on his property. When the offenders were caught and
brought before him, he forgave them and invited them to help themselves to his coconuts
whenever they felt hungry.
“One simple act of compassion sparked off a chain reaction of
reconciliation between Christians and Muslims,” recounts Rodil, smiling broadly. Soon
the village that had been the site of the incident—and, more seriously, of many years
of bloody conflict—was declared a Peace Zone. Possession of weapons and acts of
violence are now forbidden within its parameters.
“One day we may see a miracle,” predicts Rodil, observing how
informal, positive interactions between opposing factions have often created the climate
necessary for successful higher-level negotiations. In the end, the miracle of peace will
dawn gently upon Mindanao—not through the din of armies or the rhetoric of
politicians, but through patient dialogue and persistent gestures of friendship among many
courageous people of all faiths.
Mary Ann Cejka is an associate researcher at Maryknoll’s Center
for Mission Research & Study in New York. For more information on the Mindanao peace
research project, see www.maryknoll.org/EDUCA/STUDY/grassroot.htm.
available from http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0207&article=020723, accessed November 10, 2007
Current Affairs | Comment (0)UNO
The past weeks had been so trying for me. I guess it comes with the fact that I just turned another year older. The sembreak magnified further my dilemma on whether I should pursue my studies or just go back to working full time. There’s a certain restlessness in me.
Good thing, things now are more or less bearable. I enrolled this semester and took 9 units. I am looking forward to another semester of learning because I truly learned a lot from the last semester. I realized that there is more to my faith that I haven’t yet discovered. And it’s quite a fascinating journey. I have met new friends, whom I believe were all God-sent. My friends now are a mix of lay, religious, young, old (I mean adults), rich, poor, professional, unemployed, Filipino, foreigners. Definitely, their own experiences and struggles enriched me more than they know. It is always an amazing experience to share in their own experience of God.
True, the change I made entailed a lot of adjustments. But it also brought a certain familiarity which was there all along. The search for GOD, the yearning for HIM, the longing, the thirst — it has been an on-going thing for me. I just can’t seem to sum HIM up. Just today, I have discovered another way to describe HIM — DIYOS na WALANG KUPAS! This certainly shows how HE IS to me, how HE HAS BEEN to me and how HE WILL BE to me until the end of time. He is faithful but in a creative way. He is unpredictable yet reliable. Sadyang walang kupas. My joy right now is overwhelming. I feel like I am being made whole again. The weeks of emptiness, restlessness, anxieties are now being filled with so much faith in God, so much hope for the weeks to come, and so much love from HIM. I know it’s time to move along. 