MISSION IS FUN

A Strange Supper

A BROTHER prepared a soup for the two priests who were coming back from visiting the communities in the outstations. As they delayed, he went to visit a family for a chat. Meanwhile, the two priests came back, tired from the trip, got the first pot they found in the kitchen, took their supper and went to bed.

The following morning, the brother asked them why they had not taken their supper, but they insisted they had. “But the soup is still in its pot. What you have eaten, instead, is the dog’s super,” the brother said. “That is why the supper we took had a strange flavour!”

THE LAST WORD • SYROPHOENICIAN

A Woman Of Faith (Mk 7: 24–30)

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

“IT IS not good to take the bread of the children and throw it to the little dogs”, says Jesus, testing the woman’s faith; but she replies that it is good for the little dogs to take at least the crumbs of their children’s bread.

Her attitude releases the power of the Lord who says to her: “By this word, go: the devil has gone out of your daughter”. The woman’s reply is an expression of humility and trust, who, without becoming discouraged, recognises her own misery and the mercy of the Father.

The present story is all about the bread of the children. Wasted by the children, it is picked up by the dogs. Indeed, it tells the reason why salvation passes from Israel, the people of the children, to the pagans (Acts 13: 46), called ‘dogs’. No one can save oneself by one’s human or religious power. Salvation is love; but no one can love oneself. It is always the grace of the other.

The bread (= life) of the Son is the free love of the Father. Those who, like Israel, whether old or new, think that they are entitled to it by right or by duty, will never encounter it. The pagan, on the other hand, who considers himself excluded, is able to understand that it is a gift.

The bread of the children is the Son who gives us His life. If the disciples mistake Him for a ghost, this woman knows that a few crumbs are enough to save her daughter.

It is interesting to note that the exorcism is carried out in the absence of Jesus. It reflects the situation of the Church after Easter, in which His presence is now recognised by faith in the bread.

The previous passage shows the hardness of heart of those who, with the law, keep the bread bound (Mk 7: 14–23). This one shows its power, liberated by faith in it. It is there, among the pagans, and lacking among His own. They have turned the Eucharist into a habit and into indifference, or even into a privilege that feeds their pride. We, the hard-hearted, will be converted when we accept the bread of the children as unworthy sinners, and share it with all our brothers and sisters, without discrimination.

The pagan woman, the only one so far to eat it, manages to arouse the jealousy of the children, so that they may appreciate the gift that was offered to them first (Rom 11: 11).

Jesus is called Lord for the first and only time (Mk 5: 19 and 11: 3 where He calls Himself that). It will also be another pagan who proclaims Him as Son of God (Mk 15: 39). Not recognised by His own, He is only recognised by those far away, who do not claim rights. In fact, it is through love, and as such, free and without conditions. Whoever thinks he deserves it, cannot receive it. What is deserved is neither unconditional, nor free, nor love.

A disciple is he who, Jew or not, expresses the word of faith in this bread of the children, given not by merit, but by the pure grace of Christ. Faith is nothing other than the passage, in our relationship with the Lord, from the economy of salary to that of gift.

YOUTH VOICES

Taking Up Space And Owning Your Crown

BY Mpho Lucho Sibanyoni | Activist, poet, tutor for Life Sciences and English, Mamelodi, Pretoria

FROMER MISS South Africa, Zozibini Tunzi, after her crowning as Miss Universe in 2019, said “Leadership needs to be taught to young girls at an early stage in their lives for them to occupy spaces that will make them realize their full potential. It’s something that has been lacking in young girls and women for a very long time—not because they don’t want to, but because of what society has labelled women to be. I think we are the most powerful beings in the world, and that we should be given every opportunity equal to what men are getting—and that is what we should be teaching these young girls—to take up space.”

This is what women should be doing: taking up space and flourishing in all aspects of life. This, however, is not the case. Women are under siege from gender-based violence and inequality, human trafficking and more. This is a critical time for girls in the world. It is a time for the protection and assertion of rights; a time to listen hard and speak louder, no matter how difficult. It’s time to call out the continuing imbalances of power; to band together and take a stand on the changes that must happen so that girls and women are heard and their experiences are taken seriously. It is a time to act together with men and boys, on the issues that will determine a lived equality for all, central to which is the ending of violence against women and girls.

The stereotype persists that men are more capable leaders than women, alienating women and preventing them from having the same opportunities presented to men. Our Gogo (Grandmother) Dr Esther Mahlangu, the renowned Ndebele artist, proved that her age and womanhood does not define her. She always embraced her roots and, through the arts, fashion and design, showcased her heritage, dominance, creativity, social power, and achievements. This exemplified self-love and self-validation as the core values of reaching one’s full potential. She passed this baton to the young generation of women, to continue being dedicated to intergenerational leadership and to co-creating the future.

It is through the leadership of such icons, that a radical shift has happened in South Africa, with women now bringing bold fashion heritage to workplaces. Today more women are choosing to swap conventional work attire for colour and culture—a boost to one’s self-image. Whether it’s a Xhosa regal head wrap, or a blazer trimmed with African print fabric, or the inclusion of Zulu beadwork bracelets and neckpieces as accessories, clothing items that honour one’s African roots gives one strength and confidence. This is something that a conventional power suit often can’t achieve. There is a unique power in wearing items that draw on a proud African history. They celebrate the lineage of queens and matriarchs who carved the pathways to the boardrooms in which African women increasingly sit. Women are now realizing their own power: and it’s beautiful to behold.

Yet, we still have a long way to go: systemic violence, online bullying, discrimination and many other issues continue to affect women. One of these, self-love, as advocated by Dr Mahlangu, is a crucial element in developing the inner image of the girl-child.

With all the appetite you’ve had for love, you didn’t deserve to have your heart broken and constantly starved for honesty, time and attention. You deserve a love that feels like home; a love that feels like a safe haven even from the wars that happen within your own heart. Protection isn’t just a physical act. It is also the peaceful space we deliberately create for our loved ones to feel secure. A love that brings solitude and peace when you feel restless from your daily struggles.

May your heart no longer find itself at a table where it is forced to feed others and do the dishes while it is left to starve. Every time you accept excuses, what you’re actually saying is that you don’t truly believe that you’re worthy of real love. May you experience love that is intentional about pursuing your heart.

YOUTH VOICES

Growing Womanhood

BY Mathudi Ralekhetho | University of Pretoria student and Youth Leader

AS A young girl, I sometimes questioned what it meant to be a woman. I used to be quite the tomboy. I never really enjoyed wearing dresses, I did not like the colour pink, and I was not the neatest person around—the complete opposite of my older sisters!

My Mom would sometimes joke around with my aunt saying, “Hey look, I gave birth to a little boy!” I found it a little hilarious and I would just go along with those jokes. However, after a while, it started to bother me because I struggled to understand why they do not consider me as a girl. “Am I too ugly to be considered a girl? Am I not beautiful like my sisters? Is that why most people would notice my sister and never me? Is it because I don’t really like all the things that people associate with girls?”

Questions like these came into my mind and it started annoying me very much. I dealt with many self-esteem issues; so having these kinds of questions flying around in my head did not really help the situation. I needed to find out what it meant to be a girl—the journey began!

What it meant to be a woman at that stage in my life was that I had to be a girly girl who liked to look pretty, act like an angel, wear skirts, grow their hair long and neat, and not mess around in the mud. I was none of those, thus it led to me thinking that I should consider changing myself. That was when I started looking out into the world and noticed that not every single young woman I saw looked like a girly girl, yet people found them very pretty. Phew, I did not have to update my wardrobe! Womanhood meant more than how you looked; it was about how you carried yourself. I looked at my mother, aunts, older sisters and even a few women from the neighborhood, school and church as examples. They were not perfect and that was fine, since nobody is, and it was marvelous hearing about and seeing how they would rise up after they had fallen.

A woman is respectful towards others and respects herself. She would not put down others to pull herself up. She is strong—able to stand up for her values and beliefs, embracing her femininity, her fears, as well as her tears. A woman is caring—showing kindness to all, because you never know what may be going on in their lives. She is beautiful, inside and out and would not base her worth, or that of others, on physical looks, but rather on what is in the mind and the heart. A woman is true to herself—not changing to satisfy others—and accepts that God created her unique. She has the power to unite people; using her soothing voice to speak up and call out to everyone, in order to join hands and make peace. A woman has a big heart filled with so much love, being humble towards others and helping them out if they are in need.

Whether it is for a hug, tasty treats, a warm shoulder, a funny joke, helpful advice, a ‘tough-love’ session, a good crying session, a long ‘rant’ session, a listening session, a cheer-up session or even a ‘me-time’ session, a woman is there to offer it. I am now proud to be a woman and I look forward to seeing how I grow.

YOUTH VOICES

Reclaiming God’s Mystery On The Lost Motherhood Of God

BY Fabian Oliver | Theology student, Pretoria

“JERUSALEM, JERUSALEM, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you are not willing” (Mt 23: 37).

This reflection seeks to emphasise the maternal nature of God, which has been side-lined in recent millennia for a frequently male-bodied imagery unfortunately associated with power in its clerical ministry. The maternal nature of God, I propose, is both rooted in the history and in the Christian experience, and it also offers positive insight to ministry, spirituality, and an understanding of God, as beyond all else, loving mystery.

For this reflection, I use the thoughts of a local Dominican Friar, Fr Martin Badenhorst. In his paper (Badenhorst 2018), he notes that the experience of the motherhood of God has withered away from mainstream Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular (2018: 13). Furthermore, that imagery and symbolism of the motherhood of God was popular in the priestly ministry during the medieval period, but lost its impetus after the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church adopted instead an alternative imagery of ministry rooted in power and domination. Its implications are still reminiscent in the Church’s current struggle to dethrone itself from clericalism. The paternal and maternal imbalance can also be traced in that the Motherhood of God has mostly been mentioned only in discussions around the Virgin Mary and therefore never fully permeating into the ministry of the Church (Badenhorst 2018: 14).

Jesus, the mother hen

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus describes himself as a hen who wishes to gather her scattered chicks and keep them safe under her wing (Mt 23: 37). The use of feminine language or imagery to describe Jesus is suggestive of His own humanity and His ministry to heal the broken, comfort the afflicted, and fight for God’s loving justice. The motherly expression of Jesus is perhaps an expression of the motherly nature expected of those who follow him (Christianity). Here, motherly nature is not to be interpreted as lesser than or inferior—which has tended to be the case in most cultural, religious, and societal spaces. Rather, it points to God’s mystery entrenched in parts of our lived experiences.

There are several examples of feminine imagery used in the Scriptures. In Isaiah, God is described as Israel’s midwife: “Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery?” says the Lord. “Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?” says your God” (Is 66: 9). In the book of Proverbs, Holy Wisdom is expressed as the feminine Sophia who assisted God in the creation of the universe. Wheeler-Reid (2018) notes that earlier on, in the Gospel of Matthew, it seems that the author compares and even suggests that Jesus is the feminine ‘Wisdom’ mentioned in Proverbs: “…But wisdom is proved right by her deeds” (Mt 11: 19).

English anchoress and mystic, Julian of Norwich (1343–1416) understood God as both our true Mother and Father. Julian and several of her contemporary’s awareness of God as loving Mother was held in unity with the Trinitarian aspect of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Holding both these realities as true seems to be lost from current Christian discourse. Besides the view that rejects God’s identity in terms of gender, God is often portrayed mainly in male imagery or not at all, or God is portrayed in relation to the rejection of maleness or not at all. There remains an obvious need for a ‘both-and’ approach instead of an ‘either-or’ one. Simply put, God (revealed in the Bible and described as Father, Son and Holy Spirit), is the same God who is our loving Mother and so much more. Considering the history of oppression experienced by women at the hands of men, this, coupled with Jesus’ own affinity towards women and all the marginalised bodies, there remains a holistic need for our spirituality to be in touch with the Motherhood of God. This motherhood should encapsulate our lived Christian experience in the way Meister Eckhart (in Fox 1983) puts it: “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”

Mystery, spirituality, and ministry

To say that the loss of the Motherhood of God leads to an impoverished spirituality is done so in awareness that images and symbols affect our spirituality and ministry. Is it mere coincidence that the diminished emphasis on the Motherhood of God has coincided with the subjugation of women and their lack of numbers in leadership positions in society at large? Is there a shortage of maternal characteristics in society which are expressed in the Gospel as love, kindness, tenderness, wisdom, compassion for the orphan, widow, and justice for the innocent? Hunt-Meek (1980: 36) puts it this way, “We will know that we no longer need to image God in female terms when we are no longer shocked or insulted by the idea” (in Badenhorst 2018: 15).

Ultimately God is a mystery. Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel suggests that God is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced (Bevans 2009: 14). Franciscan priest Fr Richard Rohr says that all talk of God is figurative and symbolic because all language is metaphor. He adds that words about God are like fingers that point to the moon, but they are not the moon or even the light it gives (Rohr 2017). Therefore, anything we say of God can point towards (or away from) God’s mystery; however, to speak of God only in the male bodied imagery which unfortunately connotes symbols of power, violence, and domination is to misinterpret the mystery of God and subsequent ministry of the Church. Like all other facets of the kingdom of God, the feminine is part of an array of lived experiences which exemplify the mystery of God. Thus, reclaiming the lost Motherhood of God is, in part, to better experience and participate in the mystery of God and better enhance the work of Christian ministry.

FRONTIERS • HOLY LAND

“Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122)

Alicia Vacas Moro, Provincial of the Comboni Sisters in the Middle East,
was one of the fourteen women who received the 2021 International Women of Courage Award
from the US Department of State that honours women who demonstrate leadership in their human rights work. The Spaniard analyses for Worldwide the recent episodes of conflict between Israel and Palestine and the mission carried out by their religious communities in that context

BY Sr Alicia Vacas Moro | Comboni Sister, East Jerusalem

SINCE THE outbreak of hostilities on 11 May, an open-ended ceasefire came into force between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza on 21 May, after 11 days of conflict that left at least 213 Palestinians (67 children) and 12 people in Israel dead.

After the announcement of the ceasefire and the last rocket had crossed the sky, the interest of the international public swiftly turned toward other issues: the European Soccer Cup, the last Covid variants, or the lifting of restrictions for pubs and restaurants in different countries; but a ceasefire is still very far from peace.

The fighting has stopped, but many vitally important questions have to be resolved in real time if another conflict is to be avoided and Israelis and Palestinians are to live together in peace. It is clear that they are not able to resolve the situation by themselves; the international community will have to broker a lasting solution if the cycle of violence is to be ended and peace to be established in the Holy Land, after more than six decades of conflict.

The background

Fr David Neuhaus SJ, local superior of the Jesuit community in Jerusalem, suggested a very eloquent image of the situation in a recent interview. “We are living at the centre of a festering and untreated wound,” he said. Fr Neuhaus, an Israeli Jesuit of South African Jewish origin goes on to say: “This wound is the product of the events that took place last century. Of course, there was a build-up leading to the events of the 1940s, but the war in 1947–1948, called the Independence War by the Israelis, and Nakba (The catastrophe) by the Palestinians, left us with the following reality. This is the real centre of this wound: the Israelis got a homeland and international recognition—in fact the State of Israel was born. The Palestinians, who were promised a homeland, received nothing but a regime of occupation and discrimination. This has been dragging on for 73 years (1948–2021). It is not a surprise that violence breaks out from time to time as this wound continues to fester ideologies of hatred, revenge and violence on both sides.”

On one side, Palestinians live in this regime of occupation and discrimination, depending on where they are on the map—as citizens in Israel, as Jerusalem residents, in the West Bank and Gaza, or as refugees abroad. On the other, Israelis live in a system that keeps them under a dreadful fear of revenge and retaliation. Anger and fear are two dangerous outcomes of this festering wound and break out into vicious violence from time to time.

The horror we have recently witnessed illustrated the true ugliness—slightly more masked before it erupted into war—of the violence that has been simmering under the surface. Wars transform aggressive thoughts and words into violent acts. These two peoples have been at war for decades; four or five generations have been teaching their children that the other side is an enemy to be fought. The past two generations had almost no contact with the erection of the Separation Wall.

The trigger

It was not a surprise that the situation became critical and spilt into international headlines. Different events came together, building up an escalation of tension and provocations which eventually erupted in the subsequent situation.

Firstly, the month of Ramadan had just ended. This is a time of joy in the Muslim world, of fasting and prayer, but also of social gatherings and intense family life. Jerusalem, having the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, becomes a crucial space in this month. Ramadan started on the 21 April. Jerusalem was already very tense; indeed she has been tense for months and years, being at the very centre of the dispute, and having an iconic role for all the actors involved.

At the beginning of the month of Ramadan, Muslims flowed into the Old City to pray in the mosques through the famous Damascus Gate, the social and commercial centre of East Jerusalem. The access to the mosque was denied to many, and, inexplicably, the Damascus Gate was closed to the public with an intricate system of barricades. It was seen as an attempt to control East Jerusalem, to make Palestinian Arab residents of East Jerusalem and all Muslims who flow to Jerusalem more and more unwelcome in their own city.

This led to confrontations; angry young people taking to the streets, refusing to accept these barricades. On the 8 May, a very important day in the month of Ramadan (Laila al Qader), when people flock to the Haram al Sharif (the Holy Mosque) in hundreds of thousands to pray and spend time there, the Israelis inexplicably blocked many buses flowing in from northern and central Israel, carrying Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. The buses were blocked, and the pilgrimage ended up as a demonstration, mounting tension and anger, and a lot more violence.

The second event was the Israeli legal process to evict 28 Palestinian families from a neighbourhood about a mile away from the area of the Damascus Gate. Again, many Israelis may argue that the properties where they are living originally belonged to Jews. That is a legitimate claim, however, the claiming of properties inhabited by Palestinians that once belonged to Jews is exclusively available to Jews. There were many more Palestinian properties, homes, fields and businesses from the time before 1948 that were confiscated without the possibility of a return. So again, the frustration of feeling that the law is used to promote exclusive control in East Jerusalem was certainly the cause of the anger.

While all this was going on, a group of extremist Jews decided to hold a march to restore Jewish pride through the Damascus Gate (where people flow into the Old city during Ramadan). This was the 22 April. Their path was blocked by the police and they couldn’t reach the gate, but they turned around to West Jerusalem and beat Arabs wherever they found them; meanwhile the demonstrations intensified.

Another element of the anger was that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had announced the forthcoming elections. The Israeli government made it clear that there would be no electoral process in East Jerusalem—even though, according to international law, East Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian Occupied Territories, together with the West Bank and Gaza, and they were supposed to participate in the election process. Then the PA decided to cancel the elections.

Demonstrations broke out, there were scenes of the Israeli soldiers and policemen going into the Haram Asharif and violently confronting the demonstrators—and the situation became critical. At that point, Hammas announced that if all the Israeli Defence Forces were not removed from the Old City of Jerusalem and from the compound of the Holy Mosque, they would start to send missiles into Israel. That’s when it began. The response of Israel was to bomb Gaza and so hundreds of people were killed, with extensive damage to property—and more hatred and revenge.

The right to defend themselves

Many voices in the international community, from the US President Biden to the European Union, have highlighted Israel’s right to defend themselves. Enlightening in this regard is the answer of Fr Neuhaus, Israeli citizen, to better understand its implication: “Most Israelis—he said in a recent interview—think indeed that they have the right to defend themselves, and this is a right that no one can take away from them. However, I think that it is part of the process of discovering that your right to security cannot be based upon regimes of occupation and discrimination. Choosing to occupy other people’s space, to discriminate against others, is choosing to live in insecurity, because you are making choices that put other people under the pressure of reacting with anger, with the desire for revenge. One of the important things for us Israelis to understand, is that if we choose to continue to walk in this path, occupying other people’s indwelling and imposing a regime of discrimination, we are walking a path towards suicide. Annexing more land, occupying more homes, disrupting people’s lives and assaulting their basic rights means destroying any possibility for a future of peace. The only path for us is really to seek a way wherein all peoples can live together in this region.”

Our presence

The community of the Comboni Sisters in Jerusalem lives days of great sadness and deep frustration as violence rages all around. Inserted in this context of political instability and chronic conflict, the community rises in the shadow of the ‘security wall’ that marks the lives of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and divides both our religious community and the whole village in two.

The main peculiarity of this religious community is the fact that, since the establishment of the ‘security wall’ in the area, our sisters made the choice to live and work on both sides of the wall, to reach out to the different communities involved in the conflict, giving special attention to the most vulnerable, those who suffer the consequences of oppression, occupation and discrimination.

Five sisters live in the Comboni Spirituality Centre on the Israeli side. They offer hospitality to other Comboni members of our congregation who come to enjoy sabbatical periods in the Holy Land, pilgrimages and Bible studies. The community also runs a kindergarten and is involved in different pastoral activities with the local church—both Arabic and Hebrew speaking—in mission animation, education of religious leaders and interreligious dialogue.

Three other sisters from the same community live in a Christian housing project on the Palestinian side, to ensure the presence of the sisters on both sides of the Separation Wall. They serve the Bedouin camps in the desert surrounding Jerusalem, and work with asylum seekers and refugees in Tel Aviv, in a fruitful collaboration with various Israeli NGOs on human rights, asylum seekers rights and health projects.

Our presence aims to support the weakest and most vulnerable, and to challenge both sides, so that we can move beyond where we are.

Dialogue is an essential part of our lives; mainly in our daily life through encounters with our Muslim neighbours and our Jewish friends and collaborators. We also search together for justice and peace, supported by our common values of respect for the sanctity and dignity of human life, as well as participating in interreligious groups which pray and study together from the different religious perspectives.

We are convinced that the Catholic Church has a very important role to play, particularly by speaking out and forming consciences. We, as Christians, are part of the problem, and to become part of the solution, we have to be aware of the facts; what it means to live under occupation and discrimination, in a situation of fear generated by the State of Israel that insists on imposing it upon Palestinians and Arabs who live in the areas under their control.

Deeply aware of how the discourse of Christians about Jews in the past had disastrous effects on the actual lives of Jews, the Church must continue to formulate the ongoing revolution that has led to a new relationship with the Jewish people. Deeply aware of how the practices of the powerful throughout the centuries dispossessed peoples of their homelands and destroyed their cultures, the Church must continue to formulate her solidarity with those who are the victims of occupation and dispossession. In the Holy Land, these two sensibilities are in incredible tension and the Church is called to clearly formulate a vision which promotes the humanity, dignity and prosperity of both Jews and Palestinians. This clearly involves speaking out fearlessly, not as a diplomat, but as a prophet.

CHALLENGES • STORIES OF RESILIENCE

Chasing the Dream of a Secure Life

They had to flee their own country after receiving death threats, but their struggle to survive continues in South Africa amid xenophobic attacks and legal constraints. Two Burundians tell of their ordeals

BY RAFAEL ARMADA MCC | REPORTING FROM DURBAN

THE SOUTHERN African Development Community comprises 16 countries, has a population of 363.2 million people and hosts 6.4 million immigrants. Of these, an estimated 2.9 million reside in South Africa. This country also hosts 266 700 refugees and asylum seekers mainly from countries such as Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, according to the United Nations (UN), at mid-year 2020. The majority of them fled from violence in their countries of origin only to find innumerable hardships in South Africa, aggravated by the situation of Covid and unemployment.

“Today I cannot sell avocados; the Metro Police are moving around the market.” The heap of avocados in Grace Niyonkuru’s (not her real name) single room is piling up. “Now they want me to remove these avocados from here, but I have no other place to store them”. She pays R2 000 for a small dwelling where a double bed and a little cooker hardly fit, in the neighbourhood of Greyville, a low-income area in the city of Durban. She buys the sack of avocados for R300 and she sells them by unit, but the margin of profit is small and there is a high risk of losing money if the fruit becomes over-ripe.

Unrest in Burundi

In 2015 the late Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention of seeking a third term in power. His declaration provoked an uprising and unrest all over the country. The opposition was outraged and violence broke out especially in the capital, Bujumbura. One of the senior military generals of the country, Adolphe Nshimirimana, also presidential adviser for internal security of Nkurunziza, averted a coup d’état against his President in May 2015. Three months later, he was assassinated by members of the opposition. His security guards—one of them Grace’s husband—were also executed. “They told me that they would kill me too, so I had no option but to leave my country”. Someone paid smugglers to take her in trucks from Bujumbura, south through Tanzania and Mozambique to South Africa, but not without cruel and repeated violence and hardships of different kinds throughout the journey. When she arrived in Durban, in June 2016, she slept for some time in the streets till she was helped to get accommodation. Fleeing Burundi, she left her four children behind. “They were studying in a boarding school and they couldn’t accompany me”; however, two of them managed to follow her later to South Africa. Another two, aged 20 and 17, are in Rwanda.

Survival

Since her arrival, Grace tried to make ends meet by selling vegetables in the market and relying on the food parcels received from the Parish of St Peter’s when they were available. In 2018 she was beaten up while selling in the market. “Many locals do not want foreigners competing in their business”. Since then, and as a consequence of that violence, she suffers from severe injuries in her ear, but the local hospital refuses to help her.

She stays next to two of her children, aged 23 and 19. “The younger one has got documents, but he has not found a job yet”. The police have also harassed her in the street. She refers to an incident that happened last year, in August, when she was asked to show her permit of residence; and as she was not carrying it, the police arrested her and detained her for three days.

Grace applied for UN refugee asylum in 2016. It gives her a temporary permit to stay in the country, but does not allow her to work and this makes survival very difficult. She still waits, five years later, for a refugee status that could provide for her and her family’s upkeep. Till then, she tries to sell avocados when the Metro Police give her a break and her physical condition allows it. Her friend Dorothy Manirakiza (not her real name) is 28, twenty years younger than her.

Fleeing

Dorothy left Burundi a year later than Grace. Her brother was killed by police officers and imbonerakure—the armed youth wing of the ruling party. They came to her family house falsely accusing them of hiding arms in their residence. They beat and brutally assaulted her several times till she was able to escape from the place. They threatened to kill her too. After the aggression, she had to wait for some months in the country till her first child was born; then she and her baby boy managed to flee Burundi.

It took her one month to reach South Africa. She remembers crossing forests in Tanzania and Mozambique, walking from three in the morning till three in the afternoon. When she arrived in Durban, in May 2017, she stayed in the streets for some time. Visiting the Department of Home Affairs, she surprisingly met Margareth, her blood sister, who introduced her to Grace. They became close friends. Dorothy started selling vegetables as well, till she was chased away from the market because she did not have a license to sell. Since then, she has not been able to work.

Dreams

Her sister Margareth was granted refugee status a few years later and now she is living in Sweden though, due to a disability, she sits in a wheelchair. Dorothy gave birth to her second child in South Africa, now one year old, but her partner is also disabled and has casual employment for R2500 a month. They pay R2000 for their room´s rent, leaving very little left to survive with. “My dream is to get training in a manual job, so that I may start earning my own income”.

St Peter’s parish has supported her with the school fees for her first-born child and food parcels. Both Burundian friends feel quite alone in their struggles which are hard to bear. On 14 June, when the two friends were together in the market, trying to sell, the Metro Police came; they took their avocados and fined Grace R600. “We cannot do anything; they do not allow us to survive” says Dorothy, feeling the pain of her friend. Both pray earnestly that God may open a way for them, a better life in this beautiful and bountiful land, a country where honey and milk flow.

PROFILE • MIRIAM MAKEBA

“I Sing the Truth”

A world-renowned voice, Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) used her musical talent to raise awareness about the evil of apartheid in the international community. Because of her political activism she was banned from her own country, a price she had to pay for contributing to the liberation struggle of South Africa

BY MARIAN PALLISTER | CHAIR OF PAX CHRISTI SCOTLAND

I GREW up thinking that all South African women were strong and possessed of a political voice. The Anti-Apartheid Movement in Scotland was very active from the early 1960s and two of its major movers—Norman and Janey Buchan—were the parents of a classmate at school in Glasgow. The Buchans, and other parents like them, influenced so many of us. There were protest marches, crowded gatherings in family homes—occasionally attended by exiled South Africans who explained the devastating situation in their home country.

And there was music: the music that gave me that idea about strong, political South African women. Miriam Makeba’s voice seemed to us to embody all that we needed to know about the struggle against the marginalisation—the dehumanisation—of a nation. As teenagers we thought that the mix of jazz and African Xhosa music was cool.

But of course, Makeba was by then only able to perform outside her own country, while her compatriots inside South Africa were subject to the degrading apartheid regulations. She had left to further her singing career, only to find that her political voice barred her from going home.

Mama Africa

She would say in later years,
“I always wanted to leave home, I never knew they were going to stop me from coming back. Maybe, if I knew, I never would have left. It is kind of painful to be away from everything that you’ve ever known. Nobody will know the pain of exile until you are in exile.”

When she was allowed—welcomed—back to South Africa, it was after half a lifetime of influencing young (and not so young) women around the world to speak out for their human rights, for themselves. She left in her wake, musicians such as Beninese-American Angélique Kidjo, who acknowledges Makeba as a role model and earlier this year said “We have to speak truth to power through music.” Makeba certainly did that.

So, a role model, a hero, she was a thorn in the flesh of the apartheid regime in South Africa and indeed of some northern hemisphere governments when her alliances became too difficult. She was showered with many flattering names: Mama Africa, the Empress of African Song, the Queen of South African music, and Africa’s first superstar. She was also shunned—in time, the US wasn’t prepared to accept her civil rights stance, whether on race or gender issues, especially after her marriage to Stokely Carmichael, the Black Nationalist responsible for the slogan ‘Black Power’ and a separatist agenda.

Makeba would say, “Africans who live everywhere should fight everywhere. The struggle is no different in South Africa, the streets of Chicago, Trinidad or Canada. The Black people are the victims of capitalism, racism and oppression, period.”

Her life in South Africa certainly gave her ownership of that sentence, that Black people were (and in all honesty still are in 2021) victims of capitalism, racism and oppression. Miriam Makeba was a victim of all three when on 4 March 1932 she was born in the segregated neighbourhood of Prospect, in Johannesburg.

A road out of poverty

Her Xhosa father, Mpambane Caswell Makeba, and Swazi mother, Nomkomndelo Christina, called her Zenzile Miriam. The shortened ‘Zenzi’ was a Xhosa name traditionally meaning ‘you have no one to blame but yourself’, intended to provide support through life’s difficulties. Living where they did, they knew there would be difficulties for their daughter, their family. After all, when Miriam was only 18 days old, she began a six-month prison sentence with her mother, who was jailed for illegally brewing beer—a poverty-beating strategy adopted by many women.

Later, the family moved to Nelspruit, now named Mbombela, the capital of South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province, where her father worked as a clerk for the multi-national oil company Shell. When Miriam was just five years old, Caswell died. It was left to her mother to keep the family together, working as a housemaid and sangoma or traditional healer. Miriam was put into the care of her grandmother in Riverside compound, Pretoria.

It was a poverty-ruled upbringing, but in school and in church her singing attracted attention. So, although her first employment was helping her mother as a cleaner, music was the big draw. Apartheid had been introduced in 1948, but living in Sophiatown in the early 1950s, where the races did mix, she heard big band music, African jazz and traditional songs. She saw that it could be a road out of poverty. There were, however, some very serious roadblocks. Miriam married trainee policeman James Kubay, with whom she had a daughter, Bongi, at the age of seventeen and shortly afterwards was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, her mother successfully cured the cancer.

She suffered abuse in the marriage, which ended after two years. A supportive family was always important, and her cousin had a band called the Cuban Brothers. Although this music scene was male dominated, Makeba joined the band, gained a following, and in 1954 she moved to the headline band, the Manhattan Brothers. When the band travelled abroad, Makeba stayed in South Africa and formed the all-female Skylarks, recording some major hits.

This may sound like a musician’s dream, but the band’s experiences under the apartheid regime were demeaning and humiliating, so when the Manhattans invited her to go on tour outside South Africa, she went with them to what today are Zimbabwe and DR Congo. She turned solo in 1957 to tour the continent in the African Jazz and Variety Review for a year and a half, then was cast as the female lead in the musical King Kong, the story of a boxer.

Three decades long exile

tra, who had toured with the Manhattan Brothers, was Hugh Masekela. This was a man well-known for his long-standing anti-apartheid stance. Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the respected anti-apartheid activist, had spotted Masekela as a promising musician when he was still at secondary school and bought him his first trumpet.

With others encouraged by Huddleston, he became a member of the Huddleston Jazz Band, South Africa’s first youth orchestra. As he grew as an artist, his music reflected his own activist views and expressed the oppression felt by the Black population. Huddleston assisted him to leave the country after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, and he went first to London and then New York.

Meanwhile, the independent political filmmaker, Lionel Rogosin came into Makeba’s life and dramatically changed it for decades to come. In his film Come Back, Africa (filmed in secret to avoid South African government censorship), Makeba played herself. In 1959, Rogosin invited her to its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where her four-minute appearance in the movie made her an overnight sensation. She was flown to London and later to New York for TV interviews and appearances, and was booked to sing at the Village Vanguard jazz club. While she was in London, Makeba married Sonny Pillay, a South African ballad singer of Indian descent. It wasn’t a success and they divorced just months later.

In recognising Makeba’s magic, Rogosin had merely set up the fireworks. Harry Belafonte, American singer, songwriter, actor and supporter of the civil rights movement, lit the blue touch paper by introducing Makeba to United States audiences. Belafonte also mentored Hugh Masekela, who like Makeba was living among South African exiles and Black activists in New York. In 1963, Masekela—by now also an activist of note—would become her third husband.

Makeba recorded songs such as Pata Pata and the Click Song, which became earworms for the politically aware worldwide. In1965, Belafonte and Makeba would win a Grammy Award for a memorable collaboration, the album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba, which focused on the political situation for Black South Africans under apartheid.

The Sharpeville massacre in 1960 that had sent Masekela out of the country had, of course, been seen in grainy black and white newspaper photographs around the world, galvanising all who were already campaigning against apartheid and recruiting many more. It had been a defining moment for Makeba. Her mother died shortly after the massacre and the South African authorities denied her permission to attend the funeral. Her South African passport had been revoked.

Little did she know that her exile would last three decades. No one knew the depths of the struggle that would be waged during that time in her homeland.

Banned at home

Makeba had to put her emotions on hold and proceed with a showbiz career that enveloped her in an A List circus, meeting and working with the biggest names of the era as a singer and actress—even singing at the John F Kennedy birthday party at which Marilyn Monroe serenaded the US president.

This insane celebrity could have turned her head. Instead, she drew on her South African experience and in 1963 gave the first of a number of speeches before the United Nations special committee on apartheid. South Africa’s response was to ban her records. Other African governments were more sympathetic: she was the only performer to be invited by Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie to perform in Addis Ababa at the inauguration of the Organisation of African Unity.

Divorced from Masekela in 1968, Makeba moved even more deeply into the world of civil rights activism, marrying that same year the militant African-American civil rights activist and Black Panther leader, Stokely Carmichael. The US government had Carmichael in its sights and the couple went into exile in Guinea, the West African Marxist state whose leader, Sekou Touré, gave sanctuary to enemies of the capitalist West. Residence in Guinea meant she was not welcome in a number of countries, but Makeba did tour parts of Europe, South America and Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. They were not always big venues, but they served to keep the anti-apartheid campaign alive. She also appeared at major jazz festivals, including Montreux.

She twice addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly, speaking out against apartheid as a Guinean delegate to the UN. In 1986, the Diplomatic Academy for Peace awarded her the Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize.

Anti-apartheid most audible spokesperson

This was the public Makeba. In private, she faced personal conflict and tragedy. Having separated from Carmichael in 1978, there was a fifth marriage to airline executive Bageot Bah. Her youngest grandson became fatally ill, then her daughter, Angela Sibongile Makeba—Bonji—died in 1985 following a miscarriage. As beautiful and talented as her mother, Bonji had a career ahead of her as a singer, composer and activist. She had only made one album, but her mother continued to sing her songs, including one written for Makeba after she had been the delegate for Guinea at the Mozambique independence celebrations.

Makeba herself was diagnosed with cervical cancer at this time, so perhaps it is little wonder that she battled with alcohol abuse for a time. She always said, however, that she derived consolation from her music and her undying faith in God. 

By 1987, and now living in Belgium, Makeba was able to join American singer Paul Simon in newly independent Zimbabwe, where his Graceland concert highlighted South Africa’s racist policies. It rekindled interest in Makeba’s music and she was invited to perform for heads of state, including French president Francois Mitterand, Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II.

After Nelson Mandela was freed in 1990 he encouraged Miriam Makeba to return to South Africa—and so, after 31 years in exile, she went home—and would became a United Nations goodwill ambassador for South Africa.

When Makeba died in November 2008, The UK’s Guardian newspaper called her ‘the anti-apartheid movement’s most audible spokesperson’. Today’s female artists are confident to use their platform to speak out against racism and gender abuse. They follow in the footsteps of that ‘audible spokesperson’, who told the world: “People say I sing politics, but what I sing is not politics, it is the truth. I’m going to go on singing, telling the truth.”

REFLECTIONS • CAMEROON

The Narrow Path To Justice And Reconciliation

There seems to be no quick solution to the internal conflict that has split the country since 2016. The Church appears unable to be a sign of unity. Yet the testimony of the late Cardinal Tumi remains alive. One of his heirs speaks

BY Fr Ludovic Lado SJ
Interviewed by Fr Filippo Ivardi Ganapini MCCJ | Editor of the Comboni Magazine Nigrizia

THE CONFLICT that erupted in 2016 in the English-speaking areas of the northwest and southwest of the country has its roots in the past. It goes back to 1961 when the formerly British Southern Cameroons joined with French Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Ever since, the English-speaking minority felt marginalized and their right to autonomy was disregarded by the central government. For years, the northwest and southwest regions of the country have been campaigning for a continued use of the English language in schools and courts. When in 2016, the government dispatched French-speaking judges and teachers in the Anglophone region, people took to the streets to protest against it. The revolt was brutally repressed by the police force, resulting in the loss of many lives and the imprisonment of hundreds of activists. In the meantime, a separatist group started a guerrilla war for the secession of the Anglophone region and declared the self-proclaimed independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia. In the last five years, repeated armed raids by Anglophone rebels and the open conflict with the national army have claimed over 3 000 lives.

In such a climate of open confrontation, the Catholic Church in Cameroon has struggled to show herself steadfast as a bulwark of unity and an agent of reconciliation. She has shown quite clearly her internal differences. On one side, there are the bishops of the Anglophone areas who in their memorandum to the government have foreseen the risk of escalating violence and warned against the radicalization of the conflict. On the other side, sectors of the Catholic hierarchy, linked to the French-speaking area, have gone as far as supporting openly the repressive approach of President Paul Biya, in power since 1982. Some bishops, instead, in line with the thinking of Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi, bishop emeritus of Douala who died last April at the age of 90, distanced themselves from the violent repression chosen by the regime against the opponents. Most of the ordinary people in the Church live in fear and prefer to be quiet and not to take any risk by exposing their socio-political views.

Aware of the Gospel’s demands for reconciliation, Fr Ludovic Lado, a Cameroonian Jesuit and a member of CEFOD (Center for Studies and Formation for the Development of N’Djamena-Chad), wants to bring his contribution to a divided country, helping the Church to become a sign and instrument of unity. In October last year he embarked on a pilgrimage from the city of Douala to the national capital Yaoundé. With his pilgrimage the priest wanted to encourage prayer for peace in the country, especially in the troubled English-speaking northwest and southwest regions. But after only two days of walking, Fr Lado was detained by the police who accused him of “an illegal activity on a public road”. Subsequently released with no charges filed against him, the Jesuit priest had to abandon his pilgrimage. Nonetheless he is determined to pursue the cause of justice and reconciliation in his country.

We contacted him on the phone asking him to take stock of his commitment.

The crisis in the country seems to have no end with an increasingly marked division between the French and Anglophone areas. Do you see any glimmer of hope for a solution of the conflict after the National Dialogue was launched in October 2019?

The well-known National Dialogue, much boasted by the government but poorly organized, is not at all inclusive and has not resolved the Anglophone crisis. Arbitrary killings, armed raids against villages and kidnappings continue in Anglophone regions and the regional elections of last December, which saw little local participation, were nothing more than a parody of decentralization and democracy. The ruling party has centralized for itself all the most important posts for governing the country. The current regime has no far-sighted political vision for the country’s future and does not allow opposition from the various cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups to contribute to the common good. There is nothing more to be expected from this corrupt system and only the departure of President Paul Biya, in power for the past 39 years, will perhaps be a trigger for the change. Actually, it is the élites around Paul Biya who run the country and make the decisions for him. These very people have no intention of engaging in dialogue with minorities or embarking on a real path of reconciliation. What we have in Cameroon is a very corrupt regime, responsible for a massive embezzlement of public finances and set only on promoting its own selfish interests.

What steps do you foresee in order to start a process of change based on a national reconciliation?

Sooner or later a true inclusive national dialogue will have to be organized with the more dynamic forces in the country, but I seriously doubt that this will be possible before Paul Biya leaves power. Those who are at the top now only know the language of violence to safeguard their interests and share the spoils of the state. To help heal the wounds, it will be necessary to envisage a long path of truth and reconciliation. The road is going to be long and painful because the wounds, especially on the English-speaking side, run very deep.

You started a peace march that was interrupted. Are you going to re-launch it and with what objectives and methods? Or are you thinking of other ways of bearing witness to the quest of justice and peace? What role should the Church play in resolving the conflict?

No, I do not think that I will re-launch the march unjustly interrupted by those in power. The message has reached the people. All I wanted to do was to draw attention to a general indifference that hinders the duty of brotherhood. I remain convinced that the Church could have done better to help resolve this crisis, but the infighting for leadership within the Cameroonian episcopal conference, has hindered the mobilization of the people against the oppressive policies of the state. I am currently writing a book based on the stories of suffering and resilience of about fifty internally displaced people due to the Anglophone crisis. Proceeds from the sales of this book will be used for the schooling of internally displaced children. I hope to find the necessary means for its publication.

Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi, recently deceased, was a true witness of the gospel of peace and he influenced the generation of Catholics that has taken the side of justice and the poor. What is his most important legacy that he left to us?

Cardinal Tumi leaves a rich legacy to the Cameroonian Church and society. He was a man of God who loved justice and freedom, a very human person who was able, with his commitment, to bridge the gap between English-speaking and French-speaking Cameroon. He fulfilled his role as pastor and citizen by demonstrating that one does not exclude the other. He died without being able to see true democracy in Cameroon and the solution to the Anglophone crisis.

Do you see other witnesses or prophetic signs in the Cameroon Church today?

There are certainly Christians who dare to engage in prophetic gestures, some with discretion, others more openly. By and large, the Church in Cameroon is more concerned about rituals than to involve herself in prophetic actions. She is plagued and weakened by the same identity divisions that shatter Cameroonian society. Lay people are very afraid to engage themselves in actions that denounce injustices. They prefer to be concerned with liturgical rituals instead of becoming involved in the demanding work of Justice and Peace Commissions to build a truly free society.

What could be done in Cameroon so as to put into practice Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli tutti?

The encyclical of Pope Francis calls for a personal and collective conversion to the gospel of universal brotherhood. To do this as Christians we must feel challenged every time that the dignity of our brothers and sisters in the English-speaking areas is being trampled upon. In a document, inspired by Fratelli tutti, that I published on the eve of my pilgrimage for peace, I ask: “Where are our brothers and sisters from the northwest and southwest? Some have died, often in atrocious conditions, others are displaced in the countryside or have fled the country. Most have remained in those regions where their dignity is daily tested by precariousness”.