August 12, 2013
The Circle of Concerned African
Women Theologians Conference was an intense 4 days of about 70 together at a
conference type center near the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Circle is nearly 25 years old and was
founded by Mercy Amba Oduyoye who will turn 80 years old in October.
The schedule was very tight
as paper after paper was presented to the assembled women with time for
questions after each panel. A panel
consisted usually of four to five women who had papers on similar subjects. For instance:
Gender, Religion Health and (Single) Women. Different perspectives on different issues
facing single women in differing countries were presented.
There were a total of
thirteen panels and only two of them were run concurrently. It was overload for myself and so I took several
opportunities to enjoy space to myself in the room that I shared with one of
the assistants at the conference.
I also enjoyed the wide eyes
that greeted me when the women would ask where I am from. My standard answer has become “I am an
American in mission in South Sudan.” It
is of course the South Sudan part that gets the wide-eyed
reaction/response. It appears to me that
the global community has not done a good job of helping people understand that
there are now two countries where one used to be. Sudan and South Sudan. I spent quite a lot of time educating people
on the split, how long South Sudan has been independent and what are the
challenges that each country is facing.
The Circle has many books in
publication now. I learned that much of
the production of the academic literature has taken place after the
once-every-five-years meetings. The
Executive Committees would meet to create a framework and a topic for papers,
then invite members to write papers that were then included in a published book
for the Circle and also for readership beyond the Circle. The books that were offered for sale this
year included several that deal with HIV/AIDS, a very relevant and high focus
issue in Africa today. In fact in one of
the panels, Gender, Health, HIV and Aids (Part Two) one of the Circle Women,
Pauline Wanjiru Njiru, presented a paper that shared the plight of grandmothers
who are raising their grandchildren in the era of HIV at Mai Mahiu, Kenya. The said that these grandmothers are having
to learn to be mothers again and they are facing stigma in light of this
because the generation of daughters that they had finished raising have died
from HIV/AIDS. They are facing a lack of
resources and are, in their own impoverishment, trying to care for the children
of their dead children.
It was a difficult Conference
in terms of the subject matter that was presented, in terms of the honesty that
was present, and in terms of frank talk of the challenges that we as women
face; both in Africa and beyond. There
were also times of celebration, joy, deep solidarity, despair, weariness and
satisfaction that we are on this journey with sisters that understand one
another.
I had time to reflect on
troubled places in the world. A lot of
the troubledness has to do with colonialization, in whatever form it happens to
present itself in. Colonialization can
be like a rose; a rose by any other name is still a rose. OR, if it looks like a rat and smells like a
rat, chances are that it is a rat.
In Belfast the deep societal
divisions are caused by the choking relationship between Protestants and
Catholics. The root of this chasm goes
back several centuries to the time that England allotted Irish land for
plantations to Protestants from Scotland.
These Protestant Scots immigrated to Catholic Ireland and there has been
upheaval ever since on the island of Ireland.
In South Sudan there are deep
tribal divisions. My students in Malakal
have told me that it was the British that stirred up the animosity between the
tribes. Apparently before the British
and Egyptians colonized Sudan the tribes lived in relative peace (something
like the situation in Palestine when previous to the creation of the Jewish
State of Israel the Muslims and Christians and also the Jews who were present
lived peacefully side by side). The
British created the idea of markings for each tribe and carried this out in
such a way that the markings are still used, although the practice is dying
out. This is good in that they present
health risks when they are performed.
The United States and South
Africa have both experienced deep racial divides between blacks and
whites. Another way to put this is that
the divides are between black Africans and those who are from white European backgrounds. When I heard about the story of
colonialization in South Africa (and I am quite sure that I still have much to
learn to be fully correct in my assessment) I understood that first the Dutch
came, then the English, and somewhere in the mix came the French and the
Germans. When I have an Afrikaner (Dutch
heritage) complain that only the black South Africans are able to find jobs I
do not have much sympathy. Who colonized
whom? Who was here first folks? From my vantage it continues to be the black South
Africans in servitude to the white European South Africans. I’m not seeing too many South Africans of
European background serving as maids and gardeners here.
In Soweto there was a
Catholic Church that gave refuge to the black South Africans during
apartheid. I was so strongly reminded of
Ebenezer Baptist and America’s own Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the army
of unnamed women who were the backbone of our own Civil Rights Movement. And then we could speak of/think of/cry many
tears for the American Indians who have been displaced from THEIR land and
cultures and languages by the very same white European colonists who created
apartheid in South Africa.
I only began to under
colonization, and this in an extremely rudimentary way, years ago at the
beginning of my global life at a Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI)
store in the Seattle area. I was looking
for an adaptor to take to Europe. I
still didn’t understand the difference between convertors (that change the
electric current from the American 120 to the rest-of-the-world 220) and
adaptors that are used to make the plugs on appliances fit the electric outlets
of various countries. I asked the clerk
at the store why an adaptor that would work in England also worked in Hong Kong
when they were at opposite ends of the world.
I heard my first, “colonization” at that moment. And thus the education began….
When I was in the Philippines
during my time in China I was surprised to find out that Spanish was no longer
the language there. I also found out
that English was the language of access.
To education. To medical
services. To anything that was necessary
for a decent standard of living. English
was the language of the oppressor.
Granted Spain had been the first oppressor, but around the world the
primary language of the oppressor is English.
Having said that, Arabic, French, German, and I am sure others, are also
languages of oppressors.
I learned during my Europe
year in 2006 that in a foreign country I needed to go to the best hotel in
order to find someone that spoke English when I needed help. The shopkeepers generally did not have that
level of education.
I also learned in the
Philippines that there is a Filipino language!
Tagalot. Then English. Then if a student, or anyone else I suppose,
still has a desire to learn more languages they can go for Spanish.
Language and schooling is yet
another issue. I finally understood
during my time in Khartoum why it is that missionary parents usually choose to
put their children in schools for children of foreign parents, or to homeschool
them. If a missionary child in Khartoum
had gone to a local school they would have been taught in Arabic. Upon returning to their home country at
whatever future date that child would be at a great disadvantage and also would
not be on track with the curriculum that would be necessary to go on for higher
education in her or his own home country.
I have heard of children who were not well enough grounded in any
language to be able to progress well in studies. Something to think about.
Blessings,
Debbie
